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The double-carbon goal proposal has made it imperative for China's power industry to address the urgent issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and promoting their clean and efficient use. A new approach to achieving peak-shaving and improving grid stability is the combination of carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities with coal-fired power plants, which offers a strategic solution for mitigating climate change. Nonetheless, the viability of CCS retrofitting for coal-fired power plants in China hinges on its economic feasibility. The technical characteristics, economic analysis, and policy implications of clean coal-fired power plant equipped with CCS (CCP-CCS) technologies are evaluated in the paper. A comparison of the characteristics of different clean coal power generation technologies, including capacity, efficiency, coal consumption, and environmental performance, is conducted. The paper analyzes the economic feasibility of four typical clean coal power generation technologies, namely Supercritical (SC), Ultra-supercritical (USC), Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), and Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB), both with and without CCS, using the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model. Financial parameters, investment parameters, operation and maintenance parameters, tax parameters, and capacity parameters are all considered in the LCOE model. The results indicate: (1) If CCS is not installed, the LCOE of USC power plants is the lowest at 0.37 yuan/kWh, while the LCOE of IGCC power plants is the highest at 0.44 yuan/kWh. (2) If CCS is installed, the LCOE of CFB units is the highest at 0.74 yuan/kWh, while the LCOE of USC units is the lowest at 0.60 yuan/kWh. (3) In sensitivity analysis, coal prices have the most significant impact on LCOE, followed by expected annual operating hours, while the cost of carbon capture equipment is the least sensitive. (4) The cost of retrofitting CCS on clean coal-fired power plants (CCP) is currently high, with an LCOE increase of around 40 to 70%, which is comparable to that of renewable energy electricity. This paper presents policy recommendations, including preferential loans, tax incentives, and R&D funding, to promote the development of CCP in China based on the economic analysis results and challenges faced by CCP. Additionally, the paper proposes relevant policy implications such as preferential loan policies, a diversified financing system, R&D and innovation, and the establishment of a carbon trading market for CCS in China to provide practical guidance for the promotion of CCP-CCS technologies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s growing economic importance has led to a significant increase in the volume of empirical research about business and management in this country during the last few years. This study reviews the 180 empirical papers focusing on the Chinese context that were published in 12 leading international academic journals between 2000 and 2005. A summary of the methodologies used and the topics analysed is offered, along with various rankings of journals, authors, institutions, and papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger study, this paper presents findings from my exploration of discourses about China-US geopolitics through popular discussions on Chinese international students (CIS) who are attending American universities during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. The study seeks to advance scholarship for international students attending American colleges, with particular implications for Chinese students, as agents of geopolitical relations. In doing so, it investigates (a) how these students are represented in American media and (b) the criticality of international geopolitics in the mobility of international students. The findings reveal that American popular media sources assume a tone when writing about CIS that may stem from a deeper anti-Chinese sentiment that exists in the US. They also suggest that American institutions of higher education, and American companies that employ CIS after graduation, treat these students as imported subjects/objects that support America's intellectual and economic advancement. In doing so, the media perpetuates narratives of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, while representing CIS as unwitting agents of those tensions. The study seeks to advance scholarship on international students attending US colleges, particularly those from China, during an era of rising populism and right-wing movements in the US coupled with rapidly deteriorating US-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses spatial simultaneous equation models to analyze the two-way mechanism between environmental regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI). The results, based on data from 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2014, show the following. (1) Not only does environmental regulation have a significant impact on the location choice of FDI, but FDI tends to flow to a city with more relaxed environmental regulation. Environmental regulation can also trigger the near transfer effect of FDI. (2) FDI has a significant spatial spillover effect and this spatial spillover effect has an important impact on FDI and environmental regulation in a particular city. (3) Although multinationals choose a city with more relaxed environmental regulations when they invest in China, FDI inflows have increased both the number and severity of local environmental regulations, indicating that the “pollution haven” hypothesis does not hold in China. (4) Environmental regulation has a significant spatial spillover effect, and this spatial spillover effect has an important impact on both environmental regulation and FDI in cities. In China, there is also a local competitive effect of environmental regulation, albeit with significant regional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the export growth of China's information communication technology (ICT) products in two major markets Japan and the US from 1995 to 2008 and its competition with six East Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Korea. The analysis shows that China has emerged as the largest single supplier of ICT products to both markets. By 2008, China's exports accounted for 44 and 38% of total Japanese and the US ICT imports respectively. On the other hand, market shares of the six East Asian countries either remained stagnant or decreased substantially. The analysis by destination markets and by product categories indicates that, there exist significant negative correlations between market shares of China and that of the six East Asian countries, implying that the rapid expansion of China's ICT exports crowded out exports of its East Asian competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of findings from a recent survey of quality of urban life (QOUL) in Hong Kong which focuses on: (a) individuals’ subjective assessment of their overall quality of life (QOL) and of a set of QOL life domains, and (b) their level of satisfaction for three levels of QOUL living domains: their housing, their neighbourhood, and Hong Kong as a whole. Differences between demographic and socio-economic groups are discussed. The paper also reports on preliminary