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China's breakneck economic growth has been accompanied by an expanding development finance agenda. Many have hypothesized that China is undermining the West's drive to promote good governance globally, and in Africa in particular, by predominantly distributing money to poorly governed countries. This paper explores whether the determinants of Chinese development finance in Africa differ from those of Western countries. It finds that Western countries send more development finance than China to better governed African countries—those with lower corruption levels, better democratic outcomes, and a better human rights track record (though only the latter two have a negative relationship with Chinese development finance in absolute terms). This paper also finds that bilateral trade and UN voting alignment have a stronger impact on China's development finance than that of Western countries and that China allocates more development finance than the West to richer and more resource-dependent African countries. [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]

The micropolitics involved in urbanising land is yet to be well illustrated in urban and development studies. With the case of Dahongmen in Beijing, this paper explores the governing techniques for dealing with land transformation to uncover the nature and conduct of the state in weaving together land and urban questions. Recognising the power of discourses in enacting actions, this paper focuses on two performative moments of the state in reassembling land for the urban process, corresponding to social (re)ordering and economic mechanisms respectively. Both moments are critical since new ideas, concepts, and calculative rationales are invented to reassemble land into the intermediator of the urban process, whereby the state renews its identity and authority. The state, seen from the perspective of performativity, is more like a process (with structural effects) where certain utterances are made and repeated to incorporate multiple actors in land assemblages for the urban political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of the hugely successful expansion of South-South Cooperation since the new millennium. For all the achievements, variations and change over the 1950s-late 1990s, 'SSC 1.0' was characterised by relative neglect within the 'international' development community, and by many orthodox and critical scholars. In the chronological schema of the paper, 'SSC 2.0' refers to the period of remarkable expansion from the early 2000s to the present. The emergence of 'SSC 3.0', I suggest, is currently revealed by a discernible set of shifts driven in large part by the expansionary successes of SSC 2.0, as well as other turns in the global political economy. Three contemporary trends are identified: cooperation narratives that are increasingly 'muscular', nationalistic and pragmatic; difficulties sustaining claims to 'non-interference' in partner countries; and the further erosion of ideational and operational distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are alternative definitions of vulnerability to poverty. Most researchers prefer to define vulnerability to poverty as the probability of a household or individual falling into poverty in the future. Based on this definition and using household survey panel data from rural China, this paper attempts to assess the extent to which we can measure vulnerability to poverty. The assessment is based on comparisons between estimated vulnerability and actually observed poverty. The authors find that the precision of estimation, first, varies depending on the vulnerability line; their results suggest setting the line at 50% in order to improve predictive power. Second, precision depends on how permanent income is estimated. Assuming log-normal distribution of future income, it is preferable to use past weighted average income as an estimate of permanent income rather than using regressions to gauge permanent income. Third, estimation precision depends on the chosen poverty line. The percentage of overlap between households estimated to be vulnerable and those actually poor rises when a higher poverty line of US$2 is used instead of US$1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Chinese industry over the past half century that seek to improve on earlier estimates in several respects: better data series are developed for capital and labour; the production function is estimated with fewer restrictive assumptions and corrected for serial correlation; and the TFP estimates are adjusted for cyclical fluctuations. The paper also offers a broader than usual interpretation of TFP growth. Its main findings are: (i) that over the whole period 1952-2005 the main source of industrial output growth was capital accumulation; (ii) that during the period since 1980 TFP growth also contributed significantly to industrial output growth; and (iii) that TFP growth in Chinese industry accelerated from the late 1980s, probably as a result of changes in the pattern of ownership and increased integration into the world economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses growing inequality in the rising powers, concentrating on the situation in China and India. It describes the various processes that are currently underway to reduce inequality in these economies. These processes include a combination of tightening the labour market, as best seen in China, increasing rural productivity and implementing government measures to boost basic rural incomes in all such countries. Reductions in inequality in the emerging economies have a global macro-economic effect of increasing consumption, thus counteracting the current global slowdown. They also have the benefit of creating more space at the bottom for poorer economies to take up more of the world's low-skill production, as the emerging economies themselves move up to higher skill production and exports. This sequential upgrading is being driven by the growth of emerging economy markets and by wage increases in these economies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is widely believed that the acceleration of growth since reforms began in 1978 has increased regional disparities in China. This paper examines whether this is the case for GDP per capita, labour productivity and technical efficiency in industry in 30 regions from 1978 to 2005. The unexpected conclusion is that over the whole period, there has been convergence rather than divergence: more backward regions have caught up with leading regions. The process of regional convergence was especially strong from 1978 to 1990. In the 1990s, there was divergence, but convergence resumed after 2000, leaving regional inequalities in 2005 much smaller than in 1978. Possible theoretical and policy explanations for the observed pattern are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various measures of satisfaction with life or happiness in China appear not to have risen in recent years, despite