China＇s Regional Inequality in Innovation Capability, 1995-2006

This paper assesses both interregional and intraregional innovation inequality in China from 1995 to 2006.It is revealed that the east-central-west inequality has increased over time,whereas the inter-provincial inequality showed a V-pattern until 2003;Both inequality measures oscillated from 2004 to 2006.Using a decomposition framework recently developed by one of the authors,we determined that the major factors driving innovation inequality are population,economic development level,R&D,location and openness.The aggravated innovation inequality reflects the growth of China’s innovation centers in the eastern region and their admission into the global innovation networks.The fact that R&D is a major factor driving the inequality suggests that,considered in the present study,the efficiency of R&D investment improved in certian regions during the period(1995-2006).Finally, geographic location and openness affect innovation inequality primarily through the coupled evolution of innovation capability and economic development,resulting in first-mover advantages to provinces of the eastern region.     

Rural Taxation and Government Regulations in China

I. IntroductionIn recent years, the problem of rural taxation in China, especially increasing informal local charges on peasants, has become more acute. The central government has been aware of the problem for a decade, and has been taking various steps to alleviate the problem. Yet, to date, these actions have met with limited success. In 2002, after a difficult decision-making process, the central government decided to     

Rising Consumption of Animal Products in China and India： National and Global Implications

Over the past two decades,the consumption of animal products has increased rapidly in China and India,driven by rising income and large populations.Such strong demand for animal products could have substantial impacts on both their own and global food and feed demand and supply.This paper examines the nature of rising demand for animal products in China and India and discusses national and global implications.     

Prospects and Analysis of FDI in China

I. The General Picture of FDI1. The amount of FDI used in practice and incontract all increased significantlyIn 2004, China approved the establishment of 43,661 foreign-funded enterprises, 6.29 percentmore than in 2003. The contractual amount of FDI was US$153.479 billion, 33.38 percentmore than in 2003 and the amount actually used reached US$60.63 billion, rising by 13.32percent. By the end of the year, the total number of foreign-funded enterprises in Chinacame to 508,938. The contra…     

Rural Informal Taxation in China： Historical Evolution and an Analytic Framework

The present paper examines the historical evolution of China's rural taxation system from the pre-reform period to the late 1990s. We propose that because of information asymmetry between the upper-level and the lower-level governments, local governments had to be granted some informal tax autonomy to fulfill the upper-level policy mandates. This easily led to excessive local informal taxation on farmers. As market liberalization of the grain sector progressed, the low-cost tax instruments implemented through the traditional approach of implicit taxation gradually eroded. Local governments in agricultural regions had to resort to informal fees collected directly from individual rural households while the more industrialized regions shifted to non-agricultural taxes that are less costly in terms of tax collection. Hence, political tension between farmers and local governments in agriculture- based regions emerged and rural tax reform became necessary.     

R＆D Activities of Manufacturing Multinationals in China： Structure,Motivations and Regional Differences

This paper investigates the R＆D motivations of various multinationals operating in China, drawing on a large-scale, firm-level dataset of official Chinese statistics on science and technology activities. The present study shows that R＆D efforts in China have intensified for bothJbreign-owned and domestic firms, but less so for foreign-owned firms, perhaps because foreign-owned firms tend to operate on a foundation of technological capabilities developed within their home countries. Statistical analysis confirms that the major motivations for foreign R＆D in China are production-driven, not market-driven or technology-driven. Nevertheless, one sees significant variations in foreign R＆D strategies from region to region. Guangdong is characterized by production-driven R＆D. In Beijing, R＆D strategies tend to take a technology-driven approach, drawing on the clusters of scienl（fic institutions. In Shanghai, the R＆D efforts of multinationals tend to focus on support for market-driven R＆D,     

Long-Term Development Trend of China’s Economy and Importance of the Circular Economy

In 2003, China’seconomy grew at a rateof over 9 percent with per capita GDP hittingUS$ 1,090 for the first time, which means that China’s economy and socialdevelopment have entered a high-growth cycle characterized by rapid structuralchanges. However, this round of high growth is based on resources and an ecologicalenvironment completely different from those of twenty five years ago. Based on ananalysis of the new features of future economic development in China, as well as theresource an…     

Poverty Reduction in China： The Contribution of Popularizing Primary Education

Using the instrumental variable model and the regression discontinuity approach,this paper explores how access to primary education affects the Chinese labor market and helps people to escape poverty.Several important findings are obtained.The popularization of primary education has significantly reduced poverty in China,especially in urban areas.In contrast,the Compulsory Education Law has not been well implemented for older children in rural areas.In addition,the labor market premium for completing primary education is much larger in urban areas than in rural areas.Poor rural school quality might explain this rural-urban disparity.Effort needs to be made to further reduce poverty by ensuring adequate financial resources for primary education in poor areas and improving school quality in rural China.     

Taxation,fiscal capacity,and credible commitment in eighteenth-century China: the effects of the formalization and centralization of informal surtaxes†

This article explores a tax reform in eighteenth-century China that formalized county-level informal surtaxes and centralized control over them in the hands of provincial governors, in an effort to strengthen provincial fiscal capacity. The findings show that this reform increased the frequency of famine relief in cases of exceptional disaster relative to other weather conditions. The study shows that the effects were driven by the new fiscal revenues—public funds—at the governors’ discretion, not by the central government's relief actions, bureaucratic control over lower officials, or other concurrent fiscal reforms. Moreover, the reform facilitated intertemporal smoothing and inter-regional risk sharing. However, the effects declined as soon as the central government broke its promise and began to appropriate provincial fiscal revenues. These findings not only provide evidence that fiscal centralization could enhance the provision of public goods in a premodern context, but also highlight that it was the lack of a credible commitment by the central government to the provincial governments that accounted for the short-lived effects of the reform.     

Ownership Restructuring, Marketization and Wealth Inequality in Urban China： 1995 and 2002

This paper proposes a property transformation perspective to examine the mechanisms of wealth accumulation and wealth inequality creation during China's post‐1978 transformation. It examines how enterprise ownership restructuring, marketization and state politics have resulted in greater wealth inequality between cadres and ordinary workers, between public sectors/organizations and private sectors/organizations. Mainly drawing on data from the Chinese Household Income Project conducted in 1995 and 2002, we find that the property transformation process has created greater wealth disparity among different occupational groups and among those working in different work organizations since the mid‐1990s. However, it is inconclusive whether non‐housing wealth or total household wealth are increasing at the same pace across different occupations and work organizations with the growing market penetration and the spread of privatization.     

Retesting the Separability of China＇s Rural Households

This article retests the separability of China’s rural households in light of growing doubt about the sustainability of high economic growth in China.If a household’s production decisions are \"separable \"from the household’s consumption decisions,generally this suggests there is no surplus labor.Many scholars aver that China’s surplus rural labor has spurred rapid economic growth,but concerns have arisen as to whether China still has surplus labor available.We investigate this issue using rural household panel data from 1993 to 2009.The regression results confirm that households in rural China have progressed from being non-separable to separable.The estimation results for both the entire country and regions reject the separability hypothesis before 2004 but fail to reject the hypothesis after 2004(with the exception of the central region).These results suggest that China ’s surplus labor supply is dwindling,especially in the eastern and the western regions.The sustainability of China’s high economic growth is questionable in the absence of a large reservoir of surplus rural labor.     

China＇s Pattern of Growth： Moving to Sustainability and Reducing Inequality

I. Introduction China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has averaged 9.4 percent per annum since1978. As a result of this impressive growth, millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Economic reforms implemented over the last 25 years have certainly been instrumental in the remarkable growth performance, leading to higher productivity growth than in the pre- reform period. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that China’s growth during this period has been resource intensive, drawing…     

Dealing with the Contagion： China and India in the Aftermath of the Subprime Meltdown

What began as a downturn in the US housing sector in the summer of 2007 had mushroomed into a global financial crisis by September 2008： the most severe since the 1930s. Developing countries, including China and India, at first seemingly sheltered from the worst of the turmoil, have not been immune to the contagion＇s spillover effects. What are China and India＇s precise vulnerabilities, and what can each do to better insulate their economies from the vagaries of global financial marker turmoil？ Equally important, what long-term strategies must each country adopt to make their economies more resilient to global market downturns？     