results of multivariate modelling to identify factors that might explain variations in individual levels of satisfaction with their overall QOL and with the three levels of QOUL living domains. The Hong Kong survey of QOUL is compared to those of Brisbane and of the greater Detroit region to highlight differences between urban regions in the east and west. The results show that Hong Kong is still lagging far behind the two western regions in most aspects of the QOL life domains and the three QOUL living domains. The comparisons have implied that the differences between these urban regions are beyond east-west influence in the perception of quality of life and more attributable to disparities in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English language education has always been accorded paramount importance in China since the mid-1980s. In order to improve English teaching quality, China has initiated several rounds of English curriculum reform at various levels against the backdrop of the unprecedented spread of English as a lingua franca. Drawing upon the texts of the national curriculum documents and the relevant research literature, this paper examines the evolution of the College English curriculum for non-English majors in Chinese higher institutions over the past three decades. It reviews a number of what we see as the most important trends relating to the College English curriculum development, together with some discussion of particularly controversial issues arising from this process. We base the paper's findings on a three-part theoretical framework consisting of social development, students' needs and knowledge development to identify the factors which provide the impetus for change in the College English curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the typhoon disasters frequently occur, by which the economic loss caused is paid more and more attention. Combined with the uncertainty of real economy and the structure of detailed departments' classification, traditional input-output models are extended in this paper. Moreover, static and dynamic models of economy and input-output are, respectively, constructed to evaluate the direct and indirect economic loss caused by typhoon disasters for related industrial departments. It is shown that when referring our proposed static model, the four dominant departments' loss affected by typhoon in 2013 is 1271.9248 billion Yuan in total, accounting for 75.5303% of the total industrial product loss. In the case of the dynamic model, the longer the time of the sector returns to normal production, the bigger the cumulative economic loss caused by typhoon is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development (included in both the 11th and the 12th 'Five Year Plan'), escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as 'an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air deterioration caused by pollution has harmed public health. The existing studies on the economic loss caused by a variety of air pollutants in multiple cities are lacking. To understand the effect of different pollutants on public health and to provide the basis of the environmental governance for governments, based on the dose-response relation and the willingness to pay, this paper used the latest available data of the inhalable particulate matter (PM) and sulphur dioxide (SO) from January 2015 to June 2015 in 74 cities by establishing the lowest and the highest limit scenarios. The results show that (1) in the lowest and highest limit scenario, the health-related economic loss caused by PM and SO represented 1.63 and 2.32 % of the GDP, respectively; (2) For a single city, in the lowest and the highest limit scenarios, the highest economic loss of the public health effect caused by PM and SO was observed in Chongqing; the highest economic loss of the public health effect per capita occurred in Hebei Baoding. The highest proportion of the health-related economic loss accounting for GDP was found in Hebei Xingtai. The main reason is that the terrain conditions are not conducive to the spread of air pollutants in Chongqing, Baoding and Xingtai, and the three cities are typical heavy industrial cities that are based on coal resources. Therefore, this paper proposes to improve the energy structure, use the advanced production process, reasonably control the urban population growth, and adopt the emissions trading system in order to reduce the economic loss caused by the effects of air pollution on public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth in China's domestic investment in recent decades has generated a large appetite for global goods, including from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper estimates the impact of changes in China's investment growth on SSA's exports. Although rising trading links with China have allowed African countries to diversify their export base across countries away from advanced economies, they have also led SSA countries to become more susceptible to spillovers from China. Based on panel data analysis, a one percentage point increase (decline) in China's domestic investment growth is associated with an average 0.6 percentage point increase (decline) in SSA countries' export growth. This impact is larger for resource-rich countries, especially oil exporters. These effects could be mitigated, however, to the extent that countries can reorient their exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affected by user demand and policy, the technological innovation speed and economic efficiency of different power technologies will change internally. By setting different policy scenarios, based on the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model, the paper comprehensively compared the impact of different policy portfolios and policy input intensity on the economics and stage of power technologies, and the market competitiveness evolution of coal power and renewable energy power is mainly analyzed. After 2020, with the increase in coal fuel prices and the acceleration of nuclear power technology learning, the LCOE of coal power has shown an upward trend, while the LCOE of nuclear power has shown the declining year by year. With the positive effects of technological innovation and diffusion, the LCOE of solar photovoltaic power (PV), and centralized solar power (CSP) technologies has also shown a downward trend year by year. In Scenario 1, continuing the existing energy policies, the LCOE of wind power, solar PV and CSP was significantly lower than coal power in 2040. In Scenario 2, implementing low-level coal resource tax, environmental tax, carbon tax and PV price subsidy, the LCOE of wind power and solar PV power was lower than coal power in 2030, and the LCOE of CSP was lower than coal power in 2040. In Scenario 3, implementing more rigorous energy policies, with the obvious economic advantages, the alternative of new energy power sources such as wind power and solar PV power is stronger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple risks have been building up in the Chinese economy during the past decade, exposing it to a possible financial crisis of increasing likelihood. Based upon the inductive reasoning from the conventional key indicators discussed by economists, this paper also adds a deductive reasoning by examining the incentive structure for key players in the Chinese political economy to