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| 1 |
ID:
136278
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| Summary/Abstract |
Knowledge of poverty prevalence is essential for any society concerned with improving public welfare and reducing poverty. In this paper, we estimate and compare poverty incidence rates in China using four nationally representative surveys: the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2010, the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of 2010, the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) of 2011, and the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) of 2007. Using both international and official domestic poverty standards, we show that poverty rates at the national, rural, and urban levels based on the CFPS, CGSS, and the CHFS are all much higher than the official estimates and those based on the CHIP. This study highlights the importance of using independent datasets to verify official statistics of public and policy concern in contemporary China.
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| 2 |
ID:
136270
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| Summary/Abstract |
Measures of wealth (‘net’) capital stock (WKS) can be used for measuring economic exposure to natural disasters and thus are essential for disaster risk management in terms of both quick loss estimation during emergency responses and post-disaster planning for recovery and reconstruction. Today, the improved availability of statistical data and the progress of capital stock estimation methods have made it possible to produce datasets of WKS on the prefecture level. By applying the perpetual inventory method (PIM) to estimate prefecture-level WKS in China from 1978 to 2012, this paper aims to illustrate both the methodology for generating the WKS dataset and the utility of the WKS as a useful indicator of economic exposure to potential hazards. The estimation results indicate that the accumulated WKS for Mainland China had reached RMB 152 trillion by 2012, and it has maintained an average annual growth rate of 14% since 1990. Spatially, the uneven distribution of WKS is distinct, with approximately 47% being concentrated in the eastern economic region, and approximately 60% to 22% of China's prefectures. Methodologically, the dataset can easily be extended to more recent years with available data. Furthermore, a systematic sensitivity analysis indicates that the depreciation rate is the most important parameter for WKS estimates. Notwithstanding certain limitations, the paper concludes that such WKS estimates, in particular with its finer spatial resolution, offer a useful baseline for quick disaster loss estimation.
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| 3 |
ID:
136236
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| Summary/Abstract |
We analyze China's sovereign debt by constructing balance sheets for China's government and public sector. We find that China's government debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than that of most large developed economies. We also find the debt-to-asset ratio of China's government and public sector significantly lower than its own historical height (1998–2002). Local government debt is mainly to finance infrastructure investments. Local government debt risk is amplified by two mismatches. The first is the income-expenditure mismatch between central and local governments. The second is the maturity mismatch of short-term debt and long-term infrastructure investments. The maturity mismatch may cause short-term repayment difficulties
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| 4 |
ID:
136265
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| Summary/Abstract |
In view of the importance of deliberate R&D activities in achieving productivity gain via exports for firms in developing economies, this study explores a potential complementarity between firms' decision to export or to invest in R&D empirically. The evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms reveals a complementarity between exporting and R&D investment in their impacts on firm's productivity. The complementarity test is implemented based on the supermodularity theory. After disentangling the selection bias from the decision to export and to invest R&D through mixed multinomial Logit regression, the multinomial treatment effect estimation identifies that the joint decisions improve firms' labor productivity by 0.283. Moreover, the exporting status increases firms’ tendency to invest in R&D, and vice versa, thus implying the existence of complementarity from the view of firms' decision
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| 5 |
ID:
136224
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| Summary/Abstract |
We study whether local credit ratings alleviate information asymmetry inherent in the fast growing Chinese market by examining the syndicate structure of loans issued by Chinese borrowers in 2003–2011. Despite the common criticism regarding the quality of Chinese credit ratings, our results suggest that they serve an important role in reducing information asymmetry in the market between corporate insiders and outside borrowers
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| 6 |
ID:
136267
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| Summary/Abstract |
Current province-level administrative division in China breaks the distribution of local culture and many cities are separated from their respective local culture regions to locate in other provinces. These cities encounter potential cultural conflicts with the mainstream culture of the provinces they belong to, but also face various local protectionism barriers with cities in the neighboring province that share the same border and local culture with them. As a result, transaction costs could be higher whichever side they trade with, leading to potential harm to their economic development. Using dialect as a proxy for local culture, we find that the cultural segmentation caused by the misalignment between cultural and administrative borders can significantly hamper economic development of the segmented cities. This negative effect is aggravated by greater local protectionism in neighboring provinces but alleviated by a longer history of being administrated by the same province with the current provincial capital. These findings support the hypothesis that cultural and administrative border misalignment works together with local protectionism to bring about substantial economic loss. The results thus highlight the importance of both formal and informal institutions in affecting transaction costs and economic growth, and also shed light on the potential interactions between the two types of institutions.
