Land finance in China: Analysis and review

China's land finance system has been a key contributor to the country's “economic miracle” over recent decades. While there is much existing research on different components of the land finance system, this paper, based on both an academic literature review and data analysis, provides an integrated understanding of how these parts function in tandem around the pivotal role of profitability in the system. First, we summarize the essentials of China's land finance system by providing a framework to understand the self-reinforcing cycle between local governments' financing and spending activities based on urban land-use rights (LURs). We also quantify the magnitude of profits generated by the cycle and its contribution to China's urban development. Second, we investigate the institutional underpinnings of the system, which empower local governments as the monopoly supplier of urban LURs. We also document the rising temporal trend in land prices in most cities. Both these institutional and market factors facilitate the profitability of land finance. Finally, we shed light on the sustainability of the system. Local governments' strong incentives to maximize the profitability of land finance have resulted in increasing economic and social costs/risks. Meanwhile, the feasibility of the system increasingly is coming into question, as both ongoing institutional reforms and recent urban land market cooling raise potentially fundamental challenges to the profitability of land finance.     

Fiscal decentralization and local expenditure policy in China

Since the tax-sharing reform in 1994, the Chinese fiscal system has exhibited a marked vertical fiscal imbalance—a mismatch between expenditure and revenue assignments—at the local levels, which may cause the common-pool problem in local governments' behavior. Using a large fiscal dataset at the county level from 1997 to 2006, this paper studies the effects of fiscal decentralization on local expenditure policy and analyzes how the vertical fiscal imbalance shapes these effects. The estimation results show that expenditure decentralization increases government spending and leads to a fund allocation with a larger weight on capital construction and smaller weights on education and administration. In contrast, revenue decentralization has little influence on local government expenditures. We show that the differences in the effects of expenditure and revenue decentralization can be attributed to the distortionary effects caused by the vertical fiscal imbalance and, thus, offer support to the importance of the common-pool problem at the county level of China's fiscal system.     

Rural tax reform and the extractive capacity of local state in China

China's fiscal arrangement in the 1980s has preserved local governments' incentive but the 1994 fiscal reform recentralized revenues. Since then, farmers' tax burdens have risen steeply and become a major challenge to the state legitimacy. How to account for the huge regional variation? Why were some localities able to tax more heavily than others? Based on a national survey of village governance in China, we examine farmers' burdens empirically and identify political and social factors that explain the local governments' ability to tax farmers. This paper suggests that developments since the 1990s have shown that it overstates local discretionary power and does not pay enough attention to societal forces in understanding local public finance.     

The pressure of economic growth and the issuance of Urban Investment Bonds: Based on panel data from 2005 to 2011 in China

This paper explores the motivations behind the issuance of Urban Investment Bonds (UIBs) to stimulate local economies in China after the 2008 global financial crisis. Based on panel data from 2005 to 2011, we find that pressure to achieve economic growth has a positive effect on the issuance of UIBs, while fiscal pressure has the opposite effect on UIB issuance. We also find that the tenure of municipal party secretary, the revenue of land-use right transfer and fiscal pressure will change the impact of economic growth pressure on UIB issuance. These results are consistent with a pattern in which China's local government officials are influenced by the central government's assessment of local economic growth performance and have promotion-related incentives to maintain and develop the local economy.     

财政分权、地方财政支出偏好与城市用地规模扩张——以长三角地区为例

摘要：文章通过利用1996-2010年长三角地区16个核心城市的面板数据,实证考察了财政分权、地方财政支出与城市用地规模扩张之间的关系。研究表明：财政务权和地方政府竞争体制使得地方政府在财政支出上存在着明显的偏向,三者均是城市用地规模扩张的主要推动因素;不同城市用地规模扩张的速度存在差异;体制因素是城市用地规模盲目扩张的深层次原因。为了从根本土改变地方政府的行为为鼓励,需立足中国实际,完善现有的财政体制,规范中央和地方的财政收支;改革现行的政绩考核体制,保持官员任期的连续性和稳定性;要深化我国的户籍制度改革,打破居民迁移的体制壁垒。实现”用脚投票”的机制．     

