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The article presents abstracts on economic condition in Asian countries which include economic growth in China, capital formation and capital stock in Indonesia and economic history of the Philippines.

Over the past two decades, China has sustained rapid economic growth of 8–10 percent, part of which is attributed to the positive total factor productivity (TFP) growth. However, this extraordinary economic performance has been accompanied by severe environmental pollution and associated health damage. The conventional TFP method is biased in interpreting the progress of technology change because it does not consider non-marketable residues, such as environmental pollution, and, hence, efficiency improvements in terms of pollution abatement technology and environmentally friendly management are ignored. This bias might direct our attention to less efficient use of environmental friendly abatement technologies or send wrong signals to policy-makers. To address this issue, the present paper applies a modified welfare-based green TFP approach, treating environmental damage as non-desirable (negative) residual output. Therefore, environmental efficiency is taken into account to accurately interpret technological progress from a social welfare point of view. Based on a national time-series input–output table, historical capital and labor input data for China and sectoral level air pollution emission data from 1991 to 2000, the empirical results suggest that with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, many pollution intensive sectors, such as electricity, primary metal and chemical industries, improved their environmental efficiency in the late 1990s. However, because of the weak environmental regulations in construction and transportation, and in sectors primarily composed of small private or township and village industrial enterprises, firms within these industries contributed to increasing environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the questions related to the cost of China's bank restructuring and how it has been financed. We first propose a framework for recognizing losses. Then, we examine the recent major moves by the Chinese Government to repair the country's bank balance sheets. Finally, we explore the implications of the Chinese Government's methods of funding bank restructuring. We find that the Chinese Government has been decisive in confronting the costly task of bank restructuring. So far, Chinese taxpayers have paid most of the bill for bank restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a letter from the editor of "Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry" concerning the January 2008 issue. The issue focuses on environmental science and research in China and is the first time that an entire issue has documented the results of research conducted by Chinese scientists living in China. The author examines the economic growth in China that has been achieved through excessive energy consumption and the inefficient use of natural resources, and its impact on the environment.

Given its size and importance for global commodity markets, the question of how fast China can grow over the medium term is an important one. Using a Cobb–Douglas production function, we decompose the growth of trend GDP into those of the capital stock, labour, human capital and total factor productivity (TFP) and then forecast trend output growth out to 2030 using a bottom‐up approach based on forecasts that we build for each one of these factors. Our paper distinguishes itself from existing work in that we construct a forecast of Chinese TFP growth based on the aggregation of forecasts of its key determinants. In addition, our analysis is based on a carefully constructed estimate of the Chinese productive capital stock and a measure of human capital (based on Chinese wage survey data) that better reflects the returns to education in China. Our results suggest that Chinese GDP growth will slow from around 7% currently to approximately 5% by 2030, consistent with a gradual rebalancing of the Chinese economy characterized by a decline in the investment rate. Moreover, our findings underscore the growing importance of TFP growth as a driver of Chinese growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper simulates the effects of China's growing government debt in a computable equilibrium model of overlapping generations. Our model assumes that the government increases debt to finance its spending in the short run, and then increases taxes or cuts spending to keep the debt–GDP ratio constant. The spending‐driven government debt increases public capital and output in the short run, but decreases private investment, total capital stock, output, and net exports in the long run, and makes the future generations worse off. Among various means of debt control, a decrease in government spending seems to be the least harmful to private investment, capital stock, and output while an increase in capital taxation is most detrimental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the aid allocation behaviours of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors and their response to the emergence of China in the aid landscape. Our analysis presents evidences of donors' competition in Africa. We investigate whether African countries with the Chinese influence expanding receive favourable aid modalities from G7 donors over the period 2000-2011. We find a robust positive relationship between