Agricultural land loss in China＇s urbanization process

In China, urbanization of agricultural land around city agglomerations increases rapidly. Rapid urbanization of agricultoral land affects food supply, land value and ecological balance in the society. In China, the urban built-up area had increased by 40% from 1996 to 2003. This increase came predominantly from farmland surrounding the cities. How the ongoing urbanization of China affects its agricultural land is the focus of this paper. In current studies, we have found that population density; urbanization degree and personal income are key factors that influence the urbanization process. Based on this, relation model has been established and to predict the general trends of the urban area expansion in China in 2020.In 2020, the constructed urban area of China would be increased by 1.3 times compared wtth 2003. In 2020, this study anticipates the conversion of about 32,562 sq. kin. agricultural land of China for urban use.     

China’s Investments in Skills

This paper discusses the benefits of investment in skills in China. We highlight the achievements China has made over time in human capital investments and the new challenges that have emerged as the country develops. To fuel China’s further economic growth and social developments, it is essential to take a more holistic view on skill investments. We suggest policies that promote both economic efficiency and social mobility.     

The chosen fortunate in the urbanization process in China? Evidence from a geographic regression discontinuity study

After decades of delayed urbanization, since 1998, China has implemented the “county‐to‐district” policy to promote urbanization and stimulate regional economic development. This policy was designed to expand the urban area of large cities by merging counties (rural areas) with nearby cities (urban areas). Intuitively, these regions are the “chosen fortunate” since they are the privileged beneficiaries of this policy experiment. However, at the time of writing (2018), recent studies have been inconsistent regarding this issue, and several studies have revealed that this policy has impeded regional growth. Therefore, the true effect of this policy must be carefully examined. Using grid‐level nighttime light data and a border‐based regression discontinuity design framework, we find that the average effect of the “county‐to‐district” policy on nighttime light growth is significant and positive, and this result also coincides with the increase of entry and decrease of exit of manufacturing enterprises, and the increase of the county‐level manufacturing employment. However, the policy effect on nighttime light turns to be negative in the long run, implying that short‐term economic growth may outweigh the long‐term economic growth potential. A further investigation of the underlying mechanism indicates that industrial enterprises in the experimental policy area do not perform better in terms of total factor productivity (TFP) and profit margin than their counterparts. Moreover, this policy aggravates the polarization between central and border areas.     

A study on the evolution of land use for modern urbanization in China： 1952-2005

Modern cities and towns play as the central places of wealth accumulation for human-being, not only in the ways of settlement and material consumption as they were traditionally in ancient time, but also in the ways of social production and environmental pollution as they are mostly today. With such a transition, the meaning of land use for urbanization has broadened. According to the rule of human ecosystem, land use for modern urbanization can be divided into three types： namely, the direct, the indirect and the induced. However, its structure follows its own way of the direct 〈 the indirect 〈 the induced, rather different from what it normally happens in the natural ecosystem. This paper takes China as an example, calculates the evolution of the land used by cities and towns during 1952-2005 according to statistics, and then analyzes the evolvement of the structure. At last, it puts forward several countermeasures to ensure land resource requirement for urbanization in future.     

China’s Consulting Industry in Your Interest

Consulting services currently available in China fall into the following four categories: Information consulting services: These cover market investigations and collection and analysis of market information to facilitate decision-making by investors. Fees are charged on a project by project basis, not on the basis of the human labor and the number of workdays used to implement a specific project.Investment consulting services: These cover feasibility study and demonstration of investment projects, and services     

China’s Growth Prospects

China’s diminished growth prospects are in the news and seem to spell bad news for just about everybody. This article assesses the evidence, arguing that China’s economic growth will be much slower from now on, reducing international trade. Perhaps the biggest challenge for China will be future political tensions in reconciling economic dreams with economic realities.     

