Is corruption in China “out of control”? A comparison with the US in historical perspective

This paper compares corruption in China over the past 15 years with corruption in the US between 1870 and 1930, periods that are roughly comparable in terms of real income per capita. Corruption indicators for both countries and both periods are constructed by tracking corruption news in prominent US newspapers. Several robustness checks confirm the reliability of the constructed corruption indices for both countries. The comparison indicates that corruption in the US in the early 1870s, when its real income per capita was about $2800 (in 2005 dollars), was 7–9 times higher than China’s corruption level in 1996, the corresponding year in terms of income per capita. By the time the US reached $7500 in 1928, approximately equivalent to China’s real income per capita in 2009, corruption was similar in both countries. The findings imply that, while corruption in China is an issue that merits attention, it is not at alarmingly high levels, compared to the US historical experience. In addition, the paper articulates a theoretical framework within which the relationship between corruption and economic development can be understood. The model is used to explain the “life-cycle” of corruption in the development process–rising at the early stages of development, and declining after modernization has taken place. Hence, as China continues its development process, corruption will likely decline.     

Economic Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Panel Data

The notion that economic reform can reduce corruption remains prevalent in the policy agenda of international financial institutions, especially of the World Bank. Economic reforms have, therefore, been carried out throughout various parts of the world to improve the performance of the economies. Using data from 94 low‐ and middle‐income nations for the period 1996–2015, this study employs static and dynamic panel analysis to examine whether economic reform undertaken in accordance with the World Bank's reform programs negatively affects corruption. Our findings suggest that enhancing government effectiveness (i.e. independence of civil service from political pressure, provision of quality public services, effective policy formulation and the government's commitment to such policies) and improving public rights and civil liberties could be some of the most promising policies in terms of fighting corruption. The role of economic development and growth in real per capita income is also found to be significant in some of the specifications. However, the assertion that economic reform can reduce corruption is rejected in all the specifications. We rather find evidence that economic reforms negatively affect the ability of democracy to fight corruption, although on a slim margin. The central theme of the implications of our findings is that in combating corruption, social, institutional and legal means are far more important than economic means. The finding thus is compatible with the World Bank's effort in the later years to introduce governance and democracy as effective tool against corruption.     

Reform,Growth, and Inequality in China*

This paper provides a survey of the literature on inequality in China – level, change, causes, and consequences. It attempts to answer six main questions. How much has inequality risen? What is its relation to poverty alleviation? What has happened to wealth inequality? What are the main dimensions of rising income inequality? The dimensions examined are: the rural–urban divide; urban labor market reform; regional divergence; rural–urban migration; and entrepreneurship, rent‐seeking, and corruption. Was it inevitable that inequality should rise so much? Does it matter that inequality has risen? Income distribution in China is bound up with both economic reform and economic growth. This paper concludes by considering the countervailing forces that will determine the path of inequality in future years.     

On poverty traps,thresholds and take-offs

Recent studies on economic growth focus on persistent inequality across countries. In this paper we study mechanisms that may give rise to such persistent inequality. We consider countries that accumulate capital in order to increase the per capita income in the long run. We show that the long-run growth dynamics of those countries can generate a twin-peak distribution of per capita income. The twin-peak distribution is caused by (1) locally increasing returns to scale and (2) capital market constraints. These two forces give rise to a twin-peaked distribution of per capita income in the long run. In our model investment decisions are separated from consumption decisions and we thus do not have to consider preferences. Empirical evidence in support of a twin-peak distribution of per capita income is provided.     

ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND INCOME LEVELS ACROSS U.S. STATES: A SPATIAL PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

There is a large literature estimating the effect of economic freedom on economic growth or income levels. Most studies examine the relationship between economic freedom and growth or income levels for countries, while a few examine the relationship for U.S. states. Absent in the state‐level literature is consideration of the presence of spatial spillovers affecting the freedom‐income relationship. Neglecting to account for spatial autocorrelation can bias estimation results and therefore inferences drawn. We find evidence of a spatial pattern in real per‐capita gross state product (GSP) that affects nonspatial estimates of the freedom‐income relationship. Taking into account the direct and indirect effects of economic freedom on real per‐capita GSP, we find a 10% increase in economic freedom is associated with a 5% increase in real per‐capita GSP. (JEL E02, O47, R11)     