China's remarkable growth of income per capita. The paper brings together and integrates the results of four papers by the authors to provide a methodologically and substantively innovative explanation for this paradox. The four papers are based on a cross-section national household survey relating to 2002 and containing questions on subjective well-being. Their findings help to explain the time-series evidence: they highlight the importance of relative income, rising urban insecurity, rapid urbanization, and changing reference groups in preventing happiness from rising with income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an ambitious attempt to view the relationships involving education and income as forming a system, and one that can generate a poverty trap. The setting is rural China, and the data are from a national household survey for 2002, designed with research hypotheses in mind. The paper shows how and why the returns to education vary according to household and community income. It examines the effects of education on income, innovation, health and happiness, and shows how education can be important in helping people to escape from various dimensions of poverty. The results are brought together to form an empirical model of a poverty trap, and the implications for poverty analysis and for educational policy are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Together with a companion paper to be published in the March 2010 issue, this is an ambitious attempt to view the relationships involving education and income as forming a system, and one that can generate a poverty trap. The setting is rural China, and the data are from a national household survey for 2002, designed with research hypotheses in mind. Enrolment is high in rural China in comparison with most poor rural societies, but the quality of education varies greatly. The paper analyses the determinants of drop-out from middle school and of continuation to high school. It also examines the determinants of pupil performance, time spent learning, and educational expenditure. Poverty is found to have an adverse effect on both the quantity and quality of education—so contributing to a poverty trap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the meaning of “old age” in reform-era Beijing from complementary perspectives. Based on extensive, multi-sited anthropological fieldwork and document analysis, it contrasts the experiences of older people in Beijing with a critical investigation of public debates about “old age”. The paper examines older people's narratives about their gains and losses in the reform era and analyses several of their strategies to deal with rapid social change. It is argued that current debates about “old age” in Beijing tend to view older people as a collective, quantitative threat to the social structure or as pitiful recipients of rapid social change. Older people as active agents of social change are largely absent from these debates. It is suggested that the tension between public portrayals of “old age” by younger and middle-aged people and the experiences of older people is indicative of different, generation-based judgements of continuity and change in the reform era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the processes of indigenous (global South) innovation, particularly of the “high-tech” and “radical” kind, which have spurred technological catch-up, using the example of a third-generation (3G) Chinese mobile communications technology standard. Three hypotheses were generated from this study: (a) modularity-in-design opens new windows of opportunity for technological catching-up; (b) the lack of essential intellectual property rights acts as a key inducement, or a factor-saving bias, that influences the rate and direction of indigenous innovation in the global South; and (c) the long tail of an old technology affects the take-off of a new indigenous innovation, essentially by shortening the technological distance to be covered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper sketches a picture, with broad strokes on a wide canvas, of thinking about, and outcomes in, development during the second half of the 20th Century, to stress the importance of learning and “unlearning” from experience. In doing so, it questions the caricature distinctions between success and failure at development, in a world where outcomes were mixed. This is illustrated vividly by a tale of two countries: China and India. In this time span, thinking about development witnessed a complete swing of the pendulum, from the Development Consensus to the Washington Consensus. These shifts in paradigm, which reshaped strategies of development, were influenced strongly by history and conjuncture, reinforced by the dominant political ideology of the times. However, changes in development strategies did not lead to the expected outcomes. In fact, there was a discernible mismatch between turning points in thinking and performance. Of course, experience of the past 50 years did lead to some rethinking about development. This learning from experience, however, was selective; and it differed across schools of thought, for it was shaped only in part by outcomes. It was also influenced significantly by priors in thinking and ideology in perspectives. Thus, attempts to unlearn from development, which questioned beliefs or changed previous beliefs embedded in ideologies, were few and far between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation has widely been regarded as one of the main drivers of economic growth in the knowledge economy. This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the development of regional innovation capabilities using a panel data set from China. It finds that FDI has a significant positive impact on the overall regional innovation capacity. FDI intensity is also positively associated with innovation efficiency in the host region. The strength of this positive effect depends, however, on the availability of the absorptive capacity and the presence of innovation-complementary assets in the host region. The increased regional innovation and technological capabilities have contributed further to regional economic growth in China's coastal regions but not in the inland regions. It concludes that the type and quality of FDI inflows and the strength of local absorptive capacity and complementary assets in the host regions are crucial for FDI to serve as a driver of knowledge-based development. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of modernization in China is occurring in a context of rapid population ageing—the reverse of the sequence in the West—and presents serious challenges to the tradition of reliance on family and work unit support. This paper examines the impact of post-Mao economic reform, including the de-collectivization of agriculture, the loosening of restrictions on migration, and housing and enterprise reform, on the support systems of China's elderly. Delivering family support has become increasingly problematic, and researchers and policy-makers have begun urging the Chinese government to take practical steps to alleviate the situation. They point out that most children are doing whatever they can, but that the financial and opportunity costs of providing care exceed what is possible. They urge the government to address problems of elderly poverty by developing rural pension schemes, major illness insurance and long-term care insurance, by increasing hospital and community health services for the elderly, and by training basic-level workers in the special needs of the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores China's competitive threat to Latin America in trade in manufactured goods. The direct threat to exports to third country markets appears small: Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC's) trade structure is largely complementary to that of China. In bilateral trade, several LAC countries are increasing primary and resource-based exports to China. However, the pattern of trade, with LAC .specializing increasingly in resource-based products and China in manufactured goods, seems worrying. Given cumulative capability building. China's success in increasingly technology-based products with strong learning externalities can place it on a higher growth path them specialization in "simpler" goods, as in LAC. China may thus affect LAC's technological upgrading in exports and industrial production. The issue is not so much current competition as the "spaces" open for LAC in the emerging technology-based world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has achieved spectacular growth since 1949. Rapid growth in the nonagricultural sectors has been assisted by massive resource transfers out of agriculture. Prior to economic reforms before 1978, agriculture was heavily taxed by the state to subsidize urban and industrial development. Economic reforms since 1978 have reduced the burden on agriculture, but lack of state investments still remains a constraint on its development. This paper demonstrates how agriculture has contributed to China's economic development using both empirical data and a cointegration analysis. Two important conclusions are drawn. First, although agriculture's share in GDP declined sharply over time, it is still an important force for the growth of other sectors. Second, the growth of non-agricultural sectors had little effect on agricultural growth. This was largely due to government policies biased against agriculture and restriction on rural-urban migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the emergence of carbon standards and labels, with a focus on China as one of the key drivers of the future global economy. The article attempts to answer two questions. First, as Chinese firms take on more substantive roles in global production networks, how do they deal with environmental and sustainability standards, especially those which concern carbon footprints and emission reduction in production and supply chains? Second, to what extent and how is China likely to become active in setting sustainability standards in tomorrow's markets? The underlying question is: what strategies do Chinese actors follow in response to carbon standards? The core argument of the article is that China cannot choosewhether, but onlyhow, to react to the emergence of international carbon standards. Ignoring and/or mitigating such standards are not viable options, at least in the short run. The most promising pathway for Chinese actors is to leverage either their own standards, i.e. ones tailored to their needs and preferences, or standards which they have already helped to transform in favour of their interests by engaging in international standard-setting processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a study on the competitiveness of Mexican exports in light of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. A summary of S. Lall and J. Weiss's findings on the same subject matter is presented. Data used in the study is described. Results show that Chinese goods penetration in global markets may have a significant impact on Mexico.

It has been acknowledged in the literature that productive efficiency in grain production in China has substantially improved in the post-reform period, particularly in the early 1980s. Since then, there have been several policy changes in China, which have affected the growth of the sector. Specifically, the spectacular growth of rural industries has attracted significant physical and human capital from agriculture. It is in this context that Brown’s warning of China soon becoming the world's number one importer of grain has raised an important question of whether China has reached its grain production potential. Analysis of the 1994 farm household survey data indicates that the majority of the sample farmers is reasonably technically efficient in grain production but that productivity can be increased further even with the existing technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid economic growth in East Asia has often been attributed to cultural preconditions. In the case of China, high economic growth has been attributed to Confucian emphases on loyalty, reciprocal social obligations, and the pre-eminence of the group over the individual. These cultural attributes are said to be manifested especially in the practice of guanxi, a distinctive style of inter-firm networking based on trust and mutual obligations. We suggest that cultural explanations of guanxi networking behaviour appear to conflict with standard economic assumptions of rationality and utility maximisation. We argue that guanxi networks can be better understood if modelled on these standard economic assumptions. For this purpose we use a network games approach. We find that guanxi-type behaviour can be generated by the model, such that culture-based explanations appear unnecessary. Thus, we argue, guanxi behaviour can be explained in a way more consistent with rational agents and maximising behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years concerns have been raised over the impact of Chinese competition on Latin American exports, particularly those from Mexico. This article shows that Brazilian manufactured exports too have been negatively affected, and that this has been reflected in the “primarization” of Brazilian exports and a declining share in the import markets of its major customers. A variety of different indicators were used to analyse the extent to which Brazilian exports have faced competition from China. Constant Market Share analysis was then applied to estimate the quantitative significance of Chinese competition for Brazilian exports. This shows that Brazil has lost markets to China in the USA, in the EU and in its major Latin American markets, particularly since 2004. This has occurred not only in low-technology products but also increasingly in high-technology products, and Brazil has not been able to compensate for losses to China through increasing exports of more sophisticated products. It