gauge the risk of a financial crisis in China. It highlights the political and structural factors that are responsible for soft budget constraint, moral hazard from major players, and the lack of institutional foundation for sovereign credibility. It argues that recent policies have not only failed to address these issues but instead have further damaged the credible commitment of the state to the market economy and ratcheted up the course of a great meltdown. This paper calls for a fundamental institutional change in China’s political economy in order to prevent perversion in the state-market interaction from spawning both political and economic crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounded in signaling theory, this paper investigates the signals reflecting product quality, innovativeness, reputation and cultural background which influence film performance, that is, film survival (duration on cinema screen) and box office success, in China’s changing institutional context. This market has grown substantially and still possesses potential for further development. However, China’s unique institutional context presents challenges. By examining an expanded range of potential signals, two of which have not previously been examined in the literature, namely imported films and enhanced format film formats such as 3D and IMAX, we develop a conceptual framework and argue that signaling theory needs to be combined with institutional context. Similar to findings for film industries in other countries, we find quality and reputational signals including budget, star power, sequels, and online consumer reviews to be important in China. However, unique results are also revealed. Chinese consumers react to an innovativeness signal in that they are specifically attracted to enhanced format films. Film award nominations and prizes are insignificant reputational signals. Once other signals are taken into account, imported films on average do not perform as well as domestic films. We link these findings to China’s unique institutional setting and offer important implications for management, recognizing the challenges to film companies of competing in an increasingly globalized market. This paper is also of relevance to policymakers given their continued efforts in shaping the development of China’s film industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political budget cycles in democracies have been extensively analyzed, but few studies of non-democracies exist. This paper explores political budget cycles in China's provinces. Using data from Chinese provinces from 1980 to 2006, the analysis finds that the effects of a provincial leader's tenure on political budget cycles are minimal, implying a weak causal relationship between spending composition and a politician's time in office at the provincial level. However, there exists a national coordinated cycle associated with the timing of the National Congress of the Communist Party (NCCP). Two years prior to the NCCP, politicians are likely to shift public spending toward capital expenditures, such as innovation funds and capital construction, and away from current expenditures, such as agricultural subsidies. The opposite pattern occurs during the year of the NCCP, when politicians increase current expenditures, such as social expenditures and government administration, and decrease capital expenditures. The increased capital expenditures 2 years prior to the NCCP are accompanied by an increase in taxation and total aggregate spending. The empirical results indicate that provincial budget cycles are mainly driven by national policies rather than by provincial leaders' personal career incentives. Chinese leaders' fiscal behaviors are constrained by the dynamics of the national leadership transition, resulting in similar distortions to those found in the democratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Decomposing the GDP growth from 1981 to 2004, this paper finds that innovation capacity has contributed significantly to the economic growth of China and India, especially in the 1990 s. Outputs of the national innovation system, measured by patents and high-tech/service exports, demonstrate the considerable progress China and India have made in innovation capacity. The enhanced innovation capacity of China and India is primarily due to their heavy investment in the inputs of innovation system, i.e., R&D expenditure and R&D personnel, in recent decades. This paper emphasizes the role that the governments have played in promoting innovation capacity and their contribution to economic development. Both governments have transformed their national innovation systems through linking the science sector with the business sector, providing incentives for innovation activities, and balancing import of technology and indigenous R&D effort. Using case studies of domestic biotech firms in China and India, this paper also offers micro-level insights on innovation capacity and economic development: (1) innovation capacity has become essential for domestic firms' market success and (2) global institutional factors and national government policies on innovation have considerable influence on the choice of innovation at the firm level, i.e., to conduct indigenous R&D or to import foreign technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a systematic assessment of China’s non-governmental microcredit practice. Based on survey results and existing key reports, this paper reviews the evolution and current situation, discusses the policy and legal framework, assesses the poverty outreach and social impact, and extracts the problems and challenges. This paper concludes with presenting some potential initiatives to address the key restrictive issues for sustainable development of the non-governmental microcredit sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy saving and emission reduction sometimes mean high cost, so companies do not have enough motivation to always support the related policy. By neglecting the economic cost and the imperfect substitution among input factors, widely used energy efficiency indicators such as "energy intensity" will sometimes lead to uneconomic results. Based on the theory of economic efficiency, "energy economic efficiency" is proposed as a new energy efficiency measurement to integrate cost information. In this paper, we further discuss energy economic efficiency, propose supplementary properties, and measure the efficiency of twelve public thermal power companies during the period of China's 12th five-year plan. Our results show that (2) the economic efficiency of the twelve public companies decreased slowly. The average economic efficiency was 0.82, and there was approximately 40 billion RMB in potential cost savings in 2015, accounting for 18% of the total cost. (2) The energy economic efficiency of these twelve companies increased by approximately 10% during 2011–2015. (3) The primary mission of most thermal power company is to improve the coal combustion technology. (Christensen 4) When expanding production, the input factors will sometimes be uncoordinated, which will lead to increased costs and decreased energy economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective technology transfer across borders is very complex and difficult. There are so many factors that affect the effectiveness of technology transfer across borders, and the host country’s institutional profile is a critical factor. The country institutional profile reflects the institutional environment in that country and is defined as the set of all relevant institutions that have been established over time, that operate in that country, and that are transmitted into organizations through individuals (Kostova , ; Kostova and Roth ) [Country institutional profiles: Concept and measurement. Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, pp. 180–189; Transnational transfer of strategic organizational practices: A contextual perspective. Academy of Management Review, 24(2), 308–324; Adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of multinational corporations: Institutional and relational effects. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1), 213–233.]. There have been some studies about the relationship between institutional profile and technology transfer, but there are few studies with a Chinese context. Technology transfer plays an important role in developing countries and has been as one of vital strategies to build an innovative nation in China. Therefore, it is urgent to focus on the relationship between China’s institutional profile and technology transfer. The results of structural equation modeling, the subject of this paper, were based on an empirical study of 167 foreign ventures sampled in China, but they did not fully confirm what the institutional theory emphasized about the effectiveness of technology transfer. The normative dimension of the country institutional profile was shown to have a significantly positive effect on the effectiveness of technology transferring across borders, but contrary to expectations, the regulatory dimension of the country institutional profile was shown to have a significantly negative effect on the effectiveness of technology transfer, while the cognitive dimension has no significant effect on it. The concluding section of the paper discusses some practical implications and potential future study directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As is well known, Chinese central government has full authority to determine the provincial and local officials’ turnover. However, China has not in detail interpreted the standards of officials’ promotions so far. In this paper, the latest database of city-level leaders for the period between 2002 and 2013 is utilized to investigate the influences of economic performance on party secretaries’ odds of being promoted. The estimation results by a panel multinomial logit method indicate that municipal annual GDP per capita is significantly positively associated with leaders’ chances of promotion. Specifically, the average GDP growth rates during leaders’ tenures have much higher effects. Moreover, some important factors of leaders’ personal characteristics also affect the political turnover. For instance, party secretaries’ connection with China’s Communist Youth League, political experience, educational level and professional expertise all have positive impacts on their chances of obtaining a promotion. In contrast, leaders’ ages and tenures are found to be negatively related to their promotion possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has East Asia had such a poor record of regional leadership? This is an important question given the fact that East Asia is synonymous with remarkable economic growth and development. At one level, the absence of indigenous leadership might not seem to matter. And yet, when America’s “long-distance” leadership is in apparent decline and China is actively seeking to assert itself, the question of leadership has assumed renewed importance. This paper considered the nature and importance of leadership and explores its impact in case studies of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the so-called “global financial crisis” of the late 2000s. At this stage, it is unlikely that China will be able to replace America’s leadership role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines alternative hypotheses of beta convergence for different measures of energy efficiency. We collect a novel set of prefecture-level data that substantially extend the breadth of the datasets ever used in this literature. GMM estimators are then used to empirically test the national and club convergence of energy efficiency among these prefectures. We find strong evidence for prefecture-level national and club convergence in energy efficiency. In particular, the listed key environmental protection (KEP) prefectures, prefectures in central and western regions and prefectures not listed as resource-based (RB) converge faster than the non-KEP prefectures, prefectures in eastern region and RB prefectures. Sensitivity analyses suggest that these results are robust to alternative measures of energy efficiency and GMM specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does internationalization promote or inhibit home country charitable donation for firms from developing countries? This is an important question that remains poorly studied. This paper aims to address this question by focusing on Chinese internationalizing firms. We maintain that while broadening overseas markets brings financial returns to Chinese firms, their domestic charitable donation may decrease with the level of internationalization. Drawing on the resource dependence theory, we argue that the more Chinese firms depend on overseas sales, the less important domestic stakeholders are for their survival, and therefore they are less likely to make charitable donations within China. Further, we maintain that this negative relationship between internationalization and home country charitable donation is attenuated by Chinese firms’ state-ownership. This is because state-ownership provides the firms with alternative sources of critical resources that alleviate their dependence on the international markets. We tested and supported our theory using data collected from all public firms in China between 2008 and 2012. Theoretical and policy implications are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flash floods are one of the most disastrous natural hazards and cause serious loss of life and economic damage every year. Flooding frequently affects many regions in China, including periodically catastrophic events. An extensive compilation of the available data has been conducted across various hydroclimatological regions to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of flash floods in China. This inventory includes over 782 documented events and is the first step toward establishing an atlas of extreme flash flood occurrences in China. This paper first presents the data compilation strategy, details of the database contents, and the typical examples of first-hand analysis results. The subsequent analysis indicates that the most extreme flash floods originate mainly from small catchments over complex terrains and results in dominantly small- and medium-sized flooding events in terms of scales; however, these events, abrupt and seasonally recurrent in nature, account for a large proportion of the overall flooding-related disasters, especially disproportionately affecting elderly and youth populations. Finally, this study also recommends several immediate measures could be implemented to mitigate high impacts of deadly flash floods, although it still requires long-term significant