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The tremendous expansion of the Chinese economy since the turn of the century, especially in terms of its external dynamics, is of world-scale significance. It seems to justify the quest for appropriate conceptions of China's systemic impact on late development worldwide. A large number of scholarly studies have coalesced to analyse two crucial aspects of the impact, namely: impact on the performance of industrialisation and the condition of labour in the developing world. This paper seeks to critically appraise and reinterpret the existing studies. The appraisal is not so much a critique but rather an attempt to appropriately position the studies in the systemic context. It is submitted that the existing studies' focus on market competition, as the main form through which China's impact manifests, needs to be complemented and underpinned by the more fundamental consideration of productive investment. In the direction of constructing a systemic conception, it is further submitted that the China impact can potentially serve as a countervailing force against the prevailing dynamics of the world economy under neoliberal globalisation – ie the rising predominance of speculative finance that tends to crowd out productive investment, thereby hampering industrialisation and worsening labour conditions in the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the current level of human capital in China and seeks to identify a number of education-related challenges that may slow down the nation's economy from transitioning to high-income status. Relying on recent census-based data from OECD for the rest of the world and using data from the 2015 Micro-Census for China, the authors show that the low levels of education of China's labour force is really a problem that has its roots in the past (in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s). In recent years (since 2000), China has been investing heavily in education as shown by the increasing the share of youth, including rural youth, attending high school. Despite this recent effort to raise the nation's human capital, the education system still faces several challenges in trying to provide high-quality education for all youth. First, the government must figure out a way to overcome the relatively low rates of participation in high school by rural students. Second, there is concern that many vocational schools, especially those in rural areas, cannot deliver quality education. Finally, the paper will show that many rural students may be unprepared due to poor early childhood development outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming appears world challenging problem of current age. International communities have agreed in recent Paris agreement to reduce global pollution to certain level and have shown great concern with Chinese pollution. China is not only the world second largest and fast growing economy but the highest CO2 emitters as 29.4% world emissions source is China. This paper adds in this debate by exploring cointegration and causal relation between real GDP per capita, CO2 emissions per capita, energy consumption per capita and urban population for China utilizing annual data for the period of 1971-2014. Autoregressive distributed lag model has been used to confirm the cointegration among variables. Results reveal short run income coefficient is positive while it turns to negative and insignificant in long run marking that growth and development is supportive in CO2 emissions reduction in China. Its insignificancy gives impression that only growth dependency to overcome CO2 emissions will not be appropriate choice for China. By introducing income cubic function, N-shape relation between income and CO2 emissions was found in long run that re-emphasis though income is helping in emissions reduction, however, there is need to dependent on multiple environmental policies. Further, results show that energy consumption has positive and significant impact on CO2 emissions and energy coefficient was becoming fatter with the time. Urban population was insignificant while it turns to negative and significant with income cubic model suggesting that urbanization process is not adding to pollution emissions in China. Overall, results give feelings that model with income cubic function is suited well for Chinese economy. FMOLS and GMM estimators confirm ARDL results are robust. In addition, this paper also explores causal relation between the variables by utilizing error correction based on granger causality models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a Markov transfer matrix is used to characterize exogenous sudden shocks, and a closed economic DSGE model including a financial accelerator is constructed to simulate the impact of sudden shocks on China's macroeconomic performance. The study found that: (1) Sudden impacts reduce output, investment, consumption, capital, technology, and enterprise value, but improve labor, inflation, and risk premium, thus weakeningmacroeconomic risk resilience. (2) The impact of sudden shocks on macroeconomic variables, from large to small, is net worth, technical level, labor, inflation, investment, capital, output, and external premium. (3) It is appropriate for the government to adopt the principle of combining broad finance measures and tight currency controls in order to improve the risk resistance ability of macroeconomic operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is an intellectually overwhelming paradox within development thinking. On the one hand, it is regarded as an economic powerhouse pushing forward decades of sustained growth, which even during major global crises, such as the Corona-epidemic and the 2008 Financial Crisis, bounced back with significant resilience. On the other hand, it appears burdened with all of the 'wrong' institutions: informal, insecure, and autocratic. This collection of papers posits that the paradox is no contradiction when understood through an alternative, theoretical lens: the function of institutions precedes form when trying to understand institutional performance. Thus, whether institutions are formal or informal, public or private, democratic or autocratic, is of secondary importance to the manner in which they function over time and space. To examine this hypothesis, known as the 'credibility thesis', the collection examines China's institutions that govern: 1) capital; 2) technology; 3) land, and; 4) labor; in effect, state-owned banks, collective firms, corporate law and securities, patents and intellectual property rights, environmental bans, and the civil registration or hukou system. In so doing, it not only falsifies the widely prevalent assumption that institutional form determines performance, but concurrently, validates the applicability of the credibility thesis over widely varying sectors and assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpretations of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) mostly agree that it is a policy opening that offers some remedies for China's economic and security challenges, as well as reflects China's increasing regional and global ambitions. This paper argues that the multiple drivers characterizing the BRI result from the multiple identities of China as a developing country struggling with several sources of instability and macroeconomic problems and, simultaneously, a regional and an emerging power, and finally a major global power with significant economic capacity to shape the global economic order. The paper aims to substantiate the entanglement of the defensive and ambitious motivations behind the BRI by examining the background against which the Chinese Communist Party leadership has suggested it. In so doing, it draws on Chinese official policy documents and statistics, speeches from Chinese leaders and existing social-scientific research on the transformation of China's economic and political landscape in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impacts of educational factors on economic growth across 31 provinces during 1996 and 2010 in China. A spatial panel estimation model is applied to study the impacts of education on economic growth taking into account the spatial spillover effects in Feder model and the cumulative effect. The results reveal that (1) educational factors are significantly spatially autocorrelated. Educational factors have spatial spillover effects. Regional differences of education impacts still exist. (2) Average schooling year has a more positive effect on economic output than capital investment and labor force. Basic education might play a more important role in economic growth. (3) Education sector also benefits non-education sectors on economic growth if “spatial effects of economic shocks” are considered. Some policies that may enhance education development and their impacts on economic growth are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the immediate economic and systemic reasons of steadily increasing local government indebtedness and investment overheating in China despite central efforts to contain them. These two phenomena emerged between 2008 and 2011 as a direct consequence of an external shock caused by the global crisis and the subsequent internal reaction in the form of intensified stimulating state intervention. New opportunities for resource distribution and investments through state intervention mobilized distribution priorities and politically rational economic behavior of actors, which are characteristic of party-state systems. Locations of mobilization were defined by the decentralized Chinese system specifics along the intertwined party-state structure. Systemic characteristics and the Chinese specifics together resulted in investment overheating on a national and local level, causing a steady growth of local indebtedness through large and state-owned enterprises and local governments. This process was further amplified by the characteristics of the transforming economy in China, as actors in the private sphere were mobilized by the increased input demands of those privileged by the systemic priorities of state intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse determinants of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) into a number of African countries for the period 2003-2012. Design/methodology/approach – A series of panel data models are used to estimate the determinants of Chinese OFDI into eight African countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, Egypt and the Sudan. Findings – Results highlighted that Chinese investment in African countries is driven by access to natural resources, and factors related to infrastructure quality and the regulatory environment enforced by host governments. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers to identify empirical determinants of Chinese OFDI in Africa and it contributes from two perspectives. Firstly, it identifies drivers behind Chinese OFDI, but also importantly from the African perspective helps understand the reasons that attract investment from one of the world’s largest investors into one of the world’s poorest regions, given the emphasis that is placed on foreign direct investment today as an instrument of growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government's 2008 fiscal stimulus resulted in a surge of liquidity flowing into the country's shadow banking system. The paper focuses on two financing channels: the Fanya Metal Exchange and the commodity collateral financing market, which are paradigmatic for the unintended consequences of this credit bubble. The opacity of these markets and the assumption that asset prices would rise indefinitely incentivized widespread fraud that