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| 7 |
ID:
136276
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this paper we evaluate the relative importance of the two main channels, namely the composition effect and the income structure effect, through which the paternal income affects children's income inequality. Using data on 2677 pairs of father and children from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we construct the counterfactual income of children from poor families if they had the same characteristics as children from rich families. We propose an instrumental variable quantile regression-based method to solve the endogeneity problem and decompose the rich dad effect on income inequality into the composition effect and the income structure effect. We find that the composition effect explains at least 80% of the income difference at any quantile, and it explains all the income difference at the top four deciles. Income structure effect has a significant impact only at quantiles between 20% and 40%, where it explains about 20% of the income difference
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| 8 |
ID:
136272
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| Summary/Abstract |
The China-Raw Materials dispute recently arbitrated by the WTO opposed China as defendant to the US, the EU and Mexico as the claimants on the somewhat unusual issue of export restrictions on natural resources. For the claimants, Chinese export restrictions on various raw materials, of which the country is a major producer, create shortages in foreign markets increasing the prices of these goods. China defends export limitations by presenting them as a natural resource conserving policy. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of the dispute with the help of a model of a monopoly extracting a non-renewable resource and selling it on both the domestic and foreign markets. The theoretical results focus on the effects of imposing an export quota on quantities, prices and price distortion. Given the crucial importance of demand elasticities in this theoretical understanding of the conflict, the empirical part of the paper provides estimates of import demand elasticity of the parties for each product concerned in the case. The model and the empirical results challenge the ideas that an export quota always favors conservation of natural resource, that a higher foreign price necessarily follows this policy and that it inherently increases price distortion and therefore discrimination.
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| 9 |
ID:
136269
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| Summary/Abstract |
More and more literature on economic growth and development has increasingly focused on long-run effects of geographic, historical, and cultural factors on productivity and income per capita. This paper investigates the effect of religious beliefs on economic growth using provincial panel data from 2001 to 2011 in China. It's very meaningful to study the role of religion playing in economic development since religion has influence on political preference, human capital and work ethic, especially in current China which is faced with income disparity, environmental pollution, and official corruption. Our results reveal that, among the different religions, Christianity has the most significant effect on economic growth. This conclusion is consistent among different estimators and robust with stability over time. However, no consistent or robust conclusions can be drawn for other religions. Different estimation methods give different signs or significance. Given the very few studies and limited data resources about China in this field, the paper as a tentative study provides a brand new viewpoint.
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| 10 |
ID:
136274
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| Summary/Abstract |
We use a panel of 29 Chinese provinces for the period 2003–2011 to estimate the drivers of energy intensity by means of a spatial Durbin error model. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between energy intensity and income (energy intensity Kuznets curve). Ten provinces, notably the developed east coast provinces, have already passed the turning point of 29,673 RMB. The number of years for the other 19 provinces to reach the turning point ranges between 8.3 (Jilin) and 21.8 (Yunnan). The share of the secondary sector in the own province and in neighboring provinces causes an increase in energy intensity, the capital-labor ratio a decrease. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has a significant negative spatial spillover impact on energy intensity. To improve the sustainability of its energy resources and its environmental conditions, China needs to continue reducing its energy intensity by further developing modern industrial systems to counterbalance the negative effects of its economic growth and energy consumption. An adequate policy handle is investment in research and development and stimulation of their introduction into production processes. For that purpose, market mechanisms can be readily applied, particularly energy prices that adequately reflect energy scarcity and external effects. FDI is also an effective tool to transfer advanced technology to China.
