This paper studies exchange rate pass-through in U.S. manufacturing industries and its cross-sectional variation. Through an adapted Dixit–Stiglitz model of product differentiation, the paper predicts that pass-through is positively related to the degree of product differentiation and inversely related to the elasticity of marginal cost with respect to output. Empirical estimates of the pass-through elasticities show that pass-through is incomplete and varies across industries. The degree of pass-through is found to be positively correlated to different proxies for product differentiation, and negatively to a proxy for the elasticity of marginal cost.

Does state ownership breed risk-taking behavior in commercial banks? This paper examines this issue using a panel of Chinese banks. We find that state-ownership is in general associated with higher risks. In addition, we find that banks controlled by the central government have the highest credit risk, while those owned by local governments have the lowest capital adequacy ratio and liquidity ratio. By compiling a complete list of cross-border acquisitions in China’s banking sector, we investigate the impact of foreign acquisition on state-owned banks’ risk-taking using differences-in-differences and matching estimators. We find that foreign acquisition has a reducing effect on state-owned banks’ risk-taking and this effect is particularly significant for banks that are controlled by central or local government. We also find that this risk-reducing effect depends on the percentage of foreign ownership, the local business involvement of the foreign investors, and the number of foreign members on the banks’ boards of directors.

Are the returns of Chinese American Depositary Receipts (ADR) more affected by the US market or their underlying home market? We separate Chinese ADR daily returns into day and night returns to investigate the different market effects on ADR pricing. We compare “homeless” ADRs to home-based or cross-listed ADRs to see if they are affected differently by market factors. We find the night returns of Chinese ADRs are significantly affected by their home market (either the Hong Kong market or mainland China market) daily returns and the US market night returns. The US day returns appear to be the most significant pricing factor for the day returns of Chinese ADRs. The homeless ADRs are more affected by the US market and less affected by their home market compared to the cross-listed ADRs.

We model and estimate ADRs’ home market pass-through and pricing-to-market using a regime-switching approach, which nests the two regimes in a conditional capital asset pricing model and treats any changes in these two regimes probabilistically. Our results from the 1998 to 2006 data show that the pricing-to-market regime dominates ADRs from China and Japan, whereas the home market pass-through regime dominates ADRs from Argentina and Germany when their respective home markets are volatile.