eventually impacted global metals markets and roiled China's economy. These two cases elucidate the complexity of China's financialized commodity markets, the spatially variegated consequences of credit bubbles and the fragile foundations of China's post-2008 growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This report examines the recent developments and trends relating to the Chinese government’s policy actions and the key issues that determine the choice of exchange rate regime in China. An up-to-date “stock-take” of the economic indicators is conducted to determine what is suitable for China in light of the rapidly evolving nature of the world economy and trading environment. This paper discusses the role of economic development, trade competitiveness, capital flow, foreign exchange reserve, and RMB internationalization in the determination of the RMB exchange rate regime.Design/methodology/approach This research uses an inductive approach to gain a fine-grained understanding of the complex, multifaceted aspects of China’s exchange rate policy. A combination of statistical analysis, including basic descriptive statistics, trend analysis, and a correlation study are used to explore the association between various indicators and their implications. The report also draws on analysis of a broad range of data sources and the work of numerous researchers and research institutions.Findings A more flexible exchange rate regime can play a complementary role towards rebalancing the Chinese economy by raising the buying capacity of families, rebalancing growth towards domestic consumption, and reducing reliance on export. China’s price elasticity of the demand for exports was relatively low that the appreciation of the Chinese currency has almost no influence on optimizing China’s trade balance. A more flexible two-way flow in RMB would be suitable under the current cash flow scenario in China. Reduced intervention will facilitate further adjustment in reserves. Lastly, in the early stage of RMB internationalization, flexibility in the exchange rate is one of the factors that influences its growth prospect as a reserve currency.Research limitations/implications The findings and conclusion are derived based on the latest empirical information, statistical evidence, and economic theory. This inquiry does not build on a theory, and aims to neither verify a theory, nor test hypotheses. Rather, it aims to demonstrate, assess, and explain significant roles that various economic factors play in shaping the future exchange rate regime of China.Originality/value This paper presents the rationale behind a more flexible two-way exchange rate, by assessing the latest empirical data and theoretical explanation that support such a move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose After over 30 years’ reform and opening-up, China as the second largest economy is now facing the most essential transformation of management philosophy and the biggest challenging issue of business sustainable development, with people’s increasing worry of the deterioration of environmental pollution, food security and human health. It can be said that what China needs urgently today is business ethical value and long-term sustainable development concept, rather than rapidly growing GDP. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the term “sustainable development” is constructed and valued in the sustainability reports or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of Chinese corporations, so as to interpret these Chinese firms’ conception of sustainable development in their real business practices.Design/methodology/approach A corpus of sustainability reports collected from 30 Chinese corporations totaling 247,311 tokens is first of all compiled to realize the objective of study. Then the authors use the AntConc, a corpus analysis toolkit, to generate word lists, key-word-in-context concordances and collocation lists, as well as calculating statistical significance measures for collocates, of which the mutual information (MI) score 3 is most relevant to the paper’s purposes. Based on the key-word-in-context concordance and collocation list, the authors can find what context “sustainable development” usually appears in sustainability reports, thus inferring Chinese corporations’ conception of sustainable development.Findings The result indicates that Chinese corporations use the rhetoric of weak sustainability, indicating that sustainable development is compatible with further economic growth, which means that Chinese corporations in current China, strongly promoting the concept of new normal economy, still put economic growth as a dominant goal, on which other dimensions of sustainability like environmental protection depend.Research limitations/implications The data gleaned in current corpus are limited to the sustainability reports in 2014 thus the study provides no hints as to diachronic trends. However, this study increases our understanding of how Chinese corporations attach value to sustainable development from the view of corpus analysis.Originality/value Different from traditional discourse analysis, which usually carries out qualitative analysis to analyze how a word or phrase is constructed in a small number of texts, the authors’ study innovatively introduces the method of corpus analysis to explore how Chinese corporations construct “sustainable development” in their sustainability reports. Thus, the number of texts analyzed is larger in the authors’ study and their findings are more representative and convincing. The authors create a more qualitative understanding of what the reports are actually saying on their reports and prove that corpus methods can bring new application to the discourse analysis of the biggest challenging issue of China’s future economic growth, suggesting a potential novel way to work out the meaning and implication of sustainable development in Chinese real business world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "China's Growth Slowdown and Prospects for Becoming a High-Income Developed Economy" by Ding Lu in the issue.