was also found that Chinese competition intensified in the Latin American market following the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a growing recognition that the “Rising Powers”, namely the emerging economies, in particular, but not only, China, India and Brazil, whose economic dynamism has begun to transform the contours of the global economy, will bring about radical shifts in global governance. A critical question that arises is how might these countries influence the “rules of the game” that pertain to international trade, particularly those relating to process standards associated with labour conditions and environmental impacts. This special issue provides an initial attempt to address this agenda. This article defines the concept of “Rising Powers” and considers how these economies might challenge the governance of labour and environmental standards. It outlines the objectives of this collection, provides an overview of individual contributions and suggests areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the late 1990s, China enacted a rural tax reform known as the “Tax-for-Fee Reform” (TFR), largely driven by a desire to address farmers' complaints about what they perceived as a heavy and regressive tax burden. This study examines the impact of the TFR on inequality in rural villages in China. Our results suggest that the TFR plays an effective role in reducing inequality within villages. Its impact on a consumption-based measure of inequality took effect immediately; its impact on per capita household income inequality took somewhat longer. Our results also suggest that it was “rich” and/or “coastal” villages that exhibited a significant reduction of inequality as a result of the TFR, whereas “poor” and/or “inland” villages experienced no significant changes in inequality from the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to catch up with the current technological frontier, firms, especially in developing countries, try to acquire technological advancement through internal R&D efforts, as well as through external technology-sourcing activities. This study tests whether these two sources of technology acquisition are complements or substitutes for each other in small- and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing firms. The evidence that we present shows some signs of complementarity between the two sources of knowledge in reaching a higher unconditional intensity of product innovation for firms with 100–300 employees and, in general, a significant degree of substitutability between them in achieving higher levels of labour productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's recent political and economic inroads into Africa have generated much interest in the current literature, with scholars and policymakers endeavouring to assess the merits and risks implicit in this renewed engagement. Absent from the literature, however, are systematic analyses of African perceptions of these rapidly growing China–Africa links, and what determines these perceptions. This article fills this void by examining not only African attitudes towards China's African presence, but also investigating the considerations that inform these views. Using multi-level modelling techniques, this article estimates the effects of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI), Sino-African trade and notions of democracy and human rights on African attitudes towards “China-in-Africa”. The results suggest that Africans' views of China are nearly equivalent to those that they hold vis-à-vis Western countries. The perceived impact of imports from China has a negative effect. However, this effect is counter-balanced by perceptions of China's impact on poverty alleviation—in line with its greater focus on economic, social and cultural, as opposed to civic and political human rights—in particular through FDI. Among those who value civic and political human rights, in contrast, attitudes towards China are less favourable. This finding is echoed with respect to democratic governance, though the effect is less stable. The results are derived from Afrobarometer data covering 20 African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a gravity model, this article examines the impact of the rise of China's textile and clothing (T&C) sector on the exports of its Asian counterparts. It was established that China's textile exports posed a greater competitive threat than its clothing exports to the T&C exports of other Asian economies. It was also found that higher-income Asian economies fared better than their lower-income counterparts. This is because the higher-income Asian economies tended to be specialized in segments of the T&C sector less exposed to Chinese competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nationally representative rural labour force survey of China is analysed to explore the allocation of labour among farming, local non-farming and temporary migration activities. Various tests of labour market segmentation are conducted. The estimated returns to labour off the farm greatly exceed those on the farm. The personal and household determinants of activities, and of days worked in them, are examined for demand or supply constraints on employment; some results are consistent with the former. The relationship between days worked off and on the farm suggests that the opportunity cost to households of non-farm work is very low. The evidence is consistent with there being rationing of non-farm employment. However, tastes, imperfect information, imperfect capital markets, risk-aversion and transaction costs are also relevant. The overcoming of the obstacles to diversification away from farming is important for rural development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the fiscal relationship between central and provincial governments in China over the period of economic reform within an agency framework. Importance implications of China's vast size; Details on China's governments; Explanation on the fiscal reforms of the mid-1990s; Plot of the revenue incentives for a province.

Presents information on a study that examines the determinants of job status among members of rural households in China. Investigation on the study's two hypothesis; Available employment choices and labor allocation constraints; Model of job sector selection and job rationing; Conclusions.

Examines income insolvability sources at the household and village levels in seven villages of Hebei province in China. Rural spatial differentiation in China; Theory of spatial polarization; Data used on the study; Estimation of household income functions; Comparisons of labour allocation and productivity; Cumulative causation processes at work; Conclusion.

Utilizes the twin concepts of necessity and purpose to examine the evolution of institutional arrangements in Chinese agriculture. Description of the bureaucratic structure for planning; Description of the reforms since the late 1970s in the rural sectors of China; References to related studies.