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The article presents the study which analyses the effect of fiscal decentralisation on health outcomes in China using a panel data set with nationwide country-level data. The study found that counties in more fiscally decentralised provinces have lower infant mortality rates than those counties where the provincial governments remain the main spending authority. For county governments that have limited revenues, spending on local public goods including health care depends essentially on intergovernmental transfer. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that the common assertion that fiscal decentralisation can lead to more efficient production of local public goods, while also highlighting the conditions required for this result to be obtained, is supported.

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The world had to suffer the implications of Kindleberger Trap in post-World War I due to the vacuum created at the international level to provide global public goods by the then superpowers - Great Britain and the US. The exact implications could be faced by the rest of the world in the 21st century. Today, China aspires to become a global leader; thus, it must avoid the Kindleberger Trap, which can cause inferences for its stability. For this purpose, the state must provide the world with global public goods as a responsibility. The US had this responsibility until the Trump administration enacted the policy of isolation, just like the post-World War I era. This policy of the US administration created a gap at the international level that China wants to fill as a global power. This paper, therefore, examines the implications of the Kindleberger Trap on China, particularly after the initiation of China's Belt and Road Initiative. Meta-geopolitics is used as a framework to highlight areas of China's strength along with rooms that can cause a setback for China's stability at the national and international levels. This paper also analyses the domestic policies of China and how to avoid the Kindleberger Trap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a provider of public goods and a corrector of externalities, the government has a significant effect on the local environment. Based on annual province-level data from 1998 to 2015, this paper decomposes the changes in sulfur dioxide emissions into end pollution control effects and source pollution control effects by a complete decomposition model. It then uses a spatial econometric model to investigate how government size expansion affects sulfur dioxide emissions. The results show that under the promotion system based on appointment, the local government size and the neighboring government size are not conducive to reducing local sulfur dioxide emissions. With the expansion of the government size, the degree of environmental degradation caused by competition among governments is more serious. In the way of influence, the impact of local government size on the sulfur dioxide emissions is mainly through restraining the effect of end pollution control. The impact of neighboring government size on the sulfur dioxide emissions is mainly through weakening the effect of source pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal domestic waste (MDW) management is essential to maintain ecological security. Waste classification is seen as a solution to the urban waste dilemma. However, very few residents in China are currently involved in waste classification. Based on the public goods theory and the hypothesis of rational behavior, with the aid of GIS, this paper develops a multi-agent model to simulate the features and evolution of residents' waste classification behavior in the context of community. By comparing the percentage of those who participate in waste classification in different scenarios, various factors that may influence residents' waste classification behavior are analyzed. The simulation results show that the improvement of convenience facilities and the promotion of awareness-raising activities help enhancing residents' waste classification behavior. An increase in rewards and penalties by the government will promote residents' waste classification behavior, though this promotion is not significant. Adherent enforcers can provide a continuous incentive for residential waste classification behavior. This study provides evidence for the government and communities to develop waste classification policies and motivate residents to participate in waste classification. Implications: Municipal waste seriously restricts the survival and development of cities, and waste disposal has become a problem that plagues government managers in various countries. Waste classification is considered to be an effective way to solve the municipal waste dilemma, but currently China faces the dilemma of low residents' participation in waste classification. Through multi-agent modeling, the interaction and decision-making of urban residents in the process of waste classification are simulated, and introduce GIS to truly restore the daily classification scenes of residents. Explore the dynamic evolution of urban residents' classification behavior and the change of residents' waste classification rate under different situations to find more effective ways to improve the participation rate of residents in waste classification and give targeted and practical countermeasure suggestions. It provides decision-making reference for the formulation of governmental waste classification policies and the design of community behavior programs, and to contribute to the sustainable development of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how China uses a debt Trap diplomacy to gain hegemony. The paper's descriptive-analytical hypothesis was that China seeks to expand its economic, political, and strategic influence in the region and the world to become a hegemonic power. Along the way, the country, through its Belt and Road initiative, especially lending to infrastructure projects called "public goods" to countries along its route, is trapping these countries in its circle and making them a platform for used its regional and global influence. This approach has created a negative perception of China in the eyes of international public opinion, and this has led China to move away from it instead of approaching the hegemonic position. The findings of the paper show that if countries have a negative perception of the public goods in the realm of international relations, the acquisition, maintenance, and promotion of the hegemonic position will be challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of transformative technologies, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, a natural