With the rapid development of China's economy, alleviating the shortage of land resources has become a significant challenge. Transportation infrastructure is a channel connecting cities, which carries the flow of population and material circulation. The efficient allocation of land used for transportation is closely related to production and life. By investigating the main factors affecting the priority of the supply of land used for transportation, this paper evaluates the transportation condition of all cities in China from five aspects: dominance, dependence, coordination, accessibility, and land demand for transportation. Furthermore, this paper constructs a multi-objective decision support system for land supply, which aims to find out which cities are in urgent need of the supply of land for transportation and what types of transportation infrastructure need to be focused on. The results of this paper show that most of the cities with high land supply priority are non-provincial capital cities and are important growth poles of regional economic development. The construction of a comprehensive transportation system is the short-term goal of these cities. Most cities with low land supply priority are sparsely populated, in good ecological condition, and far away from the core areas of economic development. The preferred transportation mode of these cities is generally land transportation. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a comprehensive decision support system for the land management department to determine land supply priorities and achieve the sustainable use of land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to shed new empirical light on infrastructure's role in economic growth using a semiparametric smooth coefficient model to avoid specification problems in some existing studies and admit infrastructure‐induced nonlinearity and parameter heterogeneity. Estimated by a three‐step procedure that controls for endogeneity in both the regressors and the environmental variable (infrastructure), the model is applied to the empirical context of telecommunications infrastructure in a fast‐growing economy, China. The results reveal that telecommunications contribute to output through various sources, namely its neutral and non‐neutral impacts. The total/net effect is positive but largely decreases with telecommunications stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary To enhance the competitiveness of natural gas is an urgent requirement for China's economy development. "The Belt and Road Initiative," aiming to achieve win‐win situation with other countries along the route, was proposed in 2013, which is a great opportunity for the development of natural gas. And the rise of Energy Internet has infused great vitality into the development of natural gas by technological innovation. This paper first reviews the current status of China's natural gas industry and further analyzes the policy status for the development of natural gas. Then, through the policy, economy, society, and technology‐strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis, this paper reveals the internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and challenges of promoting China's natural gas development. Then this paper analyzes approaches of The Belt and Road Initiative and Energy Internet to promote the role of natural gas development and put forward the relevant construction steps. Finally, this paper puts forward the corresponding research conclusions and policy suggestions for the development of natural gas industry. In this paper, current situation of natural gas industry in China is investigated. The impact of "The Belt and Road Initiative" on natural gas industry in China and how Energy Internet can promote the development of natural gas industry in China is studied. The suggestion of improving the competiveness of natural gas in China is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After nearly four decades of rapid growth, the China economy is faced with various challenges. The 2008 crisis would have served as the last straw as China experienced falls and volatilities in industrial output, export and foreign direct investment. The new policy focuses on expansion of domestic consumption and rebalancing. Given the unreliability of Chinese products, there is a need to rebuild product acceptability and market confidence. The structure of industrial enterprises, especially the small- and medium-sized enterprises, will play a crucial role in the next phase of development in the China economy. This paper uses the data on Chinese industrial enterprises to estimate the productivity performance of enterprises across regions and industries. The discussion is placed on the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the China economy and industries enterprises. By using a simple methodology and OLS regression analysis on the estimation of total factor productivity, the empirical results show that SMEs and non-SMEs do perform differently in different industries and across regions, but SMEs suffered more than non-SMEs since the 2008 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) raise firms' productivity. Few researches investigate whether exporters can enhance export performance after M&A through higher levels of efficiency. Based on detailed information on M&A activities of Chinese firms, China's customs trade data and National Bureau of Statistics surveys, we investigate the causal effect of M&A on trade performance. In particular, the value and the volume of firm exports, product quality, product scope and the number of export destinations have