the level of aid and the number of China projects a country receives and the level of bilateral aid from G7 donors, even after accounting for standard economic and political factors. Results indicate that DAC donors use bilateral aid to tackle the increasing influence of China in Africa, by delivering more aid to countries with natural resources or strategic political interest. The paper also assesses empirically whether strategic interests and economic competition between DAC donors and China have influenced the composition of aid flows received by African countries. Our empirical strategy is sharpened by the use of a spatial-X model and a difference-in-difference estimation that leverages a 'natural' experiment in DAC aid flows in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with China increasing his sphere of influence in Africa. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several years, the creative reuse of brownfields has played a major role in Chinese cities to give their urban landscape a so-called second development. This paper analyses the governance of the brownfield restructuring in Guangzhou (Canton). The research is based on a study of the T.I.T Creative Industry Zone, a highly successful creative space currently in danger of demolition. This paper follows DiGaetano and Strom's () analytical governance framework. This approach allows for deciphering the complexities of decision-making through a well-structured set of interdependent categories. In Guangzhou, new policies and institutions have been promoting the restructuring and have contributed to the formalisation of public-private interactions. In general, this indicates a shift towards a more corporatist governance. However, the study of T.I.T reveals a rather intricate picture: the policymaking remains influenced by a top-down authoritative style - sometimes in an arbitrary manner - and to some extent also by particularistic exchanges. This indicates a complex mode of urban governance consisting of increasingly corporatist elements but still with managerial, and to a lesser extent, clientelistic elements. Finally, the coexistence of different governance modes seems to be a typical outcome of China's transition while still remaining more adaptive, experimental and flexible in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds China's intellectual property protection strength from the aspects of intellectual property legislation protection strength and law enforcement protection strength, and calculates by using the actual data from 1985 to 2010. The results show that China's intellectual property protection strength has always been enhanced, and Chow test shows that the structural breakpoints appeared in China's intellectual property protection strength in 2001(when China joined TRIPS Agreement). The further Granger causality test shows that the economic development level and technological innovation ability are the factors promoting China's intellectual property protection strength, which, however, has not effectively promoted economic development and technological innovation ability due to the impact of the overall economic development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of Chinese financial and trade integration in recent decades, and the challenges facing China in the coming years. China had been a prime example of export-led growth, benefiting from learning by doing, and by adopting foreign know-how, supported by a complex industrial policy. While the resultant growth has been spectacular, it comes with hidden but growing costs and distortions. The Chinese export-led growth path has been challenged by its own success, and the global financial crisis forced China toward rebalancing, which is a work in progress. Reflecting on the internationalization of the CNY, rapid acceleration of the commercial internationalization of the CNY is expected. In contrast, there are no clear-cut reasons to rush with the full CNY financial internationalization: the gains from CNY financial internationalization are overrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the role of the internal real exchange rate as a competitiveness indicator in economic growth among provinces in China. Using data from 28 Chinese provinces for the period 1992-2008 together with dynamic panel data estimation, the results reveal a positive effect of real exchange rate appreciation on economic growth. In other words, a competitive internal real exchange rate has not been found to support provincial economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the contradiction between rapid economic development and water shortage has attracted much attention. This paper explores the problems of water consumption and environmental pollution in provinces with different economic development levels in China. Sewage discharge is put into the undesirable meta frontier dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model as an undesirable output variable. The water use efficiency under different income levels from 2013 to 2017 is compared at the provincial level from the perspective of domestic water use efficiency, ecological water use efficiency, industrial water use efficiency and agricultural water use efficiency, and the dynamic evolution is further revealed by using kernel density estimation. The results show that water resource utilisation efficiency is positively correlated with regional income level and economic development level. The internal differences in high‐income areas are narrowing, while