Corruption and economic development nexus: Variations across income levels in a non-linear framework

This article investigates the relationship between income and corruption which provides an insight to the changes in the level of perceived corruption and economic development across countries. An existing shortcoming is that previous studies have focused only on detecting the linear effects of income on corruption. We therefore use the hierarchical polynomial regression to evaluate any existence of a non-linear relationship after controlling for socio-economic and institutional factors. Our results challenge some of the findings of a negative income–corruption association in the literature, and provide some new inferences. The findings indicate a quadratic function that best fits the data, and despite an upsurge of corruption among the low-to-medium income countries, the advanced stages of development eventually reduce corruption level substantially. The results persist when per capita income is instrumented for by latitude distance and life expectancy. The policy implications suggest a combination of economic, institutional and social policies that can effectively, in turn, reduce and lower the effects of corruption on the society, economy and development.     

出口开放、地区市场规模和经济增长

报酬递增是跨国或区域经济增长发散的重要动因,而市场范围的大小则决定了报酬递增的程度。本文的实证研究发现,地区市场规模和出口开放程度显著地影响了1970—2000年各省区人均收入的增长速度;在地区差距的形成和演进过程中,国外和地区市场是相互替代的,而一旦控制了市场规模因素,各个省区即呈现明显的收敛趋势。本文根据地理特征构造工具变量,有效地控制了变量的内生性问题。     

Market Integration and Economic Development: A Long-run Comparison

How much of China’s recent economic performance can be attributed to market‐oriented reforms introduced in the last two decades? A long‐run perspective may be important for understanding the process of economic development occurring today. This paper compares the integration of rice markets in China today and 270 years ago. In the eighteenth century, transport technology was non‐mechanized, but markets were close to being free. We distinguish local harvest and weather from aggregate sources of price variation in a historical sample and in a similarly constructed contemporary sample. Findings indicate the degree of market integration in the 1720s is a very good predictor of per capita income in the 1990s. Moreover, the current pattern of interregional income in China is strongly linked to persistent geographic factors that were already apparent several centuries ago, well before the enactment of modern reform programs.     

Economic growth, international trade and air pollution: A decomposition analysis

This study analyzes the impact of economic growth and international trade on the level of air pollution. This is done by the estimation of the Structural Equation Model with two factors describing the structure of economic activity and air pollution intensity. It is further assumed that there is causal link between these two factors and that they are influenced by per capita income, international trade intensity and the Freedom House Index.The estimation results suggest that in the developing countries analyzed both international trade and per capita income lead to changes in the structure of economic activity and - as a consequence - to the increase in air pollution. In addition, the estimation results suggest that the impact of economic growth on air pollution intensity varies between the developing and developed countries. In the developing countries, this impact occurs through the change of the structure of economic activity, while in the developed countries, this impact is mainly direct and occurs through the sum of the scale effect and income effect. The positive sign of this impact suggests the dominance of the scale effect over the income effect.     

Nature, Power and Growth

This essay reviews the relationship between natural–resource abundance and economic growth around the world, and presents some new results. The principal reasons why resource–based production can inhibit economic growth over long periods are traced to the Dutch disease, neglect of education, rent seeking, and economic policy failures. Across a large number of countries in the period from 1965 to 1998, the share of the primary sector in the labour force is shown to be inversely related to exports, domestic and foreign investment, and education, and directly related to external debt, import protection, corruption, and income inequality. The cross–sectional data show, moreover, that the share of the primary sector in the labour force is inversely related to per capita growth across countries. None of this lies in the nature of things, however. What seems to matter for economic growth is not the abundance of natural resources per se, but rather the quality of their management, and of economic management and institutions in general.     