Trade Restrictiveness and Deadweight Loss in China’s Imports

China is believed to have gained immensely from its admission into to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. One of the direct gains comes from the lessening of deadweight loss (DWL) due to tariff reduction. Conventional measures for DWL, however, are too aggregate to capture the trade policies, which are determined at a much higher disaggregated level, and ignore the interactions between tariff and corresponding import demand as suggested by theories. In this paper, we first systematically estimate the import demand elasticities at a highly disaggregated level and then match them with the most detailed lines of the applied tariff for the most favored nations as reported by the WTO. Using the detailed matching data, we construct Feenstra’s (1995) simplified trade restrictiveness index (TRI), which captures the covariance of tariff and the corresponding demand elasticity. Finally, we use the TRI to compute the DWL from1997 to 2008 and find that the DWL due to the tariff barrier was reduced to 0.73% of GNI in 2008, noticeably lower than the highest previous mark of 4.58% of GNI in 2001.     

Unusual patterns in China’s prefectural GDP growth rates

This article examines the last (rightmost) digit of China’s prefectural GDP growth rates, and find that they are unevenly distributedamong 0 to 9. There are too many 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s and too few 4s, 7s, 9s. Moreover, the distribution of the last digit is less skewed when the macro economy grows quickly and when the prefecture’s growth rate ranks high within the province. These patterns reveal that local officials artificially influence the data in order to exceed some thresholds. However, they do not necessarily imply that China's GDP data are falsified.     

Denmark’s Agricultural Institutions: An Instrumental Evaluation

This paper begins with a tax and a specially organized commission proposed by John R. Commons. Commons made his proposal because high tariffs were not benefiting workers. The paper contends that his proposal also applies to a current problem - the failure of trade agreements to improve working conditions. The paper bases its argument on data, standard economic reasoning, and Commons’ approach in “constructive research” to wage transactions, public purpose, limiting factors, and power imbalances.

The paper argues that Commons’ proposal could improve the evolution of American labor law and that it could ameliorate power imbalances created by laws that give corporations and trade associations a bargaining advantage over nations and organizations such as the International Labor Organization (ILO). It concludes that economic discourse could benefit from consideration of the belief behind Commons’ proposal - that costs of production passed on to consumers should include the cost of good working conditions.     

Fraudster’s and victims’ profiles and loss predictors’ hierarchy in the mental healthcare industry in the US

Abstract

Background

Fraud- or theft-related crimes account for the highest number of crimes in the mental health industry in the US.     

Understanding China’s official statistics

In response to the three influential doubts about government statistics, this article expounds the differences between relevant common economic statistical indicators and the national account indicators that reflect demand structure and national income distribution structure. The comparisons include the following aspects: the differences between household consumption expenditure from household survey and from expenditure-based GDP; the differences between total retail sales of consumer goods and final consumption expenditure from expenditure-based GDP; the differences between government expenditure from government fiscal statistics and government consumption expenditure from expenditure-based GDP; the differences between total investment in fixed assets from investment statistics and gross fixed capital formation from expenditure-based GDP; the differences between inventories and change in inventories from expenditure-based GDP; the differences between foreign trade balance from customs statistics and net exports of goods and services from expenditure-based GDP; and the differences between household disposable income from the household survey and from the Flow of Funds Table, etc. In addition, this article answers the questions proposed by the three doubts correspondingly.     

Understanding China’s external imbalances

The paper is intended to provide a comprehensive explanation of China’s external imbalances, which are characterized by current account surplus and financial account surplus. The thrust of the paper is that China’s current account surplus is not simply an effect of the savings gap. Rather, it is a result of complicated interactions among various factors in a dynamic fashion. Hence, to keep the current account surplus-to-GDP ratio at a rational level, the implementation of comprehensive policies that address all relevant factors at the same time as well as fundamental restructuring are necessary.     

Low-cost innovation and technology-driven innovation in China’s machinery industry

ABSTRACT

The political concept of indigenous innovation in China sets out a guiding principle for the country’s major transformation towards becoming an innovation nation. However, firms’ innovation strategies and capabilities in middle-income countries are usually heterogeneous, making a uniform response to this concept at the company level highly unlikely. The paper’s empirical contribution is based on analysing survey data on technologically advanced machinery firms in China. It uses a multinomial model approach to establish which drivers of innovation go hand-in-hand with the different innovation strategies. This paper identifies different innovation strategies and forms of innovation that co-emerge as part of this transformation, leading to four firm groups: low-cost producers, technology-oriented producers, user-oriented innovators and technology-oriented innovators. It thus contributes to a more differentiated view of the effects of China’s innovation-focused transformation. We find that R&D investments, governmental R&D support and scientific collaborations are key factors to distinguish between the above-mentioned groups.     