language processing tool, significantly impacts the future of education, society, and the economy. Drawing on the theory of knowledge socialism and public goods, this paper critically examines the potential impact of ChatGPT in the context of China's high-tech development and higher education. We believe these technologies resonate with the principles of knowledge socialism by promoting decentralization, openness, and collective intelligence and are poised to reshape the education sector and beyond. The non-competitive and non-exclusive nature of ChatGPT makes it a public good with significant social benefits. In the educational domain, it has the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning by providing students with convenient, personalized learning experiences, real-time feedback, and multilingual support. However, despite its benefits, educators, and users must work to overcome its limitations, such as limited expertise, language understanding, reasoning skills, and potential risks associated with privacy, security, and misinformation. This article discusses the need to prepare students for a future heavily impacted by AI, which requires a reassessment of digital literacy and competencies. Doing so would require leveraging AI tools and promoting human-centered approaches, developing higher-order thinking skills, emphasizing emotional education, and teaching academic ethics. In addition, introducing AI tools like ChatGPT in higher education requires regulation to prevent plagiarism and improve independent problem-solving. This paper further explores the impact of ChatGPT on China's technological development. The global attention attracted by ChatGPT has stimulated the growth of the AI industry and prompted the emergence of domestic products and applications in countries such as China. It is critical to harmonize the enforcement of competition laws and capitalize on the contributions of sizable enterprises in the realm of technological innovation and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism Tribune / Lvyou Xuekan is the property of Tourism Institute of Beijing Union University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Low-carbon buildings (LCBs) are still in the early stages of development in China. The promotion and implementation of associated policies are not yet fully matured. Meanwhile, their status as public goods exacerbates the uncertainty and complexity regarding anticipated gains and potential losses. Few studies have explored the impact of perception parameters on the decision-making processes of LCBs' stakeholders. Thus, combined with prospect theory, this paper establishes a tripartite game model composed of governments, developers, and consumers to explore their interactions and influences in different stages. Real-life scenarios are further utilized to validate the effectiveness of the model in predicting the behaviors under respective preferences. The results show that the increase in subsidy and penalty intensity instead diminishes the enthusiasm for LCBs. More specifically, the existing subsidy policies offer limited incentives to consumers. With the addition of the perception parameter, there exist differences in the sensitivity of consumers and developers towards risk levels and potential losses. The findings also highlight the importance of consumers in the LCBs market. Future policies should encourage developers and consumers to jointly promote the LCBs implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Challenging a popular view that China's rise will lead the United States and China to fall into the 'Thucydides trap'—a possible hegemonic war between the two—this paper proposes an 'institutional peace' argument, suggesting that the ongoing international order transition will be different from previous order transitions in history. Instead of using military means to change the international order, China and the United States have relied on various institutional balancing strategies to compete with one another for an advantageous position in the future international order. The discussion on the institutional competition between China and the US around the AIIB and the ARF-related multilateral security architecture supports the 'institutional peace' argument: institutional competition in the form of institutional balancing strengthens the dynamics and utility of international institutions, encourages states to offer new public goods, and could lead to a more peaceful order transition in the international system. However, this institutional peace argument is constrained by two caveats: the continued validity of the MAD nuclear deterrence and a limited degree of ideological antagonism between the US and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land planning plays an important role in the economic and social development of a developing country, such as China. Studies have started to focus on the topic of central and local relations in land planning systems; however, the picture of central–local relations presented by different studies has not been classified and distinguished. From the perspectives of structure, process, and culture, this paper reviews recent studies on the relationship between central and local governments in land planning governance and summarizes the existing research status and shortcomings, aiming to point out directions for future research. The results indicate that (1) existing studies provide a simple sketch of central–local relations, focusing on the structural and process perspectives and paying less attention to the cultural perspective; (2) the points of view among these studies conflict, leading to a lack of systematic theory and consensus regarding central–local relations in land planning; and (3) the process perspective is currently a hot topic that involves issues of central and local behavior, such as land planning execution, planning policy innovation, and public goods provision, but studies do not adopt an in-depth methodology. Therefore, we suggest that future research should be developed in four dimensions, namely the construction of a conceptual model, the expansion of existing theories, the application of new methods, and the integration of research perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of the abolition of the civil service exam on local governance in early twentieth-century China. Before the abolition, local elites collected surtaxes that financed local public goods, but they were supervised by the state and could lose candidacy for higher status if they engaged in corrupt behavior. This prospect of upward mobility (POUM) gave them incentives to behave well, which the abolition of the exam removed. Using anti-elite protests as a proxy for the deterioration of local