the internal differences in middle‐income areas are significantly expanding; agricultural water use efficiency is the most prominent problem. In view of these situations, the total amount and intensity of water consumption should be controlled in high‐income areas. For middle‐income provinces with abundant water resources but low efficiency, local governments can strengthen legislation and supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the economic progress of two countries, South Africa and China, in relation to the Lewis model. These economies are chosen because they have interesting similarities and also interesting differences. At the start of economic reform in China and with the advent of democracy in South Africa, both countries had surplus labour: they were at the first, labour‐surplus, stage of the Lewis model. It is shown that, since then, South Africa has continued to experience surplus labour: the unemployment rate has risen. By contrast, China's labour market is shown to have tightened, and there is evidence that China has entered the second, labour‐scarce, stage of the Lewis model. The difference lies in their growth rates. There are sections explaining why the South African economy has grown slowly and why the Chinese economy has grown rapidly, in relation to the growth of their labour forces. The Lewis model provides an enlightening framework for explaining how widely the fruits of economic development can be shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on urban household survey data, the authors find that skill premia increased significantly across all regions of China between 1995 and 2002, but only in coastal regions between 2002 and 2007. By then, these regions also displayed much wider wage inequality and thus contributed more to overall urban wage inequality than non-coastal regions. While privatization was the main driver of skill premia in 1995-2002, China's (regionally uneven) integration into the global economy became the dominant influence in 2002-07. Reducing skill premia and inequality, the authors argue, calls for reform of the Hukou registration system which impedes skilled labour mobility and possibly also growth. [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]

Along with the rapid urbanization and economic development, the Yangtze River Middle‐Reach urban agglomeration (YRMR) has suffered from increasingly serious environmental problems. Characterizing the long‐term dynamics of aerosol optical depth (AOD) in YRMR is of important significance for scientific control of aerosol pollutants over this region. Previously, numerous researches have analysed the temporal and spatial characteristics of AOD in different regions through statistical values of AOD time series or using trend analysis methods based on linear regression models. It is challenging to approximate nonlinear trends and identify change points of AOD time series. This paper proposed a new methodology for investigating the dynamics of AOD over the YRMR region on a monthly basis by using the Terra MODIS Collection 6.1 Level 2 aerosol products (MOD04_L2) during 2001–2017. A three‐dimensional spatio‐temporal interpolation method was used to generate gap‐filled monthly AOD maps, and then a generic Bayesian time series decomposition algorithm was applied to analyse the trends and change points of monthly AOD time series. The results showed that the areas with high AOD values were mainly located in the core cities and the connecting belts. Strong positive AOD anomalies had been observed during 2006–2011, whereas the positive anomalies were typically intermingled with negative anomalies and it indicated that the evolution patterns of AOD for different regions were different and influenced by fluctuations. Trend analysis of the monthly mean AOD values indicated that AOD in YRMR increased first, then fluctuated, and finally decreased. Although it was difficult to separate the increasing and fluctuating periods from each other due to the fluctuation, the decreasing trend after 2011 was significant, and a significant drop of AOD had been observed since 2014. Long‐term AOD variations were closely related to national policies, and the results could provide useful references for regional environmental assessment and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the significant features of Chinese economic development in the 1980s was that grain imports increased sharply, while the whole economy experienced rapid growth and reform. This paper attempts to measure the domestic resources costs (DRC) of rice and wheat production in China (two of the most important grains in the Chinese grain sector) during the period 1981-87 and to examine the questions of whether, or to what extent, the level of comparative advantage in grain production can explain the performance of China's grain trade. Substantial comparative advantage in China's rice production and considerable comparative disadvantage in wheat production have been found by the measurement. These preliminary results suggest that the relative costs incurred by China's domestic grain sector were likely to have played some role in determining both the structure of its grain trade and its large scale of net wheat importation in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of several articles on public administration and development. "Health Services and Space Utilisation in Urban and Rural Communities: A Case Study of Ile-Ife, Nigeria"; "Access to Health Services"; "Urban Design Practical in Socialist China."