Do R&D tax incentives work? Firm-level evidence from China

Tax incentives have been used worldwide to encourage firm R&D, but there is little evidence on their effectiveness as a policy tool in developing countries. We use a panel dataset of Chinese listed companies covering 2007 to 2013 to assess the effects of tax incentives on firm R&D expenditures and analyze how institutional conditions shape these effects. Our results show that tax incentives motivate R&D expenditures for our sample firms. A 10% reduction in R&D user costs leads firms to increase R&D expenditures by 3.97% in the short run. We also find considerable effect heterogeneity: Tax incentives significantly stimulate R&D in private firms but have little influence on state-owned enterprises' R&D expenditures. Moreover, the effects of tax incentives are more pronounced for private firms without political connections. Hence, reducing political intervention complements tax incentives' capacity to foster firm R&D in developing countries.     

Environmental (de)centralization and local environmental governance: Evidence from a natural experiment in China

It is of great importance for government to design effective incentive mechanisms in environmental governance. This paper investigates the causal effects of environmental (de)centralization on local governments' environmental governance. Based on stragged establishments timing of regional Supervision Centers for Environmental Protection (SCEPs) in China, we introduce a unique government administrative dataset on firm pollution in order to conduct gradual intensity difference-in-differences estimations. We present strong evidence that establishing the SCEPs significantly prompt firms to reduce emission pollution. Since the establishment of the SCEPs brings more effective information collection and supervision, promoting local firms reduce pollutant generation and increase investment in pollution control. Moreover, the SCEPs could coordinate adjacent provinces' incentives on reducing firms' emissions around provincial boundaries. Besides, this study provides clear policy implications that when fiscal decentralization carries the risk of aggravating environmental pollution, vertical management structures in environmental governance could effectively strengthen incentives and coordination.     

Advertising, in-house R&D, and growth

This paper develops a quality-ladder model of endogenous growthto study the interplay between in-house R&D and combativeadvertising expenditure, and its implications for economic growth,firm size, and welfare. The analysis shows that, somewhat surprisingly,higher incentives to engage in advertising, although combative,unambiguously foster innovation activity of firms. This, possibly,leads to faster growth and even higher welfare. These resultsrest on two features of the model which are well-supported byempirical evidence. First, if firms incur higher sunk costsfor marketing, concentration and firm size rise. Second, firmsize and R&D expenditure are positively related as largerfirms are able to spread R&D costs over higher sales. Theanalysis also suggests that R&D subsidies are conduciveto R&D and growth without inducing firms to raise advertisingoutlays.     

Assessing Local Government Debt Risks in China: A Case Study of Local Government Financial Vehicles

Strong credit expansion in China after the recent global financial crisis has brought local government financial vehicles (LGFV) into the spotlight. Rapid growth of LGFV has triggered concern about local government indebtedness, banks' asset quality and, more broadly, China's medium‐term financial stability and sovereign risk. This paper constructs a unique firm‐level dataset to evaluate the country's local government debt. We find an uneven distribution of LGFV, which are concentrated in the coastal areas, and a deterioration of their debt repaying ability from 2010 to 2012. We use principal component analysis (PCA) along with multivariate discriminate analysis (MDA) to identify the credit risk of LGFV based on conventional financial variables as well as local governments' fiscal status. We also estimate the safe boundaries of debt bearing at the provincial government level. The estimations reveal more severe local government debt risks in the middle‐western provinces and higher risks associated with LGFV at the municipal and county levels. Although it is very unlikely that there will be a national debt crisis in China, the high risk of LGFV should be noted and effectively controlled by improving the fiscal transparency of local governments and reforming the fiscal system.     

Inter-regional difference of agricultural productivity in China: Distinction between biochemical and machinery technology

The major objective of this article is to measure the inter-regional difference in agricultural productivity of China, and then to test empirically whether or not some relevant hypotheses with respect to agricultural technology are valid. The analysis shows that biochemical (BC) technological changes account for a significant part of China's agricultural production growth. This result is consistent with the fact that China's factor endowments are characterized by abundant farm labor relative to scarce arable land. Besides, in accordance with the standard theory of market failure, the benefits accruing to BC technological development are not privately appropriable. Thus, it can be hypothesized that the inter-regional difference in BC technological attainment must be closely associated with public spending in agricultural R&E activities at a local level. The random effects model reveals that the BC technological level is high in provinces where the public sectors are seriously committed to R&E activities. In addition, the analysis lends strong support to the validity of the induced innovation hypothesis with respect to M technological progress.     