governance, we find that prefectures with a higher POUM experienced more incidents of anti-elite protests after the abolition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the interplay of major international infrastructure initiatives, in particular China's Belt and Road Initiative, Japan's Partnership for Quality Infrastructure and the EU strategy on "Connecting Europe and Asia". Their co-evolution is interpreted as the creation and further development of a new market, whose characteristics like its complexity, its properties as an international public good and its oligopolistic supply structure create interesting insights. The paper finds that initiatives have adjusted to each other, in line with expectations from a market perspective. While China's initiative at first followed a "low-price" strategy, Japan reacted with a "quality infrastructure" approach, also winning support from multilateral fora like G7 and G20. With the Second Belt and Road Forum, China has signaled to move closer to this line as well, and the EU is pursuing a similar approach as Japan, signing a partnership agreement with it. Interpreting this interaction as an oligopolistic structure, a chaotic competitive process has so far been avoided. The contest is actually evolving towards superior solutions, raising the quality of institutional infrastructure initiatives and, hopefully, of specific projects as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Marriage, as the most crucial event in one's lifetime, not only has a significant effect on one's future consumer preferences but also changes one's consumer decisions. This paper addresses how individuals change their expenditure when the marital status changes, three models are developed to explore this issue based on the equilibrium of current consumption and consumption purpose with the consideration of income growth, expenditure on public goods and mating competitiveness for males and females. By selecting the married group in the panel data of China Family Panel Studies between 2016 and 2018, we use the propensity score to match all the married individuals during the 2 years and search a control group for each of them and, in addition, use the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the effects of marriage on individuals' personal and public consumption. Benefiting to the model fitting the data relatively well, the results show that individual's expenditure raises by 24% when married, with highly increasing items in public goods. At last, males cost 11.4% more than females after their marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's need to ensure food sufficiency for its people is nothing new. What is new is the country's recent active search for food from around the world, including small states in Africa and Latin America. The country has begun to acquire food of a high quality, in competition with other countries. China can make use of its politico-economic power to influence the behaviour of others to achieve food security, thereby highlighting a puzzling question: How does China balance its national interests against its global responsibility? China competes with other countries for a steady supply of food at an affordable price, while at the same time it wants to be seen as a peaceful country and a responsible member of the international community. As the largest developing country in the world, how does China see its role in the global management of food security, and how do others see China in this role? In addressing these questions, this paper argues that China begins to shoulder greater responsibility globally in this area, based on its bilateral and multilateral engagements, especially with small states, in a win-win way. The paper concludes that China has to do more to allay the fears of the outside world and to clear the suspicions harboured by others about its intentions and behaviour, a lesson which carries wide implications for China's global governance in other issue areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few civil-conflict studies explore the role played by subnational-level governments, especially the impact of their providing public goods. In this paper, I argue that local governments can mitigate the risk of ethnic conflicts by increasing their provision of public goods. I situate this argument in the context of ongoing ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang, China. With a new data set of 105 ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang between 1997 and 2005, this study finds that counties with higher government spending on education were significantly less likely to experience conflicts. The results are robust to a wide range of robustness checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the challenges of community self-organisation in contemporary China, where the retrenchment of the party-state and the decline of social cohesion under late socialism have left underresourced communities increasingly responsible for the self-provision of public goods and services. Through a comparison of two case studies – a village shareholding corporation and a community foundation – the paper identifies three dimensions of institutional choice in community self-organisation: the efficient maximisation of resources, the equitable distribution of resources, and the affective recruitment of ideological support. This analysis suggests both a tradeoff between efficiency and equity and a reliance on nostalgia as the basis for the selective mobilisation of affect. These dynamics intersect to produce programmatic biases that privilege the interests of some residents while excluding others. While new forms of affect can help increase inclusion, the initial choices made by organisers result in institutional path dependencies that prove difficult to escape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How China will contribute to global governance has become a critical question in international relations, amplified by the linkages between the Covid-19 pandemic, escalating geopolitical contest and multilateralism in crisis. China has been doubling down on its authoritarian model of domestic governance while becoming more internationally assertive, including in existing and new multilateral institutions. Meanwhile, the United States appeared in recent years to be undermining the institutions, norms and rules of the liberal international order that it, itself, built. The subsequent decline in international cooperation poses grave risks to public health, economic and other forms of security. Can China cooperate with other actors to contribute public goods and stabilisation of global governance in such a deteriorating international environment? While there is a wide range of institutions in which