Does state-level per capita income affect juvenile delinquency? An empirical analysis for Indian states

While average juvenile crime rates across India has dropped in recent decades, juvenile property crime rates (total juvenile crimes divided by state population) has actually gone up from 15% in 2000-01 to about 20% in 2013-14. There is huge variation across states when it comes to juvenile crime rates. The literature on juvenile crime in the Indian context is scant. This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of juvenile delinquency related to property crimes across Indian states. Results show that state income per capita has a non-linear impact on incidences of juvenile crime across Indian states - rising when the income starts growing for relatively poorer states but increasing at a diminishing rate when state income per capita rises further. When a poor state gets relatively richer, both opportunities to commit crime and returns from property crime increases. However, as the state grows even richer, growth of employment and state facilities including rehabilitation and redistribution, improve. Further, we find that states with the lowest income per capita and highest level of adult crime face the steepest increase in juvenile crime rates for a rise in state income per capita.     

New Zealand's Economic Reforms: An assessment

New Zealand's economic policy between 1984 and 1996 is often hailed as an example of comprehensive supply-side reform that successfully improved the performance of a weak economy. In contrast, this paper presents statistical evidence to show that: (1) New Zealand sacrificed a large volume of real per capita gross domestic product after 1987; (2) its average unemployment rate increased substantially after 1988; (3) labour productivity growth declined after 1992; and (4) the per capita real income of low-income households in 1996 was more than 3% lower in absolute terms than it had been in 1984. The paper concludes that the economic reform programme did not achieve the objectives expected at its launch.     

奖章与陷阱:渐进转轨中的腐败

中国在1970年代后期开始推进以市场化为导向的改革战略，国民经济和社会福利得到迅速的改善和提高，但腐败现象也比较严重；同时，市场化的推进并未能遏制住腐败的扩散，市场化程度较高的地区反而面临着更为严重的腐败现象。通过分析中国的经济转轨过程，本文对此作出了解释。与其他处于经济转轨过程中的经济体相比，中国经济发展所具有的特殊的制度安排既促成了经济的迅速成长，也引发了普遍的腐败问题。它们包括：经济决策的地方分权、双轨制市场化和集体所有的产权形式，这些要素既提高了官员推动经济增长的激励，也促使许多官员以腐败的形式分享经济增长的红利，而以“关系”为基础的社会文化背景、中央政治权威的稳定性有助于减少官员在抽租过程中对经济增长可能产生的负面影响。另外，我们认为，市场化改革对腐败可能产生两方面效应，一方面，市场化通过培育新型的企业家阶层促使大量资源由市场配置，这有助于减少腐败发生的可能性；另一方面．市场化进程通过促进经济增长提高了经济中的租金总量，这成为诱发寻租行为的因素。最终的净效应取决于政府部门的改革。发生在中国的现象可以归结为政府改革的不彻底性。     

中国跨越“中等收入陷阱”的路径突破与政策应对*——基于地区收入差距视角

“中等收入陷阱”在本质上是收入与增长非线性相关系,而威廉姆森拐点决定着中国经济发展是否落入“中等收入陷阱”的关键。本文基于空间自相关理论提出空间基尼系数的一个分解框架,并运用威廉姆森“倒U型”理论构建“中等收入陷阱”理论模型。结果表明：中国地区收入差距与人均GDP之间存在“倒U型”非线性关系,更确切地说是S型关系。以平滑转化回归模型测算,中国存在人均GDP为4 18930美元拐点,并于2005年越过拐点,但进入地区差距收敛的“高体制”路径仍有一定差距。因此,中国在政策应对上要进一步通过实施高起点的区域协调发展战略,健全宏观配套政策,配合深化收入分配体制改革,从而成功地跨越“中等收入陷阱”。     

新兴市场经济国家腐败对经济影响研究:基于1995-2008年实证分析

当学术界观点一致强调腐败将为国家经济发展带来巨大不良后果的同时,新兴市场经济国家却以经济快速增长且腐败较为严重的情况展现于世人。本文拟透过实证分析,以人均GDP增长率作为因变量,探讨可能影响经济发展的变量,如实际国内固定资产增长率、就业人口增长率、中学入学率、政治稳定程度、腐败程度等,探究在新兴市场经济国家中,这些因素,特别是腐败对经济增长有何影响。     

What leads to official corruption in China? A politico-economic analysis of economic opportunities and government corruption across China’s provinces