The effect of technological factors and structural change on China's energy intensity: Evidence from dynamic panel models

To accurately understand the characteristic of energy intensity evolution by building a united framework, this paper evaluates the linear effects of the main technological factors and structural change on energy intensity from an overall perspective and a regional comparison perspective. The empirical analysis is based on a panel dataset including China's 30 provincial regions. The results suggest that domestic research and development (R&D) plays a more important role in energy intensity reduction than other technological factors. The technology spillover through foreign direct investment helps reduce the energy intensity, whereas export's technology spillover actually exhibits as a stain for China to reduce the energy intensity. Regarding the structural change, the transition from high energy-consumption industrial sectors to low energy-consumption industrial sectors plays a more important role in influencing energy intensity than simple industrialisation. The regional comparison perspective indicates that there are significant regional differences between China's Eastern, Central, and Western regions. Further estimates using the dynamic panel threshold model suggest that the local technological absorptive capacity, such as domestic R&D, is crucially responsible for these different technical effects.     

The role of regional knowledge spillovers on China's innovation

The new economic geography has increased attention on the spatial dimension of knowledge spillovers and innovation. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that regional knowledge spillovers positively influence China's innovation growth from 2001 to 2008. As knowledge is subjected to spatial decay, innovation of a region is enhanced when location in neighboring regions encourages the formation of regional knowledge and information flows. Applying a spatial autoregressive model to China's provinces, the paper finds that regional knowledge spillovers have a favorable effect on design, invention and utility patents. This indicates that proximate location to innovative neighbors can help to raise the innovation capability of a province. In addition, evidence also shows that R&D expenditure and skilled personnel of research institutes and universities positively affect invention and utility patents. This suggests a favorable role for the government in enhancing indigenous innovation capability.     

Corporate innovation in China and its implications

China's current economic transition policies focus on shifting from export‐driven manufacturing towards high‐end, high‐tech research and development (R&D), and domestic consumption. Since the early 2000s the government has issued a series of policies and guidelines to encourage innovation. Both in‐house R&D investment and the number of patent grants/applications have seen considerable growth in recent years. More specifically, industry‐funded R&D was responsible for more than three quarters of total in‐house R&D investment. Despite the rapid growth in R&D expenditure and the number of patents, China's corporate innovation still faces many obstacles and challenges. To further stimulate corporate innovation, the government may need to create an environment of fair competition for domestic enterprises, encourage the growth of institutional investors and their active participation in corporate governance, and improve the efficiency of financial systems. The experience of China in promoting innovation provides policy approaches and implications from which other emerging economies can learn.     

Has Fiscal Federalism Worked for Macroeconomic Purposes？ The Chinese Experience 1994-2003

China＇s central government undertook major tax regime reform in 1994 that was characterized by fiscal federalism. In hindsight, this reform might be viewed as being more emphatic towards the revenue side than the expenditure side. The reform has resulted in certain success both for revenue shifting and inflation fighting purposes. However, the reform and its subsequent follow-ups have not addressed some fundamental issues pertaining to China＇s government finance system, such as the overhauling of the function of government finance and redrawing lines between the central and regional governments with regard to their fiscal responsibilities and duties. Moreover, fiscal federalism might have actually increased fiscal burden on the economy, especially on domestic sectors of the economy. However, coupled with enhanced policy support for China＇ s external development, fiscal federalism might have helped to further accelerate resource shifts toward the external sector, thus resulting in an unprecedented rapid expansion in China＇ s exports since the mid1990s.     

The impact of government's fundings and tax incentives on industrial R&D investments—Empirical evidences from industrial sectors in Shanghai

This paper is an empirical assessment of the impact of government's direct fundings and tax incentives on R&D investments of industrial sectors in Shanghai. The analysis is based on a panel consisting of 32 industrial sectors for the period 1993–2002.The general finding is that both government's direct fundings as an incentive stimulating policy instrument and industrial sectors' own fundings in science and technology activities have positive effects on the industrial R&D investment. The stability of the policy further enhances the positive effect. However, the effect of the tax incentives is not straightforward. We observe that the enterprises in the industrial sectors tend to switch to more general and less costly science and technology activities, which can be regarded as a less desirable effect of the tax incentives.     