Africa’s industrialization and China’s OFDI in the manufacturing sector: rationales and practices

The article examines the rationales and practices for three types of manufacturing outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) into Africa in the context of the cooperation between Africa’s industrialization and China’s OFDI on manufacturing. African economies have achieved impressive growth in the new century, but sustainable economic growth in this vast continent is still constrained by lagging industrialization and weak manufacturing sector. While China’s economy has made great achievements in Gross Domestic Product growth and poverty reduction, it witnessed hikes of factor price such as wage, land and exchange rate at varying degrees in the recent decade, imposing pressure on economic restructuring. Against the background, the new trend of Chinese manufacturing OFDI provides new opportunities for Africa to solve structural problems of weak manufacturing. Policy implications of this study on China–Africa industrial capacity cooperation are briefly discussed.     

What is driving China’s decline in energy intensity?

While energy intensity in China has fallen almost continuously since the onset of economic reform in the late 1970s, beginning in 1996 the data show a striking decline in China’s absolute level of energy use. Most of this decline can be accounted for by falling coal consumption in the industrial sector. In order to investigate this energy puzzle, this paper employs a unique set of panel data for approximately 2500 of China’s most energy intensive large and medium-sized industrial enterprises during 1997–1999. Rising relative energy prices, research and development expenditures, and ownership reform in the enterprise sector, as well as shifts in China’s industrial structure, emerge as the principal drivers of China’s declining energy intensity and use.     

Rethinking the Role of State-owned Enterprises in China’s Rise

The massive overseas expansion of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of China’s ‘rise’ to great-power status. There is significant disagreement, however, over how to interpret SOEs’ role. Are they instruments of Chinese statecraft, being directed purposefully from Beijing as part of a ‘grand strategy’? Or are they relatively autonomous, profit-maximising businesses, their free-wheeling behaviour often undermining Chinese foreign policy? Finding that there is evidence for both theses, we provide a framework to explain this. We propose theorising party-state/SOEs relations using the concepts of state transformation and regulatory statehood. We show that the Chinese state’s fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation since the late 1970s has substantially increased SOE autonomy and weakened but also transformed the executive’s control, reconfiguring it towards a regulatory mode of governance. Party-state/SOEs relations are thus characterised not by direct command and control but weak oversight and ongoing struggles within the party-state. We illustrate this using a case study of China Power Investment Corporation and its Myitsone hydropower dam project in Myanmar. Here, a central SOE clearly defied and subverted central regulations, profoundly damaging Sino-Myanmar state-to-state relations. Party-state authorities are now struggling to rein in this and other central SOEs.     

The Time-varying Impact of China’s Economic Rebalancing on Korea’s Exports to China

While China seeks to shift from exports and investment to a consumption-oriented economy and to increase the self-sufficiency rate of exports, this study uses time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) to examine the impact of economic structural changes in China on Korea’s exports to China over time. The study results suggest that the impact of China’s export shocks on Korea’s exports has weakened, which demonstrates the slowdown in regional production fragmentation, considering that Korea’s export goods are mainly intermediate goods. Instead, the influence of China’s domestic demand shock on Korea’s exports has expanded, which implies that China has increasingly become the final destination of intermediate goods made in Korea.     

Location determinant and MNE’s performance: A modeling test in the China’s automobile industry

This paper argues that the location strategy is an important successful condition for multinational enterprise’s investment in China. We conduct a location–performance model for multinationals in China, which is tested using a structural equation modeling approach on a sample of 216 joint ventures of automobile multinational enterprises in China. We find that the relationship between the location determinant and multinational performance is significant and positive, and which is supported by the local partner’s performance.     

Utilizing China’s Legal Consultation Network

Development zones are a successful creation in the course of China's reform and opening up to push forward the country's economic advancement and promote exchanges and cooperation with the rest of the world. It is therefore of primary importance for the management of the development zones to administer in line with the law. Enterprises in development zones should make full use of the policy privileges granted to them by the Chinese government and take advantage of Chinese laws while abiding by them. To ward off possible legal risks, it is necessary for them