Economic spillover effects in the Bohai Rim Region of China: Is the economic growth of coastal counties beneficial for the whole area?

This study uses panel data on the Bohai Rim Region of China to test for spatial autocorrelation, and measures economic spatial spillover effects with the space Durbin econometric model. We discuss whether the economic development of coastal counties benefits the whole area. To do this, we focus on the “distance from the coast” factor, which is influenced by transportation time. The results indicate the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation in the Bohai Rim Region. Further, economic spatial spillover effects exist in this region. “Distance from the coast” exerts a significantly negative impact on the local GDP per capita but a significantly positive impact on the GDP per capita of other districts. This means that the economic development of coastal counties does not benefit the whole region. “Value of exports” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and no significant influence on other counties, while “foreign direct investment” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and a significantly negative influence on other counties. “Number of employees in units” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and a significantly negative influence on the other counties. The factors “primary industry's share in GDP” and “tertiary industry's share in GDP” influence the local economy positively, but the former exerts no significant influence on other counties and the latter exerts a negative influence on other counties. “Rate of fixed asset investment” influences the local economy negatively and has no significant effect on other counties. “Total retail sales of social consumer goods” has no significant influence on the local economy but a positive significant influence on the others. Finally, marine resource utilization and marine output can affect economic growth positively. On this basis, we propose policy suggestions for harmonious economic development in this region.     

Wages and prices in England in the later Middle Ages

Abstract

In recent years the economic development of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has been the subject of much attention in international historical research. The results of local and of national studies are now for the first time being discussed within their European framework.¹     

Gold, credit, and mortality: distinguishing deflationary pressures on the late medieval English economy

This article uses national and local records of debt and evidence from coins, prices, and wages to discuss the economic effects of the gold coinage that was introduced into England in 1344. It distinguishes between the deflationary effects of gold and those of the falling population on prices and credit, and shows that a coinage dominated by gold reduced the volume of credit and transactions far more than the mortality rate and the total circulation of coin would indicate was likely. It relates these findings to the economic and social changes of the fifteenth century.     

海西经济区县域发展水平空间差异分析

以海西经济区的144个县市为研究空间尺度单元,选取人均GDP等指标,利用因子分析法确定指标权重后结合ESDA分析其县域发展水平空间差异。结果表明：海西经济区县域经济发展在全局空间分布上具有较强的相关性,空间分布呈显著集聚效应,但在省域内分布不均衡,部分县市呈局部空间自相关,其中以温州市辖区为中心点呈现H-H型集聚,而围绕福建省的浙江省、江西省、广东省部分县域呈L-L型集聚,建议根据中心-外围理论以福建省为中心带动这些县域的经济发展。     

Local Labor Market Condition and Influenza Vaccination

Influenza vaccination is a cost-effective preventive service, but its utilization rate is below the recommended level. Many studies have explored possible predictors and causes for low vaccination rates. Despite a large volume of studies in this area, there is limited research on how local economic conditions can affect individual influenza vaccination. This study explores this topic by merging the 2008–2012 individual-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) with the Area Health Resources Files (AHRF), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS). Using county-level unemployment rates as a measurement of local economic conditions, we used multivariate probit models to examine its relationship with individual flu vaccination while controlling for individual socioeconomic and demographic factors and contextual characteristics. We found that county-level unemployment rates were significantly and negatively associated with individual influenza vaccination, especially for people who were employed or living in metropolitan counties. Our results support public health interventions to improve flu vaccination during economic recessions.     

农业税取消后昆明近郊县财政状况调研及对策思考

昆明近郊县经济增长差距呈现出扩大趋向，农业税对本地经济的贡献率也不相同，因此农业税取消后昆明市近郊县面临的财政问题，如何提升该地区财政自生能力，成为必须关注的课题。作者对昆明近郊富民、晋宁、禄劝三县财政状况进行了深入调研，提出了分3个阶段，即转移支付阶段、自生能力形成阶段、自生能力保持和提升阶段，解读提升近郊县财政自生能力的步骤和对策。     

An analysis of ITC decisions in antidumping,countervailing duty and safeguard cases

An Analysis of ITC Decisions in Antidumping, Countervailing Duty and Safeguard Cases. — This paper investigates the economic factors that best explain the decisions of the International Trade Commission in administering the injury provisions of U.S. antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard laws during the 1980s. Utilizing the economic data collected by the Commission for each investigation, it attempts to ascertain through regression analysis how strictly the commissioners have been interpreting these laws in recent years in terms of the economic conditions required for finding that an industry has been injured and for establishing a casual relationship between imports and this injury.     