This paper investigates the relationship between economic opportunities and official corruption in China. We construct a cross-province sample of corrupted officials to analyse the effects on official corruption of mineral reserve, coal production, real estate and road construction, while including control variables such as population, GDP per capita, economic growth rate, private assets, provincial government capacity, fiscal transparency and distance of the province from Beijing. Spanning from December 2012 to November 2015, our sample contains 526 high-level government officials who worked in various provinces in China. We find through multivariate regression that economic opportunities represented by coal, minerals, real estate and road construction all have a positive and significant effect on official corruption in China at the levels of provincial department director or deputy director; meanwhile, capacity of political extraction, road construction and coal production are better indicators of official corruption at the level of governor or deputy governor.     

全国农村与城镇居民人均收入的协整分析

中国农村居民人均收入和城镇居民人均收入的关系,反映了中国乡镇经济的基本特征。运用协整分析方法和误差修正模型理论,对1978—2010年全国农村居民人均收入和城镇居民人均收入的年度数据进行实证分析,分析结果表明,中国农村居民人均收入和城镇居民人均收入之间存在着一个长期稳定的均衡关系,并且建立协整模型和误差修正模型,采用Granger因果检验,得出城镇居民人均收入是农村居民人均收入的原因,并从研究结论中提出针对性的建议。     

Functional sensitivity of testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis

Conventional tests for the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis mostly apply a quadratic equation in modeling the non-linear relationship between environmental indices (such as air pollutants) and welfare measures (such as income per capita). If their inverted-U shaped pattern is empirically accepted with two significant regressors, the income per capita and its square transformation, the EKC hypothesis is supported. Using an OECD sample, this paper shows that the validity of testing the EKC hypothesis is sensitive to how we transform income non-linearly in sulfur and carbon EKC regressions. This paper carries out experiments on different powers of γ for transforming income non-linearly and concludes that only when 0 < γ < 1 and 1 < γ < 2 will the EKC regression demonstrate a testable non-linear cointegration relationship between the two air pollutants and income per capita. In the generalized EKC regressions estimated in this paper, although we find sulfur and carbon EKC patterns in the OECD sample, none of the EKC regressions using different γ is a cointegrating equation. This finding implies an inside critique to the EKC literature that failure of cointegration of the conventional EKC regression is not because of using the quadratic functional form, but because of the fundamentally spurious relationship between the trends of pollutants and income levels.     

Functional sensitivity of testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis

Conventional tests for the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis mostly apply a quadratic equation in modeling the non-linear relationship between environmental indices (such as air pollutants) and welfare measures (such as income per capita). If their inverted-U shaped pattern is empirically accepted with two significant regressors, the income per capita and its square transformation, the EKC hypothesis is supported. Using an OECD sample, this paper shows that the validity of testing the EKC hypothesis is sensitive to how we transform income non-linearly in sulfur and carbon EKC regressions. This paper carries out experiments on different powers of γ for transforming income non-linearly and concludes that only when 0 < γ < 1 and 1 < γ < 2 will the EKC regression demonstrate a testable non-linear cointegration relationship between the two air pollutants and income per capita. In the generalized EKC regressions estimated in this paper, although we find sulfur and carbon EKC patterns in the OECD sample, none of the EKC regressions using different γ is a cointegrating equation. This finding implies an inside critique to the EKC literature that failure of cointegration of the conventional EKC regression is not because of using the quadratic functional form, but because of the fundamentally spurious relationship between the trends of pollutants and income levels.     

Do Natural Resources Depress Income Per Capita?

Most evidence for the resource curse comes from cross‐country growth regressions suffers from bias originating from the high and ever‐evolving volatility in commodity prices. These issues are addressed by providing new cross‐country empirical evidence for the effect of resources in income per capita. Natural resource dependence (resource exports) has a significant negative effect on income per capita, especially in countries with bad rule of law or bad policies, but these results weaken substantially once we allow for endogeneity. However, the more exogenous measure of resource abundance (stock of natural capital) has a significant negative effect on income per capita even after controlling for geography, rule of law and de facto or de jure trade openness. Furthermore, this effect is more severe for countries that have little de jure trade openness. These results are robust to using alternative measures of institutional quality (expropriation and corruption instead of rule of law).