Regional technology characters (TCs) are studied in this paper to find whether innovation in Chinese cities leads to technology converging, or technology divergence, in both the intra‐city and inter‐city scales, with which regional economic development strength may be better explained. Based on a literature review on the subject, a two‐dimensional research framework and relevant technical lens are designed to clarify TC in cities composed of parameters on Technology Strength (TS) versus Technology Angle (TA). By applying Principle Component Analysis, a technical lens is made possible based on extracted parameters on three integrated technology dimensions for measuring TSs and TAs over 117 Chinese sample cities with invention patent data covering 21 technology field between 2005/2006 and 2015/2016. Technology convergence versus divergence are examined for 28/24 sample cities beyond average score, and the research findings indicate that technology divergence in Chinese cities can be confirmed at the inter‐city level, even partially at the intra‐city level. This finding holds for most sample cities with fairly large and modest TSs, while intra‐city technology converging is significant, especially for larger sized TS samples, however they also differ on different dimensions. This may imply that urban economic development in China is technical based and differentiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African countries face an economic transformation gap. Given the large and growing Chinese presence on the African continent, a fundamental question is whether Chinese firms contribute to, or hinder, economic transformation in Africa. This article conducts a scoping review of over one hundred sources, examining the pathways through which Chinese firms can affect economic transformation. On balance, the literature points to a positive role of Chinese firms. Africa–China trade leads to mixed results, while Chinese investment and infrastructure construction are found to contribute positively to transformation. Chinese firms are also found to support capacity building, spillovers and innovation in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering China's goal of carbon neutrality, understanding the influence path and dynamic correlation between electricity consumption and relevant factors is essential for formulating a reasonable electricity development strategy and promoting high‐quality socio‐economic development. Based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019, this study adopts the panel VAR model for research, with four notable findings. (1) Economic development, urbanization, and the urban–rural income gap directly affect electricity consumption. Industrial structure upgrading can affect electricity consumption through economic development and urbanization. Electricity consumption only directly affects economic development, whereas the effect on the other three variables could be transmitted through economic development. (2) Electricity consumption first inhibits and then promotes industrial structure upgrading, and it inhibits the urban–rural income gap. (3) Industrial structure upgrading first promotes and then inhibits electricity consumption. The urban–rural income gap inhibits electricity consumption. (4) Industrial structure upgrading and the widening income gap might hinder economic development through the adverse effect on electricity consumption. Based on these findings, several policy suggestions are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the assessment of China's rural labor markets. According to our data, the increase in off-farm employment that China experienced during the 1980s and 1990s continued during the 2000s. Our analysis shows that migration has become the most prevalent off-farm activity, although the destination of migrants is shifting from outside of one's province to destinations closer to home. The present paper finds that large shares of male and female individuals, especially those under 40 years, are working off the farm. These findings represent an important contribution to the labor economics field. First, the results of the present paper reveal that the labor transition from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector for key segments of China's rural labor force is nearly complete. Second, although a large share of China's rural labor force work in agriculture, most of these workers are older men and women (and likely would not be willing to take low-wage, labor-intensive jobs). Third, the rising unskilled wage rate in China is partially a result of the tightening of the labor force in the young age cohorts. Finally, due to factors associated with the one child policy and other demographic transition forces, successive age cohorts will continue to fall in absolute number in the coming decade. Assuming China's growth continues, we expect to see further wage increases since it will take higher wages to coax more workers to work off the farm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a simultaneous equations approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of two types of public infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure, on industrial geography, regional income disparities, and growth across 286 cities in China. It is found that an improvement in transportation infrastructure that reduces trade costs on goods increases growth and decreases income gap at the expense of increasing industrial agglomeration between cities. Therefore, this paper confirms the existence of a trade-off between spatial equity (more even spatial distribution of economic activities) and spatial efficiency (higher growth rate). However, for knowledge infrastructure that reduces trade costs on ideas, it is found that it increases growth but also decreases income gap and industrial agglomeration simultaneously. Moreover, the impact of knowledge infrastructure is found to be larger in the case of high labor mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demographic dividend, that is, the growth of the working age population aged 16 years relative to younger and older age dependents, has often been cited as a crucial component of the accelerated economic growth experienced by