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| 11 |
ID:
136263
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| Summary/Abstract |
Using nationally representative rural household panel data from 2003 through 2007 in China, we examine economic gains of cadre status and channels through which cadre status increases household earnings. We find that income of cadre households was approximately 10 percent higher than that of non-cadre households on a per capita basis. The cadre income premium did not come from agricultural income but mainly from non-agricultural sources, especially the income from the village and the government. We also find that cadre income premiums were much larger and more significant in economically advanced regions than in less developed regions and in villages that exhibited higher income inequality than their counterparts. Furthermore, this study shows that newly elected cadre households acquired the economic gains immediately and cadre households lost the economic gains immediately when they lost their cadre status, which implies that the cadre economic gains were less likely attributable to human capital of cadres but mainly due to cadre status. Our findings provide evidence for the ongoing debate on distribution of economic gains during the process of transition in emerging market economies.
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| 12 |
ID:
136266
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| Summary/Abstract |
The geographic maldistribution of health care resources is one of the most persistent characteristics of health care systems around the world. Based on China’s provincial-level panel data in 1949-2010, this paper empirically investigates whether the geographic distribution of health care resources is convergent or divergent in the long run and whether the rapid economic growth contributes to reducing the regional disparity in health care resources in China. Using a dynamic convergence model that controls unobserved provincial heterogeneity and spatial dependence, the empirical results provide much support for β-convergence in that the provinces with lower initial values of health care resources, including the densities of physicians and hospital beds, are seen to grow faster and to catch up with the provinces with higher initial stocks. In addition, we find that GDP per capita has a significant and non-linear impact on the convergence rate of health care resources, providing support for a Kuznets curve in China’s health sector. That is, the inequality in the distribution of health care resources follows an inverted “U” shape as income increases over time. An important implication of our study is that economic growth per se provides a built-in stabilizer to mitigate health inequality through the convergence of health care resources across regions in the long run.
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| 13 |
ID:
136261
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| Summary/Abstract |
A major challenge to the empirical studies on the effect of sibling size on children's health is the endogeneity of family size. The radical one-child policy implemented in 1979 in China provides us with a unique opportunity to apply a regression discontinuity design method to examine this issue, which requires much weaker assumptions than the IV approaches used in previous studies. Our results indicate that although there are statistically significant associations between sibling size and children's health, there is no evidence for the quantity–quality trade-off.
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| 14 |
ID:
136264
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| Summary/Abstract |
This case study compares the environmental efficiency of non-certified organic and conventional rice production in southern China. Using plot-season level survey data, we test the existence of a “technology gap” between the two types of production, and calculate their environmental efficiency scores based on the level of pure nitrogen use, which is considered as an environmentally detrimental input within the framework of the stochastic frontier analysis. Our analysis reveals that organic farming loses its environmental performance at high nitrogen levels and that during the initial conversion period to organic farming newly converted organic farmers increase the use of external nutrients such as nitrogen to compensate for potential yield losses. These results highlight the uncertainty with which conventional farmers initially tend to view organic farming. However, we find that the experience gained by organic farmers over time helps them increase and maintain the environmental efficiency. We warn against the rapid expansion of organic farming and recommend more technical support and strict nutrient regulation to foster the environmental efficiency of organic farming.
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| 15 |
ID:
136279
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| Summary/Abstract |
Should China accelerate financial liberalization in order to avoid the middle-income trap? And, if the answer is yes, which specific reform steps should the government undertake? In this study we attempt to shed light on these questions by examining experiences of 80 countries during the period 1980–2010. Empirical analyses reveal that the growth effect of financial repression is insignificant among low-income economies, significantly negative among middle-income economies and significantly positive among high-income economies. Furthermore, for the middle-income group, repressive policies on credit, bank entry, securities market and the capital account significantly inhibit economic growth. In the meantime, law and order promotes growth among all income groups, while democracy has no impact whatsoever. We also validate these findings through a range of robustness checks. These findings offer important policy implications for China.