efforts to protect human life and property in a country like China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil is the basic factor of economic development, and its impacts of international crude oil market on stock markets have attracted wide attention from scholars. Based on the historical data of stock markets in China and the United States and international crude oil price during January 2003-December 2016, this paper employs the Vector Auto Regression-Generalized Auto Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (VAR-GARCH) model to explore the mean and volatility spillover effects between international crude oil market and stock market. The results show that, first, there are two-way mean spillover effects between the US stock market and international crude oil market, while only one-way volatility effects from international crude oil market to the US stock market. Second, only one-way mean spillover effects from international crude oil market to Chinese stock market, and there is no evidence of volatility spillover effects between Chinese stock market and international crude oil market. The relationship between international crude oil price and China's stock market shows a gradual strengthening trend, the linkage between them should not be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of international crisis in China. It states that the export led growth model has allowed China to insert itself into the world production system, however, it has brought to excessive unbalances of the economy coupled with protectionist control of financial markets, repressed domestic consumption and excessive saving accumulation. Moreover, the rising costs in labour and commodities are speedily worsening the term of trade and the current trade is also declining.

In this paper, we examine and compare the two important production hubs in Asia: China and Greater China and India and South Asia. We show that in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, manufacturing trade has continued to be highly relevant, with trade in parts and components growing in importance. In contrast, in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, trade in parts and components remain limited. We then calculate various revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indices, which China having more components with RCA values exceeding one. Some of the most important components exported by China include electronic parts and telecommunication parts. One explanation is to why India is relatively weak in parts and components trade is that India is strong in service trade. Other reasons may be related to better port infrastructure, higher research and development intensity and higher educational enrollments in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's social welfare reform since the mid-1980s has been characterized as incremental and fragmented in three dimensions-social insurance, privatization, and targeting. This paper attempts to explore the micro-foundation of China's urban social welfare reform by examining the diverse social welfare preferences and the cleavages among societal groups. It argues that the diversity of the societal groups' preferences for social welfare has given rise to two lines of cleavage in urban China with respect to social welfare-between state sector and non-state sector employees and between labor market insiders and outsiders. The Chinese authoritarian regime's political priority-economic growth with social stability-has induced the government to accommodate public social welfare preferences in social welfare policies. Therefore, the three dimensions of Chinese social welfare reform policies since the mid-1980s reflect and respond to the social cleavages derived from societal groups' different preferences for social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the simple fuzzy linear regression model to multiple fuzzy linear regression model in which response variable is fuzzy variable and part of the covariates are crisp variables. The least squares methods based on D-metric and the idea of stepwise regression are applied in parameter estimation. The significance test of the regression coefficients is considered. The Bootstrap methods are used to compute the standard errors of the estimates and P-values of tests. Fuzzy diagnostics based on D-metric are also developed to detect the outliers. Some simulations are performed to verify the obtained results, which are found to be satisfied. Finally, the early warning of macro-economic index data of China are illustrated our methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a perspective on the capacity of colleges and universities during past and present economic shocks. The main argument is that the environment of the global recession-an Asia far more economically integrated than during past economic shocks, with more unified aspirations to be globally competitive and socially responsible-no longer delay reforms in higher education. In fact, the global recession has become an opportune time for higher education in Asia, specifically developing countries in eastern (East and Southeast) Asia, to continue reforming governance and administration, access and equity, internal and external efficiency, and regional collaboration. Economic shocks have accelerated reforms in higher education, especially those for promoting innovation in their economies, though more is needed in improving governance and access for underserved populations. This paper examines the cases of China, Mongolia, and Vietnam as examples of how the global recession and regional integration are growing forces in shaping their higher education reform and development. The paper also identifies a series of measures for increasing the resilience of higher education systems in serving poor and vulnerable populations during economic recessions. Responses to the global economic recession by nations in eastern Asia are likely to improve the global shift in economy and human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper centers on the expansion from elite to mass higher education in China and its effects on China's economic development. These effects are twofold, including both the immediate influence of expanded enrollment in higher education on China's economy, and the human capital accumulation for the long term. The paper first provides a description of key changes in the Chinese higher education system during this radical expansion. This is followed by an analysis of the relation between higher education expansion and economic development both in terms of short and long term goals, using the Keynesian economic principle and human capital theory. The analysis found that it is premature to conclude whether the expansion policy has revitalized the economy or not in the short term. China is achieving its long term goal of accumulating human capital; however, the mounting unemployment of postsecondary graduates is jeopardizing students' private returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss relationship between export diversity and economic performance, focusing on Brazil, China, India and South Africa (BCIS). Using time data on exports over the period 1962-2000 and Applied General Equilibrium (AGE) models for each country, we note the similarities as well as differences in the patterns of diversification in these countries. We find evidence of a U-shape relationship between per capita income and export specialization in at least China and South Africa, and given that the results from Granger causality testing are inconclusive and not robust with regards to export diversification measures, some preliminary evidence from the results suggest that export diversification Granger causes GDP per capita in Brazil, China and South Africa, but not in India, where it is rather GDP per capita changes that are driving export diversification. From AGE modeling we find that South Africa differs from the other economies in that it is the only case where export diversification has an unambiguously positive impact on economic development while in contrast in Brazil, China and India, it is rather export specialization that is preferred. We show that the manner in which export diversification is obtained may be important: if it is obtained with less of a reduction in traditional exports, the impacts are better (less negative). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, both direct material input (DMI) and domestic processed output (DPO) of Jilin Province in 1990–2006 were calculated and then based on these two indexes, a dematerialization model was established. The main results are summarized as follows: (1) both direct material input and domestic processed output increase at a steady rate during 1990–2006, with average annual growth rates of 4.19% and 2.77%, respectively. (2) The average contribution rate of material input to economic growth is 44%, indicating that the economic growth is visibly extensive. (3) During the studied period, accumulative quantity of material input dematerialization is 11,543 × 104 t and quantity of waste dematerialization is 5,987 ×104 t. Moreover, dematerialization gaps are positive, suggesting that the potential of dematerialization has been well fulfilled. (4) In most years of the analyzed period, especially 2003–2006, the economic system of Jilin Province represents an unsustainable state. The accelerated economic growth relies mostly on excessive resources consumption after the Revitalization Strategy of Northeast China was launched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparatory talks to the next round of negotiations seem to indicate that a comprehensive agreement to mitigate climate change will not be easily attainable, despite the intentions of the US administration and the high expectations surrounding the Copenhagen meeting. One key reason is to what extent fast growing economies, and especially China, should take actions to reduce their growth of emissions. This paper argues that a turning point for international negotiations on climate change could be achieved if China were to agree on carbon obligations in the future. Results from modelling work suggest that the optimal investment behaviour is to anticipate the implementation of a climate policy by roughly 10 years, and that thus future commitments—if credible—could lead to significantly earlier steps towards carbon mitigation. If fast growing economies, and foremost China, believe in the long term objective of global stabilization of carbon concentrations, it might be economically rationale to sign on future targets, provided developed countries take on immediate action. Such a provision could be beneficial for both the developing and developed world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses China’s “natural” place in the world economy with a new set of trade integration indicators, which are used as a benchmark in order to examine whether China’s share in international trade is consistent with fundamentals such as economic size, location and other relevant factors. They constitute a better measure of trade integration that incorporates many more factors than traditional openness ratios. The model tracks international trade well and confirms that China is already well integrated in world markets, particularly with North America, several Latin American and East Asian emerging markets and most euro area countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary  In 1985 China began the reform of its Science & Technology (S&T) sector inherited from the planned economy. To disclose the impact of the drawn-out reform on the efficiency of the whole sector, we measure the scientific productivity of China's S&T institutes. The analysis is based on R&D input and output data at the country aggregate and provincial level. We utilize Polynomial Distributed Lag model to uncover the structure of the lag between R&D input and output. The findings reveal that the growth rate of scientific productivity of China's S&T institutes has been negative since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of innovation-driven strategy is of great significance. Analysis of the driving factors of innovation performance from quantitative and systematic perspectives is needed for policy making. By drawing upon the LMDI model, this study identifies the driving factors and their corresponding contributions in the innovation performance of 30 Chinese provincial-level regions during the period 2000-2012. The innovation performance is decomposed into the regional economic structure effect, R&D intensity effect, innovation efficiency effect, and economic development effect according to the driving mechanism. The results indicate that the third effect in this list, innovation efficiency, contributes the most to innovation performance at 54.28%, followed by the regional R&D intensity at 27.49%, and China's economic development at 19.92%. The effect of the regional economic structure is negative, at −1.69%. This study further analyzes four major economic areas of China and identifies the channels through which each area conducts their innovation activities. The empirical findings provide information for policy measures to implement innovation-driven strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After implementing the reforms and opening up policies, China has continued to attract huge amount of foreign direct investments (FDI), but these FDI have a noticeably unbalanced spatial distribution. Why does FDI flow mostly into eastern China? Agglomeration economies and congestion costs play an important role in the spatial distribution of FDI in the country. Panel data was compiled for 287 prefectural-level cities and higher administrative units in China from 1999 to 2012 while controlling the effects of regional advantages, preferential policies, natural resources, infrastructure and other factors. Regression results verified that a high agglomeration of FDI in the eastern region of China is significantly attributed to the effects of congestion costs. Because of the particularities of the Chinese labour market and the monopolization of land market in cities, congestion costs lose the ability to regulate the spatial distribution of FDI and exert a reverse effect to distribute FDI more unevenly. In order to further open up inland regions and facilitate coordinated development between regions, the government must implement some preferential policies that encourage the flow of FDI into inland regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of whether the way bribery is practiced in China is such that corruption might be compatible with rapid economic growth during the boom years between 2000 and 2007. In particular, it examines whether bribery based on diffuse reciprocity transforms a corrupt