Born to be different: The role of local political leaders in poverty reduction in China

By incorporating imprinting theory into a political–economic framework, this paper studies the role of local political leaders in poverty reduction. Exploiting exogenous turnovers of city-level party secretaries in China, I find that city secretaries with early-life poverty experiences are more likely to increase the incomes of poor families in their jurisdictions. I further find that the effect of city secretaries' poverty experiences on the income of the poor is more pronounced in the counties that are not officially categorized as impoverished by the central government and among the families living above the poverty line set by the Chinese government but below the international poverty line proposed by the World Bank. It is suggested that local political leaders affect poverty reduction outcomes by instilling their personal preferences, which can be shaped by their early experiences, into their economic decisions.     

亚洲4国旅游购物比较研究

旅游购物对一国旅游收入的增长具有重要的贡献,也是发展潜力最大的领域之一,发展旅游购物对于一个国家的旅游经济发展而言至关重要。了解旅游购物的发展规律,总结成功经验,对于希望通过发展旅游购物,带动旅游经济增长的地区和国家而言至关重要。本文对亚洲4个在旅游购物方面发展较为先进的国家进行比较型研究,旨在从中勾勒出其促使其成功发展的重要因素。     

基于系统聚类分析法的土地利用分区的研究——以新疆伊犁州直为例

土地利用分区有利于因地制宜合理利用区域土地资源,指导区域经济可持续发展。以新疆伊犁州直为研究对象,构建土地利用分区指标体系,利用SPSS的系统聚类分析功能对伊犁州直县市土地利用进行定量分类。在坚持生态环境保护、不突破行政辖区等原则下,结合县市社会经济发展要求,最终将县市划分为城镇工矿发展区、生态旅游综合发展区、基本农田保护区和生态农业综合发展区四个土地利用分区,并指明土地利用导向。     

Second World War spending and local economic activity in US counties, 1939–58

Studies of the development of local economies often point to large‐scale Second World War military spending as a source of economic growth, even though spending declined sharply after demobilization. We examine the relationship between war spending per capita and the changes in economic activity in US counties between 1939 before the war and a period several years after the war. In the longer term counties receiving more war spending per capita during the war experienced greater population growth, but growth in per capita measures of economic activity showed little relationship with per capita war spending.     

Does the Granary County Subsidy Program Lead to manipulation of grain production data in China?

Manipulation of food production data could lead to catastrophic social and economic consequences. The accuracy of official agricultural statistics has long been questioned in China. This paper studies the linkage between agricultural production data manipulation and the Granary County Subsidy Program (GCSP). Since 2005, Chinese government gave subsidies to those counties with five-year average grain production between 1998 and 2002 more than 200 thousand tons to encourage these local governments to give priority to grain production. The prospective counties with grain production slightly below the threshold may have incentives to over-report their grain production. Based on the McCrary (2008)'s density test, this paper provides suggestive evidence of over-reporting grain production caused by the GCSP in 2005, 2006 and 2008, though the over-reporting rates are only 3%, 2%, and 1.7% respectively. The policy implication would be that fiscal distribution rules of a central government should avoid data manipulation incentives in local governments, particularly should cut the linkage to the data which are self-reported by the local governments.     

社会转型期户籍体制改革的政策取向

新中国成立后,计划经济体制的实施,在城市化发展道路的选择上,管控人口规模最重要的手段便是配合传统户籍制度所施行的各种配套政策,如社会福利保障、粮食配给等制度。中共十五届五中全会后,通过确定了要实施城镇化战略、推进城镇化发展的要求,正式提出"大中小城市和小城镇协调发展"的目标,逐步放宽户口迁移限制,引导人口合理有序流动,并全面推行小城镇户籍管理制度改革,为整个户籍管理改革累积经验,同时以具有合法固定住所、稳定职业或生活来源作为基本落户条件,由各地人民政府根据当地经济和社会发展的实际需要,制定城市发展总体规划,以落户条件取代计划指标。城市规模战略的确定,必然牵动户籍制度的变革,整个户籍制度的改革也呈现出有步骤的逐渐性,从小城镇开始,到近年来大中城市对于户口管制的松动,均表现出配合城市化战略的步伐。     

Job creation or job relocation? Identifying the impact of China's special economic zones on local employment and industrial agglomeration

Since the early 1980s, special economic zones (SEZs) in China have benefited from targeted place-based policies intended to promote local employment and economic growth. What remain poorly understood is whether SEZs serve to give birth to new firms, or rather attract and support the re-establishment of firms from other places. To address this question, this paper examines the impact of SEZs on employment growth in rural counties in China. Using ASIF panel data representing the activity of manufacturing firms for the period 1999 to 2008, this paper assesses the employment effects of SEZs according to firm births, relocation, expansion, and firm closure. By matching counties with future SEZs as comparison groups, the difference-in-differences estimates show that SEZs significantly increase employment in rural counties due to the creation of new firms and the expansion of existing large firms; in contrast, SEZs fail to promote firms to move in and restrain firms from moving out. Further, data analysis reveals significant regional heterogeneity, with the employment effects of SEZs on firm entry strongest for the eastern coastal region. Finally, we confirm that SEZs tend to reduce local industrial agglomeration in the eastern and central regions.     