disparate countries and regions at different points in time. Generally less emphasized are the ramifications of this process when it occurs in reverse; that is, when the relative size of the working age population begins to shrink. Related to this is the more subtle effect of changes to the age structure of the overall working age population, which can have compounding or offsetting effects in relation to the demographic dividend noted above. This paper explores how these age-related phenomena were instrumental to both the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2008. We explore how the generational composition of economic actors and the aging of the baby-boom worker may have played a role in provoking these remarkable recessionary periods. The reversal of the demographic dividend and the aging of the working age population are factors now contributing to the propagation of the global economic downturn, as witnessed in the example of Japan over the past half-century. This paper applies the lessons of the Great Depression, the Great Recession and Japan to offer a forward-looking analysis of the Chinese economy. China is on the precipice of a significant demographic shift whose implications for economic growth are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the shrinking working age population (aged 15 to 59 years), all factors that have driven China's rapid economic growth over the past 30 years tend to diminish from 2010. The present paper estimates the average annual growth rate of potential output to be 7.2 percent over the 12th Five-year Plan period and 6.1 percent over the 13th Five-year Plan period. Future sustainable growth requires furthering economic reform in related areas to enhance potential growth. This paper simulates two scenarios in which both an increase in labor force participation and improvement in total factor productivity can significantly enhance the potential GDP growth rate. Relevant policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses and assesses China's current fiscal system, including its basic institutional arrangements, the relationship between central and local governments, and the fiscal balance and public debt. This paper pays special attention to the local government borrowings that have increased dramatically in recent years, and tries to measure the 'overall public debt risk' by including all kinds of eligible debts. This paper finds that although the large expansion of local government debt during the fiscal stimulation response to the global financial crisis was devastating, the all-inclusive total public debt to gross domestic product ratio remains under 50%, and as long as the local debt stops growing, the risk is quite manageable. This paper also points out that more attention should be paid to improving and reforming the Chinese fiscal system, particularly the reform of the fiscal relationship between central and local governments, and the legal framework for local government debt management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Many questions regarding local economic phenomena involve issues of spatial and temporal dependence and heterogeneity. One of the main ideas of the socialist market economic system which was set up in 1978 in China is 'those becoming rich earlier bring along other people, all achieving the common richer eventually'. However, after several decades, having performed a series of balanced development strategies and policies, is this purpose true or not? How about the outcome of regional level of planning strategies under the socialist-market system? This paper focus on the intra provincial development, and uses per capita GDP of Guangdong, one of the most developed provinces in China to analyse the economic development of prefecture-level cities from 1978 to 2013 with a new exploratory space-time method. Three conclusions can be drawn as follows: first, the degree of regional economic development is gradually deepening along with rapid economic development in Guangdong province and the per capita GDP difference is gradually widening between the Pearl River Delta region and the non-Pearl River Delta region. The core-periphery relation is clear within the provincial level's development. Second, the trend and position of space-time paths are different across regions. Third, the space-time paths have not intersected across poor and rich regions during the last 33 years. Widening uneven development is concealed by the 'fast growth' economic phenomenon. The macro-economic environment has had some effects on different regions, with the effect on fast growing areas, such as the core region of the Pearl River Delta the most obvious. There is a lag effect on other undeveloped areas. At the same time, under the socialist market economic system, the market is the main motivation behind regional discrepancies, and some policies and strategies aimed at narrowing the gap have had limited success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that the rotation and promotion system of local political chiefs plays an important role in China's economic miracle. In this paper, however, we focus on the potential cost of the inherent frequent turnover of local chiefs. Based on a new manually collected dataset on prefectural‐level local chiefs between 1983 and 2012, our empirical results suggest that the turnover of the local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief would lead to a 0.48 percentage point decrease in the local GDP growth rate in the current year. This effect is especially concentrated on more government‐affected fields, such as domestic investments, consumption and government expenditures. We also provide evidence that organization friction, especially the successor CCP chiefs' unfamiliarity with the city, his/her new colleagues and/or the working conditions, is one of the major potential reasons for such a negative turnover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts related the Asian economy including "Aggregate shocks decomposition for eight East Asian countries," by Grace Lee, "Indonesian economic development: political economy of an effective state," by Richard Grabowski, and "Economic reforms and gender inequality in urban China," by Haoming Liu.

