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This paper examines how contextual and institutional factors are associated with individual subjective well-being, which is measured by individuals’ happiness, during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data collected in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of Korea, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom (UK), and the four biggest states of the United States (US) in April 2020, we find that the financial effects (represented by employment and income change) and nonfinancial effects (represented by experiencing negative nonfinancial effects including mental health issues and enjoying positive benefits) caused by nonpharmaceutical measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 are associated with individual subjective well-being. Moreover, positive benefits could reduce the likelihood of becoming unhappy for those who have experienced negative nonfinancial effects or those who have lost their jobs. The results also suggest that the degree to which people agree with their government’s approach to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic is positively correlated with their happiness. The risks associated with the pandemic, however, are only slightly associated with people’s happiness. We also find that the correlation between the above factors and individual well-being varies from country to country.

Using firm-level panel data collected in Vietnam biannually from 2005 to 2013, this paper examines whether innovation is persistent among small firms in Vietnam. The empirical results obtained from dynamic random effect probit and dynamic random effect ordered probit show that the innovation activity is persistent among these small firms. Our estimation results also show slightly different roles of human capital of firm's owner and employees in innovation activities. While the owner's human capital is associated with creating a new product, employees' human capital is positively correlated with upgrading the existing products or production procedure. However, we do not find evidence on the roles of unobserved heterogeneity in explaining this persistence. Our results are consistent with results found in the literature for firms in developed economies.

This paper analyzes the sources of employment growth and assesses the contribution of exports to job creation in China. To do so, we utilize an input–output table to decompose employment growth into contributions from technical change, labor productivity, domestic final demand, and exports of domestically produced output. Our main data source is the annual input–output data from the China Industrial Productivity Database covering 1981–2010, of which employment figures have been adjusted to account for serious structural breaks observed in official statistics. The input–output framework allows us to explore both the direct impact of exports on employment within a given industry and the indirect impact through inter-industry transactions. Our major findings are four-fold. First, the increase in final demand, including both domestic demand and exports, is the main driver of employment growth in China. The strong growth in final demand offsets the decline in employment caused by enhanced labor productivity, especially during the 2000s. Second, the contribution of exports to job creation has increased significantly, especially in manufacturing and agriculture, following China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Third, labor productivity accelerated in all sectors, led by manufacturing. Last, most technical upgrading occurs in manufacturing, whereas agriculture experiences increased technical upgrading through the decline in labor usage.

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