been examined. We find positive and significant effects of M&A on all the examined indicators of export performance. These findings are generally robust to a variety of robustness checks. We further observe that state-owned firms are the least likely to benefit from M&A. We also obtain evidence that firms benefit more from M&A deals if they are targets or merge with foreign firms. Overall, this paper is to our knowledge the first study that uses micro-level data in multiple industries to examine the relationship between M&A and exports of heterogeneous firms. Our results deepen our understanding of the consequences of M&A by suggesting another potential benefit, and hence provide policy implications for merger regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-quality economic development (HQED) has recently become a crucial sustainable growth mode in China, which pursues economic growth while maintaining social equity and green ecology. The HQED of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) has played an exemplary role in achieving the leap from "China speed" to "China Quality". In this paper, we first use the entropy-weight multidimensional comprehensive evaluation method to calculate the HQED index as a proxy for the quality of economic growth. Then, using panel data of 41 cities in the YRD, we conduct a comparative study to examine impacts of technological innovation (TI) on quantity and quality of economic growth by employing different panel estimation models over the period 2009-2019 and check the robustness in five ways. Finally, this paper investigates the TI-economic growth link based on the panel quantile regression across the conditional distributions of economic growth levels. Results show that TI has significantly positive effects in terms of both quantity and quality of economic growth, and the promoting effect on the quantity of economic growth is almost four times higher than that of quality under mean estimations by double fixed-effects. The effect on quantity of economic growth is also stronger than that of quality under the conditional distribution, and TI has a stronger impact for regions with higher levels of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The aim of this paper is to learn about some patterns of sectoral and industrial structural change of the Chinese economy over the 1995-2010 period, which also complements a previous paper of the author. The chosen period is about (and conveniently) bounded by two international crises: the Southeast Asian crisis of 1997 and the world crisis that started in 2007/2008.Design/methodology/approach To such a purpose, this paper set up a quantitative methodology via input-output modelling, which allows us to decompose gross output into some key demand sources or contributions. These are then analyzed over the full period.Findings It can be shown that the trajectory of the main structural patterns over the period was not smooth and was pretty unbalanced and that they generally responded to both domestic policy and international shocks. Export demand and heavy industry appeared to be the main engines of the economy, which showed massive increases in their share of output, at the expense of domestic demand, services and agriculture. Despite the high growth rates over this period, the Chinese economy seemed to be in need of rebalancing, which seems to have started toward the end of the authors’ period.Originality/value The decomposition method has been applied before by the author and others, but the variations in this paper are original, just as original is the application to China (never been done before), which in addition is not confined to two or so snapshots separated by many years, as is the usual use, but to the full year-after-year change of the sectoral and industrial structure over this study’s focus period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to explore achievements and issues in the implementation of China ' s 12th Five-Year Plan to provide input for the preparation of the coming 13th Five-Year Plan, and also to provide some messages for the understanding of the Party ' s documents of suggestions for the preparation of China ' s 13th Five-Year Plan. Design/methodology/approach – Eight essential aspects related to economy, society and ecological environment of the implementation of the 12th Five-Year Plan are analyzed both for the achievements and issues. Comparative analyses are done through historical data and international comparison. Findings – It is hoped that the achievements found in the implementation of the 12th Five-Year Plan will consolidate the confidence for establishing an all-round well-off society of China by the year 2020 and issues discovered will be overcome through appropriate measures. Originality/value – This paper will contribute to the understanding of “Suggestions for the preparation of National Economic and Social Development 13th Five-Year Plan” by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on 29 October 2015, and also the coming 13th Five-Year Plan, which will be announced in March 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the accumulated environmental problems resulting from excessive usage of fossil fuels have gradually loomed. Thus, an environmental tax, as an important policy tool, has been put on the agenda in China. In this paper, a dynamic recursive multi-sector Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is applied to explore the impacts of the environmental tax on China's economy. To comprehensively analyze the impacts, we introduce four kinds of typical contaminants and set two kinds of scenarios: different tax rates and different tax refunds. The results show that the environmental tax is conducive to environmental improvement, but the economic variables are adversely affected, for example, the loss of GDP at the low level tax rate is 0.46%. In order to offset the negative impacts, we presume the government refunds the tax. The results show that this can indeed relieve the negative effects. When the government refunds the production tax and corporate income tax, 0.49% and 0.34% of GDP is relieved by respectively. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the environmental tax in China and lays a solid foundation for the introduction of the environmental tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a full decomposition of world inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, in the period 1970-2009. In particular, using the Analysis of Gini ( ANOGI), the paper describes the evolution of between inequality, within inequality, and the impact of overlapping on both factors. While there is evidence that between inequality in the last decade significantly declined due to the rapid Chinese growth, within inequality and overlapping went in the opposite direction. Furthermore, with the exception of some Asian countries, the rest of the world has not moved significantly. As a result, world inequality remains high by any standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in other parts of the world, private tutoring has expanded significantly in Mainland China during the past decade. This has been driven by factors including dramatic economic growth, high-stakes examinations, and the traditions of a Confucian culture at the macro-level, and school leadership and family incomes, at the micro-level. This paper examines the demand for private supplementary tutoring in Chongqing, China. It is based on a mixed-methods study of tutoring received by Grade 9 students. Based on an overview of the demand for shadow education by the sampled students and the driving factors at multiple levels, this paper investigates the role of teachers' power in shaping the demand. It draws on the data obtained from interviews and case studies, applying the theory of power bases to map the power relations among various stakeholders in both mainstream and shadow education systems. The study reveals that nearly half of Grade 9 students receive private tutoring, with mainstream teachers as the most popular category of tutors. While some dimensions of this extra work for teachers may be laudable, other aspects could be described as forms of corruption. This highlights the need to examine the power of teachers. The paper contributes to research in a wider context by refining understanding of the nature of shadow education from a Chinese perspective. It addresses the gap in empirical research on Chinese teachers' involvement in shadow education through the lens of power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Poverty has remained one of the prominent challenges of humanity. Different solutions have been suggested to curb poverty. Economic growth and financial development are two such crucial tools for overcoming poverty, as frequently pointed out by economists. These tools work through the so-called trickle-down hypothesis, which contends that a well-functioning financial system would enhance poverty reduction by promoting economic growth. One country that appears to have manifested this hypothesis is China. However, the empirical test of the trickle-down hypothesis for China is scant. In addition, most of the existing studies have failed to account for regime-shift in parameters or structural breaks. This paper attempts to fill this void by testing the trickle-down hypothesis for China during the period 1985-2014. We utilized two standard proxies for financial development, namely: the domestic credit to private sector by banks as percentage of GDP, and money and quasi money as percentage of GDP; annual percentage change in real GDP per capita to proxy economic growth; and a standard proxy for poverty reduction namely: the household final consumption expenditure per capita growth. By accounting for structural breaks in our empirical specifications, we found overwhelming support for the trickle-down hypothesis at the national level. That is, we found financial development to cause economic growth, which in turn causes poverty reduction in China at the national level. This has important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural realists might reasonably predict that foreign policy elites in countries like Japan and Australia would view China's economic and military rise as a potential threat and seek to balance against it. However, the actual policy behaviour of Japanese and Australian policy elites has been quite complex—pushing forward at times, hesitating at others and generally uncertain if an explicit counter-coalition against China through bilateral security cooperation is the right policy path. Why is this? This paper explains the puzzle by focusing on the perceptions of policy-makers regarding the risk of provoking China; entrapment with the other; and entrapment with the United States. The paper demonstrates how policy-makers' concerns regarding entrapment or abandonment related to their mutual US ally—as well as concerns about potentially provoking China—have had an instrumental effect on the degree to which Japan and Australia have strengthened their security commitments to each other. While the rise of China—and the relative decline of US power—has shaped the overall direction of Japan–Australia security ties, such structural imperatives are of course also complicated by how domestic actors think about the tactical aspects of understanding and surviving these structural features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalization of China's currency, the renminbi (RMB), bolsters the growing economic and political influence of China in the Asia‐Pacific region. This paper assesses the evolution of RMB exchange rate comovements against the US dollar (USD) within the region. While the RMB's influence is growing, it is also found to be