Since the latter half of 2010, a new round of inflation has gradually been manifesting in China. The debate regarding whether excess money supply is responsible for this inflation has attracted scholars to investigate the effects of money growth on inflation. In this paper, we use correlation analysis to confirm the comovement between growth of monetary aggregates and inflation. We explore the asymmetric effects of monetary policy on inflation using the Markov regime-switching model. The empirical results show that monetary policy can be more effective in curbing inflation in a high inflation state than in boosting the price level in a low inflation state. However, simply tightening the money supply might not be sufficient to suppress the price level. To this end, the Chinese Government should adopt other policies, such as supply stabilization policies, to help suppress the price level. Our study can help policy-makers to determine the actual economic state and provides some policy implications for the current inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using official provincial data for gross provincial product, consumer price index and other explanatory variables from 1986 to 2006, the present paper investigates the nonlinear effects of inflation on economic growth in China. The main finding of the study is that the inflation threshold effect is highly significant and robust in China. Above the 2.50 percent threshold, every 1-percentage point increase in the inflation rate impedes economic growth by 0.61 percent; below this threshold, every 1-percentage point increase in the inflation rate stimulates growth by 0.53 percent. This indicates that high inflation harms economic growth, whereas moderate inflation benefits growth. We suggest that China should maintain a moderate inflation rate for long-run growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic development since 1978 is one of the most significant events in recent history. Many aspects of this development have been extensively analyzed in the published literature. However, the implications of China's growth for other countries have been relatively neglected. The present paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. The paper first presents some facts on China's role in the world economy, and then measures the impact of China's growth on growth in the rest of the world in both the short term and the long term. Short-run estimates based on vector autoregression and error correction models suggest that spillover effects of China's growth have increased in recent decades. Long-term spillover effects, estimated through growth regressions based on panel data, are also significant and have extended in recent decades beyond Asia. The estimates are robust to the effects of global and regional shocks, changes in model specification, and sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore how satellite images of global night lights from year 1992 to 2003 can be used to estimate economic activity at the sub-regional level in the US and China. The night lights based estimates of economic activity are then spatially analysed and compared with subregional economic indicators where available for selected years. We also briefly discuss two theoretical models that shed light on the geospatial patterns reflected by the night light data. The results are presented with a series of maps, charts and tables. Resumen. En este artículo exploramos el uso potencial de imágenes de satélite de la iluminación nocturna global desde 1992 a 2003 para estimar la actividad económica a escala subregional en los EE.UU. y en China. A continuación se analizan espacialmente las estimaciones de la actividad económica basadas en la iluminación nocturna y se comparan con los indicadores económicos subregionales disponibles para los años del estudio. Discutimos también brevemente dos modelos teoréticos que podrían ilustrar los patrones geoespaciales que reflejan los datos de iluminación nocturna. Los resultados se presentan junto con una serie de mapas, gráficos y cuadros. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on household survey datasets and the framework of pro-poor growth, the present paper discusses how economic growth and inequality affect poverty reduction in urban China. The findings in this paper suggest that the poor benefit from economic growth through the trickle-down effect, but that the poor benefit disproportionally less than the nonpoor in both periods, from 1988 to 1995 and from 1995 to 2002; however, in the latter period, the pro-poorness is higher than that of the former period. Using the principle of Shapley decomposition, this paper develops an index of pro-poor growth for each income component, and finds that the income from informal jobs is the main contributor to the pro-poorness of growth during the period 1995 to 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the patterns, causes, and implications of China's structural change and its contribution to China's regional growth. Among many other findings, our regression results show that conditional convergence exists across different regions in China. Regional structural change has a convergence effect and regional openness facilitates regional structural change. Structural shocks and structural transformation had the opposite effect on China's interregional convergence during the 1990s, though the combined effect of overall structural change is a convergence effect. We also find that Chinese regions rely more heavily on structural change for labor productivity growth as the economy evolves. In summary, the results of our empirical analysis support the hypothesis underlying the theoretical model of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's relationship with Africa has grown exponentially over the last decade with US$95 billion in bilateral trade in 2008 and US$5.4 billion of Chinese investment in Africa for the same year. The growth of Sino-African relations also has an impact on the role of traditional development partners in Africa in particular in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which has already led some traditional development partners to reduce their aid budgets and subsequently their Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows to Africa. The objective of this paper is to analyse different development cooperation modalities in Africa of traditional development partners and China. This requires identifying trends in aid, debt relief, general budget support, trade, preferential trade access, and investment flows of both traditional development partners and