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| 16 |
ID:
136275
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| Summary/Abstract |
While finance has been shown to influence the distribution of income, little research has been devoted to the potential impact of financial policy on income inequality. This study analyzes the relationship between repressive financial policies and inequality across countries. We show that financial repression tends to increase income inequality. Robustness checks using GMM estimation and the modeling average method confirm the positive relationship between financial repression and income inequality. We also find that credit controls and entry barriers in banking sector are the two most important financial policies influencing inequality. Moreover, GDP per capita growth and urbanization serve as two important factors that might alleviate income inequality. These results have important policy implications, not the least so for quickly developing countries such as China, where rising inequality possesses a significant problem.
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| 17 |
ID:
136280
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Chinese government has been pursuing economic growth under the guidance of “growth is a hard principle”. Regional governments have employed the overtaking strategy (placing primary emphasis on the development of capital and technology-intensive industries) and the real estate development strategy to push for economic growth and fiscal revenue growth. This led to a primary and secondary income distribution structure biased toward capital and government and against labor and a government expenditure structure biased toward infrastructure and against social welfare. Using the empirical strategy of Acemoglu et al. (2003), we confirm that the overtaking strategy and the real estate development strategy have contributed to the internal imbalances of overinvestment and underconsumption. The biased primary and secondary income distribution structures as well as the biased government expenditure structure serve as important mediating channels through which the development strategies translate into an imbalanced consumption–investment structure. It suggests that the Chinese government will be able to accomplish China's transition from an investment-led growth model to a consumption–investment balanced growth model only if it modifies its development strategies.
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| 18 |
ID:
136253
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| Summary/Abstract |
To address challenges for the 21st century, the Chinese government initiated a series of higher education reforms to support the open-door policy of China. Part of the education reform involves an allocation of additional funding of US$ 20 billion to a group of 112 universities to strengthen their research capabilities with an ultimate goal for them to become national catalysts for raising Chinese educational standards to world-class quality. The target university group is known as Project 211 universities. Other non-Project 211 universities have not received such resources. This paper is the first to provide rigorous assessment of the impact of the latest higher education reform on the performance of Chinese universities for the period 2007–2009.
Evidence from meta-frontier analysis reveals that the reform had intended impact on the Chinese universities in our sample. Project 211 universities, on average, performed better than the non-Project 211 group and managerial inefficiency is the key attribute of low overall productive efficiency. Unlike Project 211 universities, non-Project 211 universities have limited access to the best available technology. However, the Malmquist productivity index suggests that Project 211 universities experienced more severe productivity regress than non-Project 211 universities. Our mixed evidence may reflect economy-wide conditions and warrant further research. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that the higher education reforms should be broadened to allow non-Project 211 universities to compete with Project 211 universities for additional financial support required to enhance their research capability.
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| 19 |
ID:
136230
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| Summary/Abstract |
A substantial proportion of China's rapid economic growth is attributed to its large number of rural to urban migrants, but most of these migrants' children are left behind in rural areas, mainly due to China's household registration system. Any attempt to identify the impact of parental migration on children's school performance may encounter the problem of endogeneity. We use unique survey data from more than 7600 4th and 5th grade students from 74 rural elementary schools. Using an instrumental variable estimation, our results indicated that having migrant parents can marginally reduce a child's math score rank by 15.60%, which implies that the current economic growth in China partially jeopardizes the future of the next rural generation. Based on a bivariate probit model, the results show that compared to neither parents being migrants, migration of the father reduces the rank of a child's math score by 8.37%, and migration of the mother reduces the rank by 23.30%.
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| 20 |
ID:
136273
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| Summary/Abstract |
China has achieved unprecedented success in economic growth since the initiation of economic reforms. The high growth could partly be attributed to the successes in structural transformation of the economy and industrial upgrading of the manufacturing sector toward high value-added products. However, regional inequality in China has increased considerably behind the scenes. In order to have sustainable economic growth, it is thus crucial to investigate the impacts of both structural transformation and industrial upgrading on regional inequality. This paper contributes to the literature by employing a database compiled at the county-level. Decompositions are performed for different spatial groupings so as to provide a clear view of evolution of regional inequality. In addition, the contributions of the major industries to inequality in industrialization are examined by using another database of value-added compiled at the provincial level. The results may have important policy implications for the formulation of a comprehensive and coherent strategy in managing inequality while promoting structural transformation and industrial upgrading.
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