财政分权对我国城市房价的影响——以杭州市为例

2016年,中国的房地产市场依旧火热,房价增长迅速,热点频出,当然,房价的疯狂上涨也带来了很多难以解决的问题。研究财政分权,土地财政和房地产价格三者之间的关联,并通过对杭州市的相关数据进行实证分析,运用格兰杰检验分析杭州市的财政分权,土地财政和房地产价格,得出如下结论：财政分权使地方政府寻求更多的收入来源,加剧了地方政府对房地产业的扶持,并且导致了土地财政,从而正面影响了房地产价格。     

Local Governments' Fiscal Pressure and the Dependence on Polluting Industries in China

Using a large, unique county‐level panel dataset for China from 1998 to 2006, this paper investigates the relationship between local governments' fiscal pressure and their preference for developing polluting industries. The results show that there exist fiscal pressure effects; namely, a positive link between the fiscal pressure faced by a county and its industrial tax dependence on polluting industries. We also investigate the heterogeneity of the fiscal pressure effects and find that fiscal pressure effects are significant only when local fiscal pressure is sufficiently high up to a certain point, and when there are more earmarked transfers. In contrast to the situation in east China, fiscal pressure effects in central and west China are more pronounced. Therefore, when dealing with environmental problems, policy‐makers need to take local governments' fiscal conditions into account.     

Fiscal incentives,competition, and investment in China

This paper explores how fiscal incentives offered to local governments in China affect investment rates in their jurisdictions. Theoretically, we build a simple fiscal competition model to establish the linkage between local fiscal incentives and expenditure policy and consequently, capital movement. The key prediction of the model, borne out by data from Chinese provinces spanning 2004–2013, is that an increase in the local corporate income tax-sharing ratio, which proxies fiscal incentives offered to local governments, motivates local governments to compete for capital investment through increased public expenditure. Our results contribute to the literature on both fiscal federalism and state capacity by showing that local fiscal incentives significantly shape policy choices and local economic performance. In addition, by exploring fiscal incentives offered to local governments, we offer a novel explanation for the unusually high investment rate in China that has been sustained over a prolonged period.     

What are China's real gains within global value chains? Measuring domestic value added in China's exports of manufactures

This paper aims to investigate China's gains of participating in global value chains (GVCs) in terms of GDP in exports (DVA - domestic value added) and the factors affecting China's gains. The paper decomposes the gross exports of China so as to get the components that make up total GDP in the exports of the country, namely the value-added exports and DVA that are returned from abroad. Then the two components are measured to obtain the scale of GDP in China's exports both on country and sector level. The results show that, firstly, both value-added exports and the GDP in China's exports are less than the traditional gross trade statistics, indicating that there is a gap of real trade gains under GVCs. Secondly, comparing whether the proportion of DVA in total exports, the proportion of DVA in exports of manufactures or the proportion of RDV in total DVA, the gaps between China and the developed countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan do exist. Especially, considering the RDV of China, the proportion is significantly lower than that of major developed countries such as the United States and Germany, indicating that China lags far behind developed countries in the capabilities of supplying high value-added intermediate goods. Lastly, the empirical results suggest that DVA in China's exports has progressively increased in response to the productivity enhancement; research and development (R&D) inputs and capital formation, and the synergies between R&D and vertical specialization affect China's DVA growth in exports positively.     

Impact of the US–China trade war on resource allocation: Evidence from China's land supply

This study investigates the impact of the current United States (US)–China trade war on resource allocation, using monthly panel data at the city level; the data relate to the transfer of local government-controlled land from 2017 to 2019. The results show that the trade war significantly changed local governments' economic development strategies. As the trade war progressed, Chinese local governments shifted their attention to boosting the development of high-tech industries by significantly increasing the proportion of land supply for these industries. After the trade war, for every 1% increase in the US exports as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), land supply to high-tech industries increased by 0.25%. This effect is more prevalent in cities with more fiscal resources, a younger secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Municipal Committee, lower levels of public nationalism, and a larger share of foreign enterprises among exporters. These results are consistent with our assumption that the pressure generated by the US–China trade war has significantly increased the potential returns for local governments in terms of developing high-tech industries.