China. The paper advocates that complementarities can be built between these development modalities on a national, regional and global level. This would enhance development effectiveness, increase efficiency and create win-win situations which would be beneficial to African countries, China and traditional development partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using simulations projecting Chinese economic growth into the future, this paper first examines when China will overtake the USA to become the largest economy. Demographic changes that affect economic growth are taken into consideration in these projections. China is expected to become number one sometime in the mid-2020s, unless its growth rate of gross domestic product per worker declines dramatically, à la the lost decade of Japan. Next, the paper examines whether China becoming the number one economy will mean its currency, the renminbi (RMB), will become the international key currency. According to the basket currency regressions during the period that Chinese currency was gradually appreciating against the US dollar from July 2005 to August 2008, it is shown that the RMB has already acquired a strong influence on the Asian currencies. This shows that the RMB is fast gaining the status of a regional anchor currency for a possible regional joint float. As the Chinese government proceeds with internationalization of its currency, the RMB is expected to gain in the ranking of other aspects of international currency, such as the store of value and the medium of exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's growth has recently been spectacularly high but there have been expressions of concern about its uneven regional distribution. It has been asserted that this has been partly due to national financial institutions (mainly state-owned banks) redirecting deposits from poor to rich regions and that this will be improved by smaller regionally-focussed institutions. We test these propositions using both informal analysis and more formal econometrics employing recent panel time-series methods. We find that (i) there is no evidence that deposits are siphoned off from the poor provinces for loans in rich provinces; (ii) financial disparities are positively related to output disparities, (iii) the link is stronger for rural credit co-operatives than for state-owned banks and (iv) the relationship is causal in both the long and short runs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the biggest carbon emitter in the world, China is facing tremendous pressure domestically and internationally. To promote the international efforts to tackle climate change, the Chinese government announced its 2020 carbon intensity target and is actively taking part in the international climate negotiations. In this paper, we review some of the climate burden-sharing proposals raised by Chinese scholars to shed some light on China's perspective on the post-Kyoto climate architecture. Then we summarize China's current pollution abatement policies and measures, and analyze some potential policy instruments for China to reconcile its future economic growth and carbon mitigation, as well as some practical design and enforcement issues to be considered for the near term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, the Chinese Government has been using land policy as an important macroeconomic policy. The present paper analyzes the impact of the expansion of construction land on economic growth in terms of the capital-output ratio. Using provincial panel data for China from 1999 to 2005, we conclude that the excess expansion of China's construction land led to an increase in the capital-output ratio. Therefore, expanding construction land has made little contribution to economic growth. This paper argues that contractionary land policy does not deter high economic growth, and is a necessary condition for a sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's sustained rapid economic growth and development has contributed to the surge in consumption and production of livestock in that country  termed the livestock revolution. Consumption trends are first reviewed, and changes in food consumption patterns include a marked shift away from grains and towards meats and dairy products. A question is to what extent this rapid increase in demand for livestock products is reflected in China's agri-food trade statistics? While her agri-food imports have dramatically increased since China's accession to the WTO, livestock products have not made a noticeable contribution, although the import of certain animal feedstuffs has. This implies China's continuing self-sufficiency in most livestock products. The paper next considers developments in China's livestock farming sector and policies that have been contributing to these supply-side developments. The paper concludes with an examination of issues that may be important to the future development of China's, and the world's, livestock situation;  this includes future demand developments, and the question of whether future demand growth in China might be met with local production, imports of final product, and/or imports of feedstuffs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After three decades of market development, the problem in China is no longer how to achieve growth but how to manage its consequences and how to sustain it. One of the most important consequences is the growing inequality – between skilled and unskilled workers, between the genders, between rural and urban areas, and between inland and coastal regions. The papers in this symposium shed light on the important issue of inequality during rapid market development in China. Analysis based on ground level empirical studies can help us to understand better the sources of the rising inequality and to illuminate the nature of the future challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic development is characterized by progressive integration with international production chains as an assembly producer. Japan and South Korea are the major partners providing intermediate products to China. The present paper analyzes the Chinese intermediate sector's present condition and evolutionary characteristics revealed in bilateral trade with Japan and South Korea. The analysis uses the framework of new trade theory represented by “intra-industry trade”. Trade statistics from 1997 to 2004 are analyzed using the database published by the OECD. Results show that China's inter-industrial evolution is characterized by its expanding positioning in the manner of the flying geese development