to examine China's growing role in international governance, from United Nations bodies such as the World Health Organisation and World Trade Organisation to regional initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, this paper examines the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), an example of Chinese innovation in multilateralism. Established amidst geopolitical contest, the new institution seeks to address the Asian deficit of financing for sustainable development. The bank challenges a number of prevailing norms, including replacing the disproportionate power of the US and the advanced economies in the multilateral system with a more proportionate role for China and other developing countries; a new focus on infrastructure- led development which is built on Chinese confidence in the East Asian development model; and a shift away from the Bretton Woods practices of using financing conditions to drive liberal democratic and neo-liberal economic reforms. At the same time as representing a challenge to the traditional order, the bank exhibits - at least to date - best practices in implementation and addresses previously unmet concerns of the developing world. While it is not possible to extrapolate from only one initiative to draw comprehensive conclusions about China's likely future role in global governance, the AIIB case nonetheless suggests that, at least in some fields, China will challenge liberal norms to reform rather than revolutionise the international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the coming into power of President Xi Jinping in China in 2012, an important objective of Beijing's foreign policy has been to modify the international order to correspond with China's rising power and to fulfill the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation and becoming a superpower. As a superpower, China is expected to bear the responsibilities of providing public goods, maintaining stability, and upholding the norms and values that are respected by other states. This paper examines the Chinese attempt to emerge as a key player in international affairs and use two case studies of China's policy towards the South China Sea and its international responses to the Covid-19 pandemic to argue that Beijing has, to some extent, fallen short of the duties of a superpower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly clear that China's economic and political power rivals that of the US. This is potentially a serious problem for multinational companies, since China's rise could lead to more US–China trade conflict and disruption of supply chains, threatening new and ongoing foreign direct investment, and drawing other countries into the jostling for power. However, we argue that globalization is not necessarily endangered by China's emergence as a comparable power to the US. The US and China both have vested interests in maintaining the open economic order, and these two countries are each providing the global public goods that incentivize economic openness among other countries of the world. In this paper, we develop a theory corresponding to this argument and provide evidence that globalization has not declined even as the global distribution of power has shifted. While global integration is likely to persist, disruptive skirmishes between the US and China will occur with some regularity. Therefore, we suggest that international company strategies today should focus more on risk management related to policy shifts stemming from China's rise and less on achieving least-cost global supply chains. We present a risk management framework for this purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's impressive growth has been accompanied by high inequality and a wide rural-urban divide. This paper identifies and examines some of the major dimensions of this divide: income, consumption, education, employment, health care, pensions, access to public services, and the environment. The paper attributes the main causes of the divide to China's urban-biased development strategies and the resulting lack of social provision of public goods in rural areas. It also highlights the severe and multidimensional constraints on the Chinese peasantry and argues that increased equality and efficiency can now be pursued simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different types of the village relationship influence different types of public goods provision in rural China.Design/methodology/approach The three components (clan-based relationship, neighborhood relationship and external relationship) were derived by employing factor analysis. The simultaneous discrete choice model was used to estimate the influence of these components on public goods provision, using the survey data from the China Household Income Project conducted in 2007.Findings The findings indicate that considering different components of village relationship allows for a better understanding of the public good provision. The results indicate that the neighborhood relationship has a significantly positive effect on rural public goods provision, particularly on water conservancy and irrigation, while the external relationship has a significantly positive effect on all types of public goods.Practical implications Local public goods provision is the core of the new rural construction in China. These findings imply that relationship in villages plays a vital role in the provision of public goods and is necessary in the construction of the new harmonious countryside in China. The results also have implications for rural public goods provision in other developing countries.Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to quantitatively model the impact of different relationships on public goods provision at the rural level. A consideration of the different components in village relationship allows for a more precise understanding of the pubic goods provision in the village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the trends in residential solid waste collection (RSWC) services in rural China over the past decade and analyze the determinants of these services using nationally representative data.Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on panel data from three rounds of village-level surveys of 101 villages. The three surveys were conducted in 2005, 2008, and 2012 in five provinces. The authors used fixed-effected regression approach to analyze the determinants of these services.Findings The results show that in the aftermath of increased investment and policy attention at the national level, the proportion of villages providing RSWC services in rural China increased significantly from 1998 to 2011. However, half of all villages in rural China still did not provide RSