Search

This paper investigates the impact of technological finance on high-quality economic growth. Based on data of 30 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities) collected between 2004 and 2018, this paper adopts the method of factor analysis to construct comprehensive indexes of technological finance, before calculating green total factor productivity as the index of high-quality development, using the CRS Multiplicative Model. Then it constructs the spatial SAC model, for analyses of the just-mentioned relationship based on the total sample of the nation as well as regional samples in eastern, middle and western China respectively. The results reveal that all samples, whether it be the total national samples or regional samples of eastern, middle and western China, demonstrate the positive influence of technological finance on high-quality economic development, with an obvious spatial spillover effect. The impact factor is the highest in the eastern region, while the western region holds the lowest factor among the three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial inclusion (that is, access by individuals to the services provided by financial institutions such as banks, insurance, and investment firms) is a key condition for economic development, and forms one of the principal policy instruments in China for the promotion of rural-urban integration. Using data from the China Household Financial Studies (2013), this paper investigates the determinants of financial inclusion at the household level in China. Focused on the role of the Chinese household registration system (hukou), this paper proposes a new hukou typology to investigate the composite index of financial inclusion as well as the six indicators. Multilevel estimates reveal substantial differences of financial inclusion among different hukou holders; significant cross-level associations between hukou and economic development is also found, revealing the complex and non-linear relationship between hukou and financial inclusion. These findings shed light on the potential for market failures and two types of discrimination based on hukou system, which deny access to financial services to groups of people. Research implications on how to increase financial inclusion are mentioned and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sino-Latin American trade have increased substantially for decades. However, the increasing trade imbalances between China and several Latin American countries have yielded growing trade frictions. In this paper, we re-calculate the bilateral trade balance using the value-added content in trade and measure the contribution of Sino-Latin American trade to economic growth. The results show that gross trade statistics seriously overestimate the real bilateral trade imbalance, and China's trade surplus with Mexico decreased by over 50%. The composition of Sino-Latin American trade suggests that most Latin American economies are complementary with Chinese economy. The South-South trade has been increasingly important for both China's and Latin America's economic development. We foresee an optimistic future of relations and continuously increasing trade between China and Latin America. Meanwhile, more efforts should be made to settle trade frictions and intensify Sino-Latin American relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revealing regional differences and evolutionary patterns is a crucial component of studying digital trade development. This paper constructs an evaluation index system for digital trade development and assesses the level of digital trade development in mainland China of 30 provinces from 2013 to 2020. Using methods such as Dagum Gini coefficient, this study investigates the differences in regional development and the spatial dynamic evolution of digital trade development. The findings indicate that (1) while the overall level of digital trade in China is increasing, it manifests unbalanced growth. Additionally, inter-regional difference, as opposed to intra-regional difference, account for the primary source of digital trade development difference, contributing an annual average of 71.699%. (2) The kernel density distribution of digital trade is gradually narrowing. The absolute difference in the level of digital trade development between China and the four regions (east, central, west, and northeast) is progressively diminishing over time. (3) The Moran's I index is positive, indicating a strong spatial correlation among digital trade development. In the eastern and western regions, there are 'high-high' and 'low-low' clusters between adjacent provinces; the dynamic transfer of digital trade levels occurs between provinces of adjacent levels, demonstrating the positive effect of proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the mechanism that causes the two motions of intergenerational mobility, monotonic motion and cyclical motion. Increasing longevity encourages incentives for education investment while decreasing transfers, which is the funding source for education. If longevity increases slowly, mobility increases monotonically. However, if longevity increases rapidly with economic development, mobility is cyclical owing to a largely decreasing transfer. This result is consistent with the empirical evidence in the literature on intergenerational mobility. In fact, China, where longevity increased rapidly, experienced a cyclical motion of mobility, whereas Norway, where longevity increased slowly, has experienced a monotonic motion of mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By decomposing the changes of carbon emissions into effects of economic growth, industrial structural change, technological change and energy structure change, the paper firstly discusses the contribution of each effect to China's carbon emission changes between 2020 and 2030, and forecasts China's total carbon emissions in 2030. In particular, the paper strengthens that a decrease in population and a significant slowdown in urbanization will significantly reduce the construction demand, the main driver for high growth of carbon emissions in China, and provide a relatively favorable economic environment for China to achieve carbon peaking by 2030. The paper then discusses on how to achieve the "dual carbon" goals with the lowest possible economic cost by relying on market and price mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of carbon price in emissions trading schemes (ETS) is an important issue in China in the context of its ambitious climate change goals. This paper adopts a staggered difference-in-differences model to estimate whether China's ETS reduced CO2 emissions while maintaining economic growth even under low carbon prices. The results indicate that despite the low carbon prices, the ETS effectively reduced CO2 emissions without undermining the economy. Specifically, an increase of $1 in the carbon price reduced CO2 emissions by 1.69% and increased the per capita GDP by $286. The carbon price primarily achieved emission reduction and promoted economic development through channels, such as technological innovation, foreign direct investment, energy mix, and industrial structure. Carbon leakage to neighboring regions was not evident. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the environmental effects of the carbon price were more pronounced in regions with higher levels of economic development and CO2 emissions. Conversely, the economic effects of the carbon price were more pronounced in regions with lower levels of economic development and CO2 emissions. The carbon price achieved significant economic effects in regions that solely adopted the free allocation mode of emission allowances, while regions that used a combination of free allocation and auctioning experienced substantial emission reduction effects. Despite low carbon prices, China's ETS effectively reduced CO2 emissions without compromising economic growth. This finding provides new empirical evidence for the effectiveness of carbon price as well as decision support for the future promotion of ETS. Technological innovation, FDI, energy mix, and industrial structure are crucial channels through which the carbon price achieves emission reduction and promotes economic development. The absence of carbon leakage to neighboring regions suggests that ETS is an internally effective mechanism for emission control. Heterogeneity analysis showed that regional characteristics and allowance allocation modes can influence the effectiveness of carbon price, thus emphasizing the importance of targeted policy design and appropriate allocation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies and demonstrates the change and continuity in China's science and technology (S&T) policy over 30 years. Firstly, we analyse and compare the two top-level S&T policies in 1985 and 2015 by applying institutional grammar (IG) in Chinese. To situate the policy analysis in the dynamic history, this paper then reviews the development of S&T-related policies from the late 1970s until now. By analysing the policy content and history, we find that policy-making with strong pragmatism continually sets S&T as the role of the engine of economic development. Meanwhile, the paradigm of how China governs S&T changed from decentralization and direct order to top-level design and indirect guide. In terms of the S&T policy framework, China grows into a holistic innovation policy (HIP) concentrating on demand-side and environment-side and soliciting more public sectors, from the linear model. These changes between the two eras do not happen suddenly but proceed gradually. During these, a significant shift that views innovation as a culture of comprehensive reforming forms HIP with Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital misallocation is a main obstacle to China's economic development. This paper deploys a quasi-natural experiment formed by the 'Revitalization Plan for Ten Industries' (RPTI) and examines the impacts that selective industrial policies have on capital misallocation. It is found that the RPTI significantly exacerbates capital misallocation and that the effect does not disappear when the RPTI ends. Mechanism analysis indicates that the RPTI significantly increases the capital productivity of firm groups with high capital productivity but significantly reduces the capital productivity of firm groups with low capital productivity. This can be further interpreted by a decrease or an increase of inefficient investment and financial constraints faced by the corresponding firm groups. The documented relationship is stronger in state-owned enterprises and in firms located in areas of high marketization. Our findings advance the understanding of governmental policy intervention in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special issue on technological development and policy making in China, highlighting their importance for China's economic growth. It discusses the shift in China's economy from reliance on property sector investment and low-value manufacturing to a new paradigm based on technological innovation and internal market expansion. The article emphasizes the need for adaptive policy making and financing support for science and technology development to enhance productivity growth. It also explores the Augmented National Innovation System (ANIS) in China, the growth of the semiconductor industry, and the limitations of the fiscal system. The research papers in this collection provide insights into China's economic transformation and propose reforms to support its development. [Extracted from the article]

Since its industrialization, China has been continuously promoting environmental governance, and it is worth studying whether this measure has been effective. In this paper, we use industrial pollution control to represent China's environmental governance. Further, we use growth drag caused by energy consumption to describe a win-win situation for energy conservation and economic development. This paper theoretically analyzes the impact of environmental governance on growth drag by incorporating the former into the growth drag model. Thereafter, using data from 283 cities for the period between 2003 and 2017, this paper applies the dynamic panel data model to investigate whether China's industrial pollution control can achieve a win-win situation and its transmission mechanism. The results show that industrial pollution control can alleviate growth drag, implying that China's environmental governance can achieve a win-win situation. However, the effect is more significant in Eastern China and areas with high industrial pollution control intensity. The transmission mechanism analysis shows that industrial pollution control achieves a win-win situation by improving technological innovation, promoting human capital accumulation, and optimizing manufacturing development, of which improving technological innovation is the most significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts five dimensions and 15 indexes of green development, people's life, innovation ability, economic vitality and coordinated development to establish an evaluation system of high-quality economic development. It uses principal component analysis to measure the economic high-quality development of 233 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2016, and empirically studies the impact of import sophistication on China's high-quality economic development. The results show that the increase in the sophistication of imported technology can significantly promote the high-quality development of the regional economy, and this effect is applicable to both imported intermediate and final products. In regions with higher and lower levels of economic development, eastern areas, and regions with high-quality development above 90% quantiles, the increase in imported technology content can significantly drive the high-quality development of the local economy. However, it has a great negative impact on the areas with a high-quality development index below 10% quantile. The robustness and endogeneity check support the above viewpoint. Further mechanism analysis shows that the final product import competition and intermediate product import spillover play a mediating role in the process of import sophistication affecting the high-quality economic development. The conclusion of this paper has important theoretical value and practical significance for the use of import trade to achieve high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been able to deploy electric vehicles at an unprecedented speed and scale. This paper explores the underlying policies during six years of sector formation, and it identifies a change in policy-regime after three years. The analysis of evolution of the policy-regimes indicates that creating, transferring, and sharing knowledge among the principal actors was key to catching up. The changing policy-regime enabled a minimum threshold of technology development required for deployment. Nevertheless, it was insufficient for pushing the sector to the global technology frontier. Key to the sector's relative success was the government's responsiveness to sectoral development and its ability to address production, demand, and knowledge issues simultaneously. In addition, it created synergies between policies designed to address environmental concerns and foster economic development concurrently. However, fast deployment required heavy subsidies and important policy initiatives came with potential pitfalls that may hamper international competitiveness of the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patriotic campaigns and mass mobilization draw on existing xenophobic attitudes of the public, reinforcing the 'us vs. them' dualism between China and 'the West'. However, patriotic campaigns are not always top-down, state-led, nor are they always primarily driven by political ideology. Patriotic content appeals to a growing nationalist audience who consumes a mixed feeling of perceived victimization at the hand of foreign aggression and the pride arising from being a Chinese citizen. This paper argues that the profitability of patriotic content circulating on social media exacerbated the tension between market-driven grassroots patriotism and state-led patriotic campaigns. The tension grows out of, and is manifested in, the online popular debate around economically driven, grassroots 'patriotic' content that can challenge the state state-led patriotic rhetoric. While the state sometimes strategically co-opts some patriotic contents into its own patriotic narratives, it also delegitimises other undesired ones through labels such as 'high-level black' (gaoji hei) or 'low-level red' (diji hong). These labels were initially used to differentiate meticulously crafted political satire and parody from incompetent, illogical and vulgar propaganda pieces that unintendedly blemish the state's patriotic campaigns, but later evolved into an exercise of power to distance the CCP from undesired patriotic content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between culture, history, government policies and the development of economic institutions. Specifically, the paper discusses the impact that history and culture, including the influence of Confucianism, have played in shaping the economic institutions of South Korea and the People's Republic of China. Research results indicate that culture, history and government policies all played a role in shaping the organizational structure of these two East Asian nations. However, China's economic landscape is dominated by small and medium-sized, family-oriented firms, particularly in the rural parts of the country. The South Korean economic landscape, on the other hand, is dominated by large conglomerate firms called Chaebols which are also dominated by one family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinions differ among academics concerning the relationship between the Confucian ethic and China's economic development. This research reveals that the Confucian ethic originated from the practical demand for guaranteeing the smooth operation of households. Later, it developed into a coordinator between the government and individuals, thus bringing about the institutional compromise between the family system and bureaucracy, which is the foundation of the market system specific to China. In the future, the successful development of a market economy will be largely dependent on whether an institutional equilibrium between the government and market forces can be reached, and this will be strongly related to the Confucian ethic. This paper holds that Confucianism involves inherent conflicts between the macro and the micro level. At the macro level, Confucianism sets very high standards for wealth and morals, but at the micro level it pays little attention to how to create wealth. Accordingly, for the ongoing market reform, it is rational to continue introducing Protestant ethics-oriented Western systems since they are more advantageous in terms of increasing wealth accumulation. However, this process lacks stability and inclusiveness and is thus prone to the separation of wealth from morals. This is exactly where Confucianism should step in. This paper concludes that the long separation of wealth accumulation from the Chinese cultural traditions has become the biggest obstacle to China's economic growth. In the face of intensified social and economic conflicts, the only appropriate option is to revive tradition and root the reform in China's own cultural soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese mammoth investment projects abroad, and especially those under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella, are receiving heavy scrutiny in academic and policy circles. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence to evaluate their impact. This paper employs a difference- in-differences approach and a pair of new datasets on government spending and economic activity compiled by the World Bank to examine the local impacts of the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistan. It finds that the 2013 announcement of CPEC was accompanied by a disproportionate increase in government spending in CPEC districts. However, in the six years after it was first announced, CPEC has not directly contributed a significant increase in economic activity in the districts along its path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade there has been renewed interest in the role of industrial strategy in enhancing innovation, productivity, and competitiveness within and across firms, sectors and regions with an eye to fostering more balanced regional economic growth. This special issue explores how policymakers could adopt place-based industrial policy measures to foster regional catch up and a more balanced and cohesive regional growth. In doing so, the papers are a mix of contributions that develop theory, provide evidence and highlight 'state of the art' or good practice that can inform a level playing field fostering regional industrial strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon intensity is one of the key indexes in the process of decarbonizing development. Therefore, our paper investigates possible pathways of China's carbon intensity to 2050 depending on China's development stage and trends. We first investigate the major influence factors of carbon intensity based on the Kaya identity, and then forecast China's future carbon intensity with a generalized regression neural network model coupled with a scenario analysis with official data from 1978 to 2020. Our results show that: (1) China's carbon intensity will decrease under the benchmark growth, high growth, and low growth scenarios but vary by amounts and rates of decrease due to the settings of the influences factors; (2) China is able to achieve the reduction targets of 2025 under the benchmark growth and low growth scenario, but cannot achieve the target under the high grow scenario. However, China can meet its reduction target by 2030 in all scenarios. (3) The Chinese government should aim to reduce carbon intensity by 23–25%, 40–44% and 64–70% by 2035, 2040 and 2050 as compared to the level in 2030. Therefore, China should keep promoting the deep low-carbon transformation of economic development model, and realize high-quality economic development in order to achieve these objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation plays a vital role in economic development. This paper examined the effect of state ownership on firm innovation as well as the moderating roles of R&D capability and marketization by Chinese firm-level data from Chinese Industrial Enterprises (2008–2011) and listed companies (2007–2016). The theoretical and empirical study verified that state ownership positively influences firm innovation, and firm's R&D capability and the degree of marketization have significant positive moderate effect. The result was robust in a series of checks such as using lagged data, adopting alternative identification methods and variables, and using independent replication. The conclusion provided implications for the management of Chinese firms. The unique innovation pattern of Chinese firms also provided enlightening experience to other emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic development fails to greatly increase demand for liberal democracy in China. Is China an exception to modernization theory? If so, why? This paper studies these questions by analysing five waves of Asian Barometer Survey data from 2002 to 2019. We have three major findings. First, the shift of political values exhibits an inverted U-shaped curve with the mid-2010s as its turning point. Second, the better educated and more media exposed turned conservative much faster than the rest after the mid-2010s. Third, to trace the mechanism of this unusual reversal and divergence, we resort to a Difference-In-Differences model, taking political indoctrination, measured by media exposure and education, as treatment and the post-2013 era as treatment time, finding that political indoctrination significantly explains political cultural backsliding. Our findings enrich modernization theory by identifying the "interceptive" power of the state between economic development and cultural shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the incomplete contracts model to study an optimal banking structure corresponding to different levels of technological development from the perspective of technological innovation. The findings indicate that, with the development of technology, there exists an optimal banking structure that matches the real economy and has a dynamic evolution in different stages of economic development. At the same time, an optimal banking structure depends on the level of technological development, which seems to render invalid the argument that one structure is absolutely better than the other. Finally, the paper empirically analyzes the impact of banking structure on technological innovation using the data of China's industrial enterprises from 2005 to 2009. The empirical results show firstly that, with economic development and technological progress, an optimal banking structure that promotes technological innovation is biased towards a monopoly structure. Secondly, from the perspective of the sub-regional level of technological progress, a competitive banking structure is more conductive to technological innovation in low-tech areas but, in medium- and high-tech areas, a monopolistic banking structure will further promote technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past 30 years, Jiangsu Province in China has achieved great feats regarding its export trade; however, its export trade growth rate has not only been showing a recent downward trend but also great fluctuations. Hence, the competitiveness of Jiangsu Province's export products seems to have weakened. Through an empirical analysis, we demonstrate the relationship between financial development and export trade in Jiangsu Province, showing that the influence of financial development on the growth and the structure of provincial export trade is relatively weak. Thus, we believe that provincial financial development lacks coordination with export trade, requiring further efforts from actors at coordinating both. This paper puts forward relevant suggestions that may facilitate stakeholders to promote the steady development, transformation, and improvement of Jiangsu Province's export trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sci-tech and finance plays an increasingly important role and have become an important driving force in economic development. In China, the problem of insufficient financial support for sci-tech innovation is important to enterprises. According to the internal relationship between different stages of Sci-tech and the finance system, this paper is aimed at exploring the efficiency measurement method between sci-tech and finance systems. Firstly the multi-stage collaborative structure of sci-tech finance is built, where the system of sci-tech is divided into three stages including the R&D stage, transformation stage of sci-tech achievements and industrialization stage, and the financing channel is the input of the finance system into the sci-tech system at different stages. The measurement method of the multi-stage collaborative efficiency between sci-tech and finance systems is put forward by the framework of network DEA. Then, taking China as an example, we collect the information of 30 provinces and cities from 2009 to 2016 and measure the efficiency of each system and the collaborative efficiency of the both. The efficiency's spatial correlation is tested by means of Moran index. Finally, the influencing factors of the collaborative efficiency are analyzed based on the spatial econometric regression model, which considers the financing channels and human capital. To sum up, there are significant differences in the sci-tech finance collaborative efficiency among regions in China. Among them, the collaborative efficiency of Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu ranks in the top three. Comparing the different stages of the sci-tech system, the commercialization stage is a weak link in many regions of China. Human capital and financing channels of sci-tech finance have different degrees of positive impact on the sci-tech finance collaborative efficiency. Among them, human capital plays a greater role in promoting the sci-tech finance collaborative development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the special issue on finance and economic development in China which will be published in June 2011 is presented.

Two sources of economic interaction are knowledge spillover and technical diffusion. This paper proposes a structural model with spatial effect in knowledge spillover and technical diffusion and empirically estimates the sources of economic interaction. The empirical results demonstrate that economic interaction mainly comes from knowledge spillover, and the effect of technical diffusion is weak. These results appeal for special attention to be paid to enhancing the effect of technical diffusion on long-term economic growth. Moreover, the knowledge spillover effect within China is only slightly larger than that in the global setting, implying existence of barriers, particularly institutional impediments, to economic interaction in China. The findings of this paper strongly call for the removal of China's hukou system and local protectionism, which restrict factor mobility across space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a thorough analysis to quantify the financing needs in the Belt and Road countries during 2009 and 2014. By examining financial constraints using financial data of firms in the Belt and Road countries, this study constructs a Financing Needs Index for Belt and Road countries and highlights the characteristics of financing needs across 36 countries and 6 years. By further incorporating information from World Bank Enterprise Surveys, this paper builds an Augmented Financing Needs Index for 56 Belt and Road countries. The findings of this paper provide important policy implications by showing that countries can improve their financial liberalization and institutional environment to address the financing needs of their indigenous firms and thus achieve economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neither clear theoretical interpretation nor empirical validation of public educational investment to urban-rural migration or urbanization exists comprehensively. This paper comprehensively analyzes the relationship between public educational investment and urban-rural migration to fill in this niche. We first discuss the theoretical effect of public educational investment and urban-rural migration. Although public educational investment results in distortion and may hinder economic development in the short term, it will still benefit the economy due to its positive long-term impact on human capital. These benefits include a higher level of urban-rural migration and a deepening level of capital accumulation. The empirical evidence using China's data, where we control for confounding factors, take into account endogeneity of public educational investment and investigate the mechanisms behind the relation, confirms our theoretical discussion. This paper is of great significance in understanding China's past process of urban-rural migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to its economic growth and social changes in the past two decades, China has become a popular destination for tourists, investors, and diverse communities of migrants. When foreign-language-speaking migrants interact with Chinese criminal justice system, they rely on interpreters to participate in the proceedings. Based on four-month trial observations in a Chinese city that is reported to have the highest concentration of foreign migrants in the country, this paper attempts to empirically explore the communicative complexity between foreign defendants and interpreters when they use English as a lingua franca. Drawing upon discourse analysis of recordings of seven criminal hearings that involve defendants from African countries, this paper shows how intercultural communication in the legal setting becomes challenging when primary participants in the interaction have divergent linguistic repertoires and speak different varieties of English. Variations in pronunciation become barriers to intelligibility; different legal culture and legal systems further complicate mutual understanding. This paper highlights how linguistic differences in interpreter-defendant communication disadvantage defendants in participating in judicial proceedings, which may undermine their legal rights and result in inequality and injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of digital financial inclusion on illegal fundraising activities in China. From the China Judgments Online website, we extract data of criminal court cases of illegal fundraising from 2013 to 2019, during which both the illegal fundraising court cases and the development of digital finance displayed a rising trend. We then evaluate if digital financial inclusion may have worsened illegal fundraising activities. We find that digital financial inclusion has a positive effect on illegal fundraising activities. This effect remains robust under alternative measures of the intensity of illegal fundraising activities and when instrumental variable estimations are used to tackle potential endogeneity problems. Furthermore, convenient banking services are an important channel through which digital financial inclusion exerts its positive impact on illegal fundraising. Therefore, while active promotions of digital finance could benefit economic development, it is also necessary to timely improve the supervision of emerging finance to guard against financial risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why China's economy growing rapidly under the conditions of long-term financial asset shortage, and what's the relationship between supply-demand of financial asset and economic development? This paper obtains some conclusions from mathematical model and empirical test analysis. Firstly, shortage of financial assets is the result of adjustment of financial supply and demand, rather than the direct cause of restricting economic development. Secondly, increasing financial assets supply will promote economic growth, and financial asset from China's banking sector, such as Credit, Bonds, are more effective than capital markets. Thirdly, when financial asset shortages exist, increasing supply can achieve additional growth to enhance economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's increasingly developed high-speed railways (HSR) network has been found to have important influences on economic development, but analysis of its effect on individual income is inadequate. Based on the data of Chinese Household Income Project Survey (CHIP07 and CHIP13) and China's HSR data, this paper examines HSR's influence on residents' income and the underlying mechanism. Using the difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we document that the connection of HSR network increases both urban and rural residents' income. Besides, to address the potential endogeneity, we construct the least cost path spanning tree network to be served as an instrumental variable (IV) of HSR and the results confirm the reliability of the conclusion. What's more, a HSR-induced industrial restructuring mechanism is revealed by further study, and those who received the higher education is proved to benefit most from HSR. Therefore, education turns out to be an effective way to enhance HSR's income effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do states pursue industrial policies in the context of China's rise? Examining Indonesia and Malaysia's mineral processing sectors, we argue that these countries illustrate two different pathways that states take to bolster their industrial policies. Indonesia has followed the leading sector strategy to increase domestic nickel processing capacity and decrease reliance on resource exports. Chinese firms and the Indonesian government built the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park to house nickel smelters, fostering a new leading sector. Chinese capital in smelting follows what Albert Hirschman has called 'intermediate investments', maximising forward and backward linkages across the Indonesian economy. In contrast, Malaysia has followed the dual economy strategy, where semi-finished goods are imported and assembled into finished ones to be exported abroad. Chinese firms and the Malaysian government established the Malaysia–China Kuantan Industrial Park to import, process and export steel products. However, due to the dual economy strategy, the industrial park impairs the activities of domestic steelmaking companies and inhibits the potential build-up of smelting capacity. In sum, through an examination of an industrial park in each country, our paper connects the literatures on industrial policy and Chinese capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the trade data of digitizable products exported by China to the 65 'Belt and Road' countries from 1998 to 2018, this study adopts the extended trade gravity model to analyze the impact of ICT on the country's exports of these products. The empirical results show that ICT has a significant and positive effect on the development of trade of digitizable products and it also promotes China's exports by lowering trade costs and accelerating innovation. The paper provides new evidence on information and technology's impact and influential mechanisms with regard to new trade patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial agglomeration and green economic growth have become a trend in global financial and economic development. This paper analyzes the impact mechanism of financial agglomeration on green economic growth from two angles: growth promotion and energy conservation/emission reduction. Based on the Slacks Based Model-Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) of undesired outputs, the green economic growth efficiency of 30 regions in China from 2008 to 2017 was measured. The study uses a spatial measurement model and finds that financial agglomeration has a significant positive effect on green economic growth. The specific manifestation is that with a 1% increase in the level of financial agglomeration, the productivity of green total factor increases by about 0.1837% and 0.0964% green economic growth in neighboring areas. Further analysis shows that this improvement in green total factor productivity is mainly achieved through technological advancement that promotes coordinated economic growth, energy saving and emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue comprehensively researches China's financialization and examines the transformation of its development model, state development corporations, local government bonds, productivity, and the extent and characteristics of financialization. While it is widely known that the state plays an important role in enabling and constraining financialization, these papers further reveal that China's financialization originates from the state's deployment of financial approaches to urban and regional development under state entrepreneurialism. Through internalizing financial logic into the state development system, the expansion of financial operations reflects the state's developmental intention and increases its governance capability. Thus, financialization is not a unidirectional process but involves extensive state involvement and participation in finance, to such an extent that it often simultaneously evolves into greater interference and de-financialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between China's changing economy and its global business tax diplomacy. Three trends dominate: China is becoming a net capital exporter, emerging as a major consumer market, and is home to digital giant firms including Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba. The resulting drive to promote both 'going out' and 'bringing in' foreign direct investment has led China to engage selectively and strategically with Western-led institutions. We show how China variously challenges, defends, and develops alternatives to global tax standards in three cases: global efforts to tackle corporate tax avoidance, bilateral tax treaty negotiations, and administrative tax cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to identify the causes of China's new business cycle patterns, such as an obvious downward shift and reduced fluctuations under the 'New Normal', this paper develops a large-scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model as a unified framework for incorporating technology, investment, trade, economic policy and financial volatility. The main conclusions are as follows. First, as to the causes of the downward shift, the current contraction phase of business cycles is mainly due to narrowing economic policy space, decelerating export growth and higher financial volatility. Secondly, as to the contributors to business cycle fluctuations, export growth deceleration is the main contributor to the current contraction phase of business cycles, while financial volatility is very likely to be a key driver of future business cycle fluctuations. Finally, as to China's future business cycle patterns, it tends to fluctuate less considering the effects of numerous temporary shocks have emerged so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road (B&R) initiative was introduced by the Chinese government to promote the worldwide economic development and multilateral cooperation between China and the associated countries. As a crucial part of global supply chains, transportation plays a key role to ensure the implementation of the B&R. Safety is one of the issues with great importance in transportation research. However, its foci have been expanded from traditional risk through security to resilience and sustainability. Resilience has attracted considerable interests from both researchers and practitioners across different research domains in recent years. Various studies have been conducted on transportation resilience from different perspectives. Consequently, different definitions have been developed to define and describe resilience. This paper presents a systematic review on transportation resilience with emphasis on its definitions, characteristics, and research methods applied in different transportation systems/contexts. It aims to figure out what transportation resilience is and what kind of essential characters it usually has. More importantly, research challenges are analysed and a future research agenda on the resilience of transportation systems is proposed. This paper will provide comprehensive insights into understanding the transportation resilience, as well as establish new horizons for relevant research topics within the context of the B&R. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road initiative has a significant focus on infrastructure, trade, and economic development across a vast region, and it also provides significant opportunities for sustainable development. The combined pressure of climate variability, intensified use of resources, and the fragility of ecosystems make it very challenging, however, to achieve future sustainability. To develop the path in a sustainable way, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of these issues across nations and evaluate them in a scientific and well-informed approach. In this context, the Digital Belt and Road (DBAR) program was initiated as an international venture to share expertise, knowledge, technologies, and data to demonstrate the role of Earth observation science and technology and big Earth data applications to support large-scale development. In this paper, we identify pressing challenges, present the research priorities and foci of the DBAR program, and propose solutions where big Earth data can make significant contributions. This paper calls for further joint actions and collaboration to build a digital silk road in support of sustainable development at national, regional and global levels. [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]

Prevailing narratives in the discourse on China-Africa engagement are that China is developing Africa. This paper departs from those narratives because they disregard the agency of Africa's political elite. Basing its argument on the nature of the African political elite, the paper analyses their role in determining the impact of China's economic and trade engagement on economic development in their respective countries. To do that, it first discusses the nature and identity of African political elites, and examines how they control their states and scarce resources. Having done that, the paper then analyses their role in determining the nature and extent of development emanating from their countries’ economic engagement with China. It then concludes that it is not how much foreign states invest in African countries that determines Africa's rise, but rather political elites who influence the direction of their states’ development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China’s overseas investment and construction projects have been developing rapidly. In the meantime, financing demand in developing and emerging economies for projects such as infrastructural and industrial development has soared. This paper assesses the status quo of China’s cooperation in overseas investment and financing, recommends that China should promote investment and financing cooperation under the leading principles of market-orientated operation and primary role of enterprises, and clarify the due positions of market, government, and international institutions. This paper presents the following policy recommendations: (1) Promoting the development financing; (2) Further improving China’s export credit mechanism, to provide investment and financing support for Chinese enterprises in overseas ventures; (3) Improving the network of Chinese financial institutions and the coverage of financial services; (4) Encouraging host countries, multilateral development banks, capital markets of developed economies, and international financial centers to perform due functions in overseas investment and financing cooperation; and (5) Appropriately using a variety of investment and financing methods, including equity investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the