paradigm of Asian countries. Furthermore, intra-industrial evolution is characterized by a concentration on price competitiveness. The framework and results of the industrial analysis presented in this paper assist in the understanding of China's manufacturing evolution and of the policy-making decisions taken in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the linkage between migration and development has attracted much academic and policy attention, a key aspect of the linkage, namely those left behind in the community of origin, remains under-researched. As one of the first academic attempts to provide a systematic overview of this group in China, this paper describes the basic problems faced by it, discusses the institutional causes of the problems, and explores long-term and short-term solutions. The paper first establishes the fact that, while it seems that individuals decide who migrates and who stays back, there are fundamental institutional constraints on such decisions. The paper then shows that the three main left-behind groups, namely wives, the elderly and children, encounter various problems, but in general their situation is not much worse than that of those living with all family members. Their problems cannot just be attributed to being left-behind individuals; instead, the fundamental cause is that many rural communities as a whole have been left behind economically and socially. Although migration exacerbates the hardship, preventing migration is certainly not a solution. The paper instead calls for measures to redress the urban-rural divide and to improve the provision of public goods in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses ways of adjusting the imbalances of the global economy and its impact on China's economy. The analysis in the paper shows that the cut of US fiscal deficits and the appreciation of the currencies of East Asia, including China's RMB, are necessary for a smooth adjustment of the global imbalances. The adjustments will have a positive impact on China's economy and will help China realize its external balance. The increase in public spending on the service sector along with the appreciation of RMB will help China realize the internal balance too. The adjustment of the global imbalances will create opportunities and an external pushing force for China in its industrial restructuring and shift in the model of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses regime-switching techniques to examine the similarities of GDP growth-cycle features of 10 East Asian countries. A third regime of rapid growth is relevant for most countries. In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, there was no secular slowdown in growth since the rapid-growth regime re-emerged at some stage. Japan is special since it shares each of its features with different countries, while China shares almost all its features with most countries. Finally, the same countries that were correlated with Japan in the 1980s have been linked with China since the 1990s. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid economic ascent of China and the increasing integration of the world economy in the past two decades have made metropolises in China such as Shanghai and Beijing emerging global cities. Foreign investment is a central force underlying the emergence and transformation of the Chinese metropolises into global cities. This is especially true in Shanghai, which has experienced massive infusion of foreign investment. Varied forms of foreign investment or development zones have been created to promote foreign investment inflows, yet remain under-studied. This paper analyzes structure, performance, and underlying factors of development zones in Shanghai, and discusses the implications for global city-formation; it unfolds the variations among development zones, and illustrates the significant role of the state and local conditions. As the literature on global cities dwells primarily on the experiences of advanced economies, this paper further contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of emerging global cities in the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When exploring the logic why some economies grow faster than others, previous studies commonly assume that all economies follow a universal growth path. This paper explores the heterogeneity of growth regimes across economies and then investigates the decomposition bias of growth sources in traditional methods. Using a panel data of China's provinces, the empirical results show that a finite mixture model with three classes is best to describe the data, revealing that there are multiple growth regimes across provinces. Also, some provinces switch regimes over time while the others remain stable. Further, neglecting heterogeneous regimes overestimates the importance of factor endowment and underestimates the importance of sector productivity, while it does not greatly influence the importance of of factor market efficiency. In particular, the decomposition bias embodies in physical capital and energy input rather than labor. Our findings indicate that the existing literature may underestimate the contribution of sector productivity. Thus, it is critical to account for heterogeneous regimes when exploring the sources of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic and development zones (EDZs) on the productivity of incumbent firms in China. To deal with the selection issue, I first take into account potentially different selection mechanisms across two popular types of EDZs—economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) and high‐tech development zones (HTDZs)—by relying on multiple treatment propensity scores matching techniques. Next, I apply the difference‐in‐differences estimator to the matched sample and conduct an event study analysis. The results show that the respective effects of ETDZs and HTDZs on firm productivity are positive, but subject to a nonlinear trend over time. The size of the productivity gains depends critically on the type of EDZ, however. A new HTDZ (ETDZ) leads to an average productivity gain of up to 30.2% (18.4%) for incumbent firms in the 5 years after the zone was created. These findings suggest that the size of productivity spillovers for spatially targeted firms differ quite significantly depending on the strategic development and policy goals of the EDZ: HTDZs that focus on promoting indigenous‐based factors of learning lead to higher productivity spillovers compared with ETDZs that focus on promoting extra‐local linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]