London creditors and the fifteenth‐century depression

Evidence of debts owed to Londoners, and contested before the royal Court of Common Pleas, allows an examination of the role of London creditors in the English depression of the fifteenth century and a reassessment of its causes. In this article, four main issues are examined. What is the nature of the Court of Common Pleas evidence (section I)? What were the three main forms of credit offered by Londoners—unsecured cash loans, sales of goods on credit, and written instruments called bonds (section II)? What is yielded by decadal analysis of Londoners’ extension of credit in the fifteenth century—making direct comparisons with Nightingale's published Statute Merchant and Staple data (section III)? What defines, in modern economic terms, the claim of so‐called ‘monetarist’ historians that credit was actively withdrawn during the depression, and how is this verified by the actions of London creditors (section IV)? It is concluded that the records of the Court of Common Pleas provide the detailed evidence monetarist historians have previously lacked both to prove that Londoners actively withdrew credit during the fifteenth century and to demonstrate that they employed pure equilibrium credit rationing in order to do so.     

The Determinants of China's Minimum Wage Rates

We use a highly disaggregated panel of macro data and minimum wages at the county level to investigate the processes behind minimum wage adjustments in China. Relying on random effects models, spatial econometrics techniques, and multilevel analyses, we document that a comparatively small number of economic variables – including the local price level and GDP per capita – are important determinants of minimum wage rates. Interactions between adjacent counties and counties of the same administrative type, and centralized mechanisms, particularly at the provincial level, also play an important role in explaining the variance in minimum wage rates across counties. Finally, we show that China's provinces are the key players for setting minimum wage rates and that, when they do so, they are not uniform in the way they weigh different economic variables.     

长三角地区县域经济发展差异及其动态收敛研究

文章以长三角地区60个县（不包括区）1998—2009年间的人均GDP数据为基础,首先采用标准差系数和锡尔系数分析该地区内县域经济发展差异水平现状,然后根据经济增长收敛理论进一步对其动态收敛趋势进行实证分析。研究结果表明,长三角地区县域经济差异在1998—2009年间逐渐增大,并且基本不存在动态收敛的趋势,仅部分地区内县域经济存在俱乐部收敛。根据研究结果提出了初步的政策建议。     

Silver production and the money supply in England and Wales, 1086–c.1500

The contribution of English and Welsh lead mines to the silver supplies of mints between Domesday Book and the end of the fifteenth century is assessed in this article, comparing evidence for the size of silver production with mint output data. It is shown that the proposal that northern Pennine mines were the principal source of the silver in the late twelfth‐century English currency is untenable. Welsh mines supplied limited amounts of silver to local mints around 1200. Devon silver made a significant but not predominant contribution to mint output at times of bullion scarcity in the 1290s and the mid‐fifteenth century. Imported silver was usually a greater source of the metal in the English currency than locally mined silver, and gold coins constituted most of England's money supply from the mid‐fourteenth century onwards.     

西陇海—兰新经济带区域经济整合条件及其发展战略研究

《西部开发“十五”总体规划》中明确提出,要促进西陇海—兰新经济带的经济整合,带动周围地区和农村发展。确定西陇海—兰新经济带这一重点建设区域,能使分散的生产要素集中使用,提高资源的空间配置效益,获取较大的投资边际效益,有利于快速提高西部整体的经济发展水平。本文正是基于上述背景,研究了西陇海—兰新经济带区域经济整合条件及其发展战略。     

Did the communists contribute to China’s rural growth?

The communist revolution brought unprecedented changes to China. Yet there is no consensus on its role in the history of China’s modern economic growth. We investigate whether local communist party membership affected developmental outcomes from 1957–78 (the Maoist period) and 1978–85 (the reform period). Focusing on Sichuan, China’s most populous province, we use the Long March as an instrument to tease out causal effects. We find that counties with more communist members made larger strides in educational attainment, road construction, and agricultural mechanization during the Maoist period. However, these counties recorded faster output growth only after 1978. Our findings provide empirical support to field studies conducted by sociologists and historians who argue that the communists improved the organizational infrastructure in China’s countryside. Furthermore, we highlight the futility of solving collective action problems without heeding private incentives.