asymmetric and varying over time depending on the global movement of the USD. The trend is strong when the USD depreciates but fades when the USD appreciates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enduring paradox of China's remarkable economic growth is the lack of a well-established legal system. By drawing on the credibility thesis, this paper proposes that legal and economic reforms give rise to, and reinforce, the other and the market is underpinned by evolving institutions that are shaped by the expectations of the actors in the economy. It is thus not the form of institutions but their function that is more important in assessing institutional performance. A comparative examination of the USA at a similar stage of legal-institutional development to China provides support for an evolutionary, endogenous process. This institutional analysis will focus on key issues of economic legislation, such as corporate law, patent law and securities. Analyzing the relationship as complementary processes can help explain the paradox of strong economic growth within an under-developed system of law with potential, critical implications for institutional development in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen A partir de datos de encuestas de hogares, los autores observan que las primas por calificación aumentaron en toda China entre 1995 y 2002, pero solo en las provincias costeras entre 2002 y 2007, año en que estas también registraron mayor desigualdad salarial y contribuyeron más a la desigualdad salarial urbana total. Según un modelo de efectos fijos estimado, la privatización explica la evolución del primer periodo, y la integración de China en la economía mundial, la del segundo. Reducir la desigualdad exige, según los autores, la reforma del Registro de Población Hukou, que obstaculiza la movilidad de los trabajadores calificados y posiblemente también el crecimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the middle income trap (MIT) concept from the perspective of productivity growth. Through the examination of cross-country historical statistics as well as China's regional data, it sheds light on the debate about whether the Chinese economy can avoid the middle income trap. It should be one of the first papers proposing an analytical framework to address this controversial issue. The findings should have important implications for economic policies guiding China's development in the coming decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assumes that China's economy will be developing high, medium and low scenarios, and forecasts economic and social indicators such as total GDP, population and per capita GDP in China from 2016 to 2030. Then, predicted the demand of copper resources in China from 2016 to 2030 by the combination of system dynamics model, ARIMA model prediction and inverted U-type empirical model. The results show that: China's copper demand growth slowed down significantly from 2016-2030. From 2025-2030, China's copper resource demand is stable, into the platform of demand growth. 2030 years later, China's copper resource dem and will enter a slow decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a bootstrap Granger full-sample causality test and a sub-sample rolling window estimation, this paper examines the causal link between inflation and inflation uncertainty in China. The results show that high inflation leads to high inflation uncertainty, supporting Friedman-Ball's hypothesis (1992) and Holland's theory (J Money Credit Bank 27:827-837, 1995). Furthermore, significant feedback exists from inflation uncertainty to inflation in some periods, supporting Holland's theory (J Money Credit Bank 27:827-837, 1995) that inflation uncertainty has a negative effect on inflation. We find that the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty varies across time. The Chinese monetary authority needs to ensure a quick and effective policy response to inflation development because doing so will help reduce inflation, eliminate many of the costs associated with high inflation and therefore minimize the marginal effect of inflation on inflation uncertainty. However, quantitative tools for China's monetary policy are also warranted. In the long term, the importance of keeping inflation low, stable, and predictable cannot be overemphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of hyper growth, China's economy has slowed significantly in recent years, causing widespread anxiety both within and outside the country. Although economists have not reached a consensus about China's growth potential, it is undeniable that the country has switched gears toward a "new normal" of moderate growth amidst ongoing structural change. To assess China's growth performance and prospects, this study modifies Masahiko Aoki's analytical framework of a unified growth theory into a multi-sector model and applies it to identify the sources of China's per capita income growth in recent decades. The analysis confirms Aoki's early observation that China entered the socalled "Kuznets phase" of development in the 1980s, which then became overlapped by the H-phase, in which human capital-based growth is characterized by high labor productivity growth. This study provides evidence that China's labor productivity growth has been predominantly driven by fixed capital formation. It also reveals that the Kuznets effect (with its labor reallocation effect) has now passed its peak and is fading away. The most alarming finding is that net total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the latest period has slowed to a near halt. This trend is particularly worrisome given that China has exhausted its past demographic dividend and its industrial structure has evolved to the end of industrialization stage. Meanwhile, demographic projections clearly indicate that China has entered what Aoki defined