近日，北京大学市场经济研究中心主任秦雪征教授的合作论文《Housing and boys as competing household assets: Evidence from China》在商业与金融领域期刊《Journal of Empirical Finance》2026年11月第89卷正式发表。

摘要：Housing is a central household asset that shapes economic behavior. Using China Family Panel Survey data, we document a substitution effect between housing wealth and the value of sons as an alternative form of household security. A 10% increase in homeowners’ housing wealth raises the number of newborn daughters within the subsequent two years by 7.4% relative to the mean, with no corresponding effect on sons. Various mechanism tests indicate that households obtaining higher returns from the housing market become less sensitive to the gender difference in children’s expected returns. This insensitivity reduces the incentive for sex selection, leading to the birth of more girls. These findings offer a novel asset-market explanation for the decline in the sex ratio at birth in urban China and underscore the demographic consequences of wealth shocks.