relationship from one based on short-term egoistic gains (looting) to one based on long-term gains (profit maximizing), with the assumption that such a form of bribery will lead the parties to maximize total gains and hence will encourage long-term growth rather than short-term predatory looting. More broadly, the paper inquires whether a regime of informal property rights based on bribery and diffuse reciprocity might compensate for the shortcomings of an imperfectly constructed and incomplete set of formal property rights such as has emerged in post-Mao China and thereby improve the prospects for economic growth. The paper concludes that while bribery based on diffuse reciprocity may encourage the parties directly involved in such corrupt exchanges to maximize their total long-term gains, so long as bribery remains a private good and an informal property rights regime based on bribery remains subject to abrupt and catastrophic revision due to its illegal nature, 'bribery with Chinese characteristics' cannot be characterized as growth enhancing and thus cannot be a major explanation for why the Chinese economy grew rapidly during the 'third boom.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crowdfunding model is to quickly gather petty cash funds from the mass and to organize and develop construction projects spontaneously, and it might help the housing buyers to reduce the expense that originally paid to real estate developers in general develop models and probably cut down the housing price. This paper aims to estimate the building costs of individual cooperative housing with crowdfunding model. A reference cost model of commercial building is firstly constructed and estimated, according to which the costs of housing projects can be estimated and the sales price can also be decomposed into different parts. And then the reference cost of eight typical housing construction projects in major districts of Beijing in China, is calculated using the constructed model and compared with the corresponding sales prices. The results indicate that the proportion of total construction cost is 10-15 % of sales prices and building housing with crowdfunding model can save about 20-30 % of expense. And the spread of the individual cooperative hosing with crowdfunding model is expected to impose downwards pressure on housing price and help to solve the housing problems of medium-income and low-income families in major cities in China. Therefore, it is considerable to support the development of individual cooperative housing with crowdfunding model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how ties to large-scale state-owned enterprises and ties to banks affect firm performance in emerging economies. The findings, obtained from survey data collected from 208 firms in the Chinese manufacturing industry, indicate that both categories of ties improve firm performance. The value of the two categories of ties changes in organizational contexts that vary in terms of the moderators of size, age, and firm strategy. Specifically, ties to banks improve the performance of younger firms significantly more than that of older firms, while ties to large-scale state-owned enterprises improve the performance of smaller firms significantly more than that of larger firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the largest wheat-producing country in the world. Wheat is one of the two major staple cereals consumed in the country and about 60% of Chinese population eats the grain daily. To safeguard the production of this important crop, about 85% of wheat areas in the country are under irrigation or high rainfall conditions. However, wheat production in the future will be challenged by the increasing occurrence and magnitude of adverse and extreme weather events. In this paper, we present an analysis that combines outputs from a wide range of General Circulation Models (GCMs) with observational data to produce more detailed projections of local climate suitable for assessing the impact of increasing heat stress events on wheat yield. We run the assessment at 36 representative sites in China using the crop growth model CSM-CropSim Wheat of DSSAT 4.5. The simulations based on historical data show that this model is suitable for quantifying yield damages caused by heat stress. In comparison with the observations of baseline 1996-2005, our simulations for the future indicate that by 2100 the projected increases in heat stress would lead to an ensemble-mean yield reduction of −7.1% (with a probability of 80%) and −17.5% (with a probability of 96%) for winter wheat and spring wheat, respectively, under the irrigated condition. Although such losses can be fully compensated by CO fertilization effect as parameterized in DSSAT 4.5, a great caution is needed in interpreting this fertilization effect because existing crop dynamic models are unable to incorporate the effect of CO acclimation (the growth-enhancing effect decreases over time) and other offsetting forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restructuring of old industrial areas has been receiving much attention in regional development studies both in industrialized and emerging economies. Although ample Chinese-speaking studies have been published on the topic, most of them suffer from paying too little attention to dynamic multi-scalar interactions between firms, institutions, policies and places, as well as a too strong focus on individual cases. They also mostly disregard internationally recognized concepts and theories in the field. Based on these internationally recognized modern concepts, this paper therefore puts forward some potential avenues for future research on the evolution of old industrial areas in China, which should overcome existing deficits in the Chinese-speaking literature. It suggests that some evolutionary economic geography concepts such as path dependence, lock-in, path creation, relatedness, as well as multi-scalar institutional and leadership approaches have useful potentials to better understand the evolutionary processes and mechanisms of old industrial areas in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: China's economy has experienced a high-rate growth since the reform and opening up in 1978. However, some macro-statistics indicated that China's economy grows with a low efficiency. In fact, these conclusions based on macro-statistics and the performance of the economy as a whole cannot reflect the multi-level, dynamic and, therefore, complicated situation of China. By using firm-level data, and the stochastic frontier production model, this paper makes an investigation on the changing trends of TFP of China's LMIE between 1995 and 2002, and the decomposition of factors of growth. Results: Main findings include: (1) the weighted average of the annual growth of TFP in China's large and medium sized industrial enterprises was as high as 6.8 % with a rising trend during 1996-2002; (2) the contribution to TFP growth by the factor of Frontier Technology Progress reached as much as 14 percentage points per annum on average; (3) the decline in Technical Efficiency (Relative to the Frontier) reduced the TFP growth by 7.1 percentage points per annum on average; (4) Allocative Efficiency contributed on average only 0.02 percentage points per annum to the TFP growth and Scale Dis-Economy slowed the growth of TFP by 0.33 percentage points per annum. Conclusions: The results show that at the turn of the century, the most important part of China's industry was in the middle of an industrial productivity revolution driven by both Frontier Technological Progress and the great potential of technical efficiency of lagging enterprises. The revolution is driven by increased competition, privatization, foreign investment, and business expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of intergovernmental transfers on local public spending in China, an authoritarian country where local politicians are not largely accountable to residents. The identification exploits a discontinuity from the central government's designation of National Poor Counties. We find that additional transfers to county governments increase local public spending one-for-one. We further confirm that counties receiving additional transfers do not reduce the effective tax burden borne by firms. The results echo the empirical anomaly of the flypaper effect found in developed economies under democratic governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience is a key term in disaster economic loss assessment. The flood loss rates in different scenarios for the residence, industry, commerce, infrastructure, and agriculture are calculated, and the original depth-damage curves are drawn by collecting the socioeconomic data of Lizhong Town in Lixia River and Houbai Town in Jurong River. Thereafter, by fully considering the resilience factor to draw the new depth-economic loss curves, which are in line with the actual situation, the results show: (1) the disaster reduction capability correction loss rate of different receptors in Lizhong Town is in the range of 16-74 %, and in Houbai Town is in the range of 20-79 %. The residential flood loss, commercial loss, infrastructure loss, and industry loss were reduced by 74, 54.8, 38, and 16 %, respectively, in Lizhong Town, and the residential flood loss, commercial loss, and industry loss were reduced by 79, 60, and 20 %, respectively in Houbai Town. (2) Residential property types and their display heights in families with different income levels have similar flood-damage rate curves in mainland China and Taiwan (Su et al. in Flood damage assessment and related database Implementation for KeeLung River Basin (II), Special research report of National Science Council, Taiwan, ); (3) the loss rate reached the maximum at the depth of 3 m, and the sum of the five receptors' damage is 6.98 million Yuan (RMB) and 2.2 million Yuan (RMB) in Lizhong Town and Houbai Town, respectively. At last, in this paper, several approaches to improving resilience were proposed and possibilities in future researches were put forward. This study is a useful complement to flood economic loss evaluation literature and provides reference for disaster prevention and mitigation decisions in similar areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an experimental investigation of the fair rule preference and its effect on anonymous cooperation, intending to test the hypothesis that people who exhibit high degrees of rule inequality aversion-consider 'equality and mutual obligation under the social contract' as justified, are disgusted with free-rider behavior in the public goods game and are more likely to be conditional cooperators and make conditional contributions. Based on experimental work related to rule-preferences Chlaß and Moffatt (Giving in dictator games: experimenter demand effect or preference over the rules of the game? (No. 2012, 044). Jena Economic Research Papers, ) and the public goods game Fischbacher et al. (Am Econ Rev 100(1):541-556, ), we designed a dictator game with the option of buying a veto (when the veto was purchased, the level of rule inequality decreased, making it an ultimatum game) to measure rule preference, i.e., rule inequality aversion, and conducted a two-stage public goods experiment to identify the cooperation preferences and repeated cooperation levels of participants. We investigated the relationship between rule preferences and cooperative preferences (conditional reciprocal preference) and tried to explain the adjustments people made when making repeated contributions of public goods (conditional cooperation behavior) from a rule preference perspective. The results show that: (1) Heterogeneous rule-inequality-aversion preferences are found in lab; (2) The stronger the rule-inequality-aversion preference is, the higher the probability is for the individual to become a conditional cooperator in public goods experiment; (3) Individuals who have stronger rule-inequality-aversion are more sensitive to the contributions that are deviated from the norm. Compared to the theory of conditional cooperation types, rule-inequality-aversion preference has a better explanation power when it comes to the behavior adjustment in repeated public goods contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring the magnitude of energy congestion provides useful information for determining the optimal level of energy input with reference to other inputs. This paper clarifies the concept of energy congestion and adapts a slacks-based DEA method to examine the energy congestion effect in Chinese industrial sectors over time. Our empirical results show that Chinese industrial sectors showed an increasing trend in energy congestion. The size of energy congestion effect varied across different provinces and regions. The central area had a significantly higher amount of energy congestion than that in west area, while the east area registered for the lowest energy congestion inefficiency. On average, 32 % of the energy consumption in Chinese industry was excessively used. A multiple regression analysis within a panel data analysis framework shows that the total energy consumption and industrial value added per capita have a positive while total-factor energy efficiency has a negative effect on energy congestion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's petrochemical industries are playing an important role in China's economic development. However, the industries consume large amounts of energy and have become primary sources of carbon emission. In this paper, the change in carbon emissions from China's petrochemical industries between 2000 and 2010 was quantitatively analyzed with the Log-Mean Divisia Index method, which was decomposed into economic output effect, industrial structural effect and technical effect. The results show that economic output effect is the most important factor driving carbon emission growth in China's petrochemical industries; industrial structural effect has certain decrement effect on carbon emissions; adjustment of industrial structure by developing low-carbon emission industrial sectors may be a better choice for reducing carbon emissions; and the impact of technical effect varies considerably without showing any clear decrement effect trend over the period of year 2000-2010. The biggest challenge is how to make use of these factors to balance the relationship between economic development and carbon emissions. This study will promote a more comprehensive understanding of the inter-relationships of economic development, industrial structural shift, technical effect and carbon emissions in China's petrochemical industries and is helpful for exploration of relevant strategies to reduce carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]