as the development phase of "post demographic transition."Whether China can reverse the downward trend of TFP growth will determine how soon it can achieve the goal of becoming a high-income developed economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of the health and economic impacts of PM2.5pollution is of great importance for urban air pollution prevention and control. In this study, we evaluate the damage of PM2.5pollution using Beijing as an example. First, we use exposure–response functions to estimate the adverse health effects due to PM2.5pollution. Then, the corresponding labour loss and excess medical expenditure are computed as two conducting variables. Finally, different from the conventional valuation methods, this paper introduces the two conducting variables into the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the impacts on sectors and the whole economic system caused by PM2.5pollution. The results show that, substantial health effects of the residents in Beijing from PM2.5pollution occurred in 2013, including 20,043 premature deaths and about one million other related medical cases. Correspondingly, using the 2010 social accounting data, Beijing gross domestic product loss due to the health impact of PM2.5pollution is estimated as 1286.97 (95% CI: 488.58–1936.33) million RMB. This demonstrates that PM2.5pollution not only has adverse health effects, but also brings huge economic loss. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper reviews the World Trade Organization's analysis of developments in China's trade policy during 2012-14. The review overlaps with the continuing Great Recession and with China's determination to foster a sustainable rate of economic growth. Developments in the country's trade policy include the launching of the Shanghai pilot free trade zone. China faces a series of trade policy-related challenges including the complex process necessary to internationalise the renminbi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a new data set of 12,000 firms in China, this paper estimates the returns to R&D investment and its spillover effects, and investigates how the returns to R&D depend on firm incentives. For the firms in the sample, the results show that on average firm output increases around 0.4 yuan for each additional 1 yuan spent on R&D in the previous year, and there is high R&D return regardless of whether the endogeneity of R&D intensity is dealt with or not. Interestingly, the marginal return to R&D is significantly higher in firms whose CEOs were not appointed by the government, and lower when CEO pay is directly related to annual performance. The return to R&D is higher in relatively poor regions and for firms with worse access to finance. There are also non-trivial R&D spillover effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper estimated the balance of emissions embodied in bilateral trade and the pollution terms of trade between China and six major world economies, including USA, Japan, and others, from 1995 to 2009, and then discussed the factors affecting them using the Structural Decomposition Analysis method. We find that, with the exception of Taiwan, the balances of the haze pollutants emissions embodied in bilateral trades were negative between China and the each of the rest five, and this was mainly resulted from the China export scale effect and intermediate input structural effects. We also find that China has become the “Pollution Refuge” for the economies like USA and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet finance has experienced rapid growth in recent years in China, and it is expected to play an increasingly important role in the economy. This paper is one of the first attempts to examine the current state of development of Internet finance in China. The paper first introduces the methodology of the Peking University Internet Finance Index, which provides a monthly evaluation and analysis of the general trends and patterns of the Chinese Internet finance industry. The findings show that although the growth of the industry as a whole has been robust, the levels of development and rates of growth exhibit substantial variation across business categories. The paper then investigates the underlying determinants of the regional disparity in the development of Internet finance. The preliminary results suggest that the traditional financial sector, infrastructure, and local economic development are important for Internet finance development. The study suggests that the growth of Internet finance fundamentally relies on the development of the real economy and is associated with that of the traditional financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing upon the notion of lock-in in evolutionary economic geography perspective and concept of market imperative in global production network 2.0 theory, this study explores the role of market imperatives of local suppliers in the evolution of local industrial clusters in China. Through a case study of the furniture cluster in Shunde, this paper argues that market imperatives of furniture firms have changed dramatically, urging furniture firms to de-lock from previous low-end domestic markets in China and expand to different market segments in China as well as in other emerging economies. The changing market imperatives led to the breaking-out of lock-ins and the transformation of local clusters in the changing institutional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the article "Toward State Capitalism in China?," published within the issue. Topics discussed include the investigation into favoritism toward state-owned firms in China to understand the effect of political forces on the economic market, China's economic transition and development, and the failure of the study to explore the actual linkages and cooperation between state and private sectors.