Hot Money and Business Cycle Volatility： Evidence from China

This paper investigates the link between hot money and business cycle volatility in China from January 1997 to December 2009. Using the structural vector error correction model we find a considerable degree of long-run cointegration and bidirectional causality effects between hot money and business cycle volatility. The speculative shocks are found to temporarily promote China＇s economic growth, but also to exacerbate business cycle volatility. The liquidity shock stemming from hot money is shown to be the primary factor responsible for the significantly enhanced fluctuation in business cycles during the most recent global financial crisis period This could be detrimental to the smooth operation of financial markets. Therefore, informing future policies, it is critical for policy-makers to take precautions against the speculative factors.     

Migration Experience of Village Leaders and Local Economic Development： Evidence from Rural China

This paper examines the impact of migration experience of village leaders on local economic development,based on the village-level data of the 2005 China General Social Survey.Our results show that the human capital of village leaders accumulated during the migration period has had a positive effect on per capita net income and per capita non-agricultural income in rural China.The migration experience of village leaders also plays a positive role in entrepreneurial activities in rural regions.From a policy perspective,these findings call attention to the importance of harnessing potential benefits of return migration to local economic development in rural China.     

Deficit Estimation and Welfare Effects after the 1994 Fiscal Reform in China： Evidence from the County Level

Using simple statistical analysis of count-level budgetary data from across all of China＇s counties, the present paper examines whether the post-1994 fiscal decentralization has affected redistribution at the count-level. The new fiscal system has been less able to narrow inter-county dispersion in ftscal imbalances than the old one, even after taking intergovernmental transfer payments into account. Although with the post-1994 system there has been a modest increase in per capita welfare spending in all counties on average, much of the new-found fiscal resources have been spent on salary and administrative expenses rather than spending on public goods. Therefore, it is imperative that the reform of China＇s tax system is intensified.     

Blue Box Policy Reform in the Doha Round Negotiations： Effects and China＇s Position

This paper uses an agricultural trade policy simulation model to quantitatively evaluate the effects of Blue Box policy reform on agricultural production and trade, and further provides specific proposals regarding China ＇ s reform position. The results indicate that, if the reform could achieve a reduction in distorting supports in more developed countries, China＇ s total agricultural production would increase, accompanied by a decrease in agricultural imports and a slight increase in exports. In terms of social welfare, producers would gain significantly, consumers would lose and government would not suffer greatly, which is in accordance with current agricultural policies in China. As a core member of G20, China should approve a subsidy level as low as possible required by Blue Box to achieve ＂substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic supports＂.     

Productivity Spillovers from FDI in China： Regional Differences and Threshold Effects

Economic theory posits numerous channels through which FDI might create positive spillovers for domestic firms. However, the results of empirical studies that have sought to document these spillovers have been mixed. One explanation for this variation is that the capacity of domestic firms to absorb spillovers might vary. In the present paper, we explore these issues in the case of China. ,4side from being one of the world＇s leading hosts offoreign direct investment, China makes for an interesting case study because its provinces vary greatly with respect to those factors most commonly held to influence absorptive capacity, such as the initial level of technology in domestic firms. This paper begins by empirically establishing that the spillovers from foreign direct investment do indeed vary across provinces. Threshold values for varioas factors that influence absorptive capacity factors are then estimated and it is found that conditions in many provinces presently fall short of these values. This provides an obvious focus of attention for China＇s policy-makers.     

The Empirical Research on the Effects of FDI on Regional Employment in China

Because of the severity of unemployment, how to solve this problem has gradually become a topical subject in China from the perspectives of both academics and practitioners in recent years. The severity of employment can be observed not only on the constant soaring of some macroscopically total amounts such as the total unemployment and the rate of unemployment, but also on the extremely uneven distribution of regional employment. There are many reasons for the uneven distribution of regional employment, among which the enormous disparity in FDI＇s regional distribution in China is an essential influential factor. This article aims at explaining the interrelationship and function mechanism between 1＂]）I and the change of our country＇s regional employment, and putting forward the corresponding regional policy suggestions through the empirical research on the FDI＇s regional distribution and its employment effect.