emotions and cultural politics within domestic work contexts involving employers and migrant domestic workers in Macau. Since Macau was transferred back to China from Portugal in 1999, the Macau SAR government has pursued a neoliberal economic policy that emphasizes economic growth. With a revitalized economy boosted by casino revenues, thousands of migrant workers have moved to Macau to take advantage of new employment opportunities. Based on first-hand interviews with migrant domestic workers and employers in Macau, this paper examines how emotions are motivated and articulated within the affective interactions between employers and Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs). This includes how employers’ emotions of fear and disgust towards MDWs contribute to the creation of an MDW population as a feared and inferior “other,” and how such affective operations reinforces the existing hegemonic dominance of naming and legitimizing the exploitation of MDWs. Meanwhile, in the production of domesticity in the home, this paper explores how emotions such as emotional numbness and disgust experienced by the MDWs make affective negotiations and contestation possible, and generate disobedience and resistance to the disciplines and controls imposed upon them. This article also investigates how such emotions, acting as a kind of intervention, operate within the production of specific subjectivities and identities that MDWs want to claim for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The year 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia's transition from a planned to a market economy. It is also the 25th anniversary of the announcement of a strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Russia and the 20th anniversary of the signing of the China-Russia Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. Therefore, 2021 is especially important both in terms of the development of contemporary Russia and the evolution of China-Russia relations. As the transitional economy of a great power, the Russian economy has distinctive characteristics; analysis of its economic transition and development over the past thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and especially in the period since Putin took office, is of immediate significance for observing the development of the Russian economy. At present, the profound changes the world is undergoing and alterations in the external environment present increasing uncertainties and obstacles to China-Russia economic and trade cooperation. This paper introduces the present state of China-Russia economic and trade cooperation and analyzes the new challenges and opportunities for future bilateral cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the association between promotion pressure on local officials and the risk of stock price crashes in China. Using local economic development data, we construct an index of performance pressure on local officials. Using data from 195 Chinese cities and 1,101 listed firms in those cities during 2006–2018, we find that performance pressure is negatively associated with the stock price crash risk. However, the negative association only exists for state-owned firms and is stronger for local officials with higher ex-ante promotion probability and those promoted after their current tenures. We also find that earnings management and over-investment are the underlying channels through which performance pressure affects crash risk. Our findings imply that the top-down assessment system for local officials in China has economic consequences for local firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has consolidated its position in the world as the second largest economy. Four decades ago, China was one of the poorest economies prior to economic reforms. Yet, China's reforms are unique as they were implemented gradually and experimental in nature, which contrasted the reforms in other transitioning economies. Understanding these directions can provide a deeper understanding for the future of China's growth. This paper provides a critical review of the reforms, highlighting the importance of the agricultural and non-state sector during initial reforms. Furthermore, the review discusses the substandard performance of the state sector despite various reforms, prior to the implementation of widespread reforms to open its economy. Finally, China's sources of economic growth are discussed, and future policy implications are offered to direct China into an economically sustainable growth path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) announced in 2015, is a $60 billion package of Chinese-led investment in roads, railways, energy, and industry. It is part of China's new Eurasia-wide Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The likely impact of CPEC is controversial. Some scholars argue that CPEC will generate prosperity, regional equality and rapid economic growth in Pakistan. Other scholars argue, however, that CPEC will lead to debt and to the economic and political subordination of Pakistan to China. The existing discussion of CPEC has a near exclusive inward-looking focus on Pakistan. Some scholars, mainly from outside of Pakistan, have looked in more detail at China, but principally from an international relations perspective. Missing from all of this discussion is how economic change in China, particularly in western China, will influence the likely economic outcome of the CPEC. This paper makes an effort to begin to fill this gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the extent to which the official Chinese discourse of Ecological Civilisation (shengtai wenming) is adhered to in practise. Ecological Civilisation (or Eco-Civilisation) is presented as a Chinese vision of human progress which purports to de-couple economic development from environmental degradation. Underpinning the idea are five overlapping pillars (environment, economy, society, culture and governance) which, it is claimed, provide a theoretical framework to promote harmony between humanity and nature. Advocates see the concept as an example of a new Chinese modernity based on socialist values and President Xi Jinping has declared China a torchbearer of the global endeavour for Eco-Civilisation. However, our paper casts doubt over this assertion when applied specifically to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although there is some evidence of a commitment to the principles of Eco-Civilisation, we identify a number of substantial and interlinking practical shortfalls relating to three core themes: inclusion, enforcement and transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]