Restoring gender equilibrium in China

All real estate markets are local, says the industry axiom, one that China’s central government is painfully aware of as its efforts to rein in home prices are undermined by uncooperative municipal authorities.

Ruth Shalit Barrett’s Elle piece on “gender disappointment” (parents who want to have boys but get girls or vice versa) relies pretty heavily on anecdotes and vague generalizations, but this is at least data-esque and somewhat surprising: “Seventy-one percent of American families who use MicroSort—which is still in clinical trials—want a daughter.” MicroSort being a company that at least claims to be able to help you choose a son or daughter deliberately.

China’s one-child policy has created one of the biggest demographic disasters in the history of mankind: A ratio of nearly 118 boys for every 100 girls.

The Shanghai Composite had its largest weekly decline in 20-months on concerns that the government could get more aggressive in its efforts to contain rising home prices. 

From a BLS report released earlier this month, "America's Young Adults at Age 24":

About 45 minutes outside of Shanghai are the deserted ruins of what was supposed to be the world's largest amusement park. Instead, farmers have reclaimed the land planting corn and digging wells next to spires modeled after Disneyland. Please consider China’s deserted fake Disneyland

A new working paper by Seema Jayachandran and Ilyana Kuziemko offers another explanation for the "missing girls" phenomenon observed in some developing countries. Breast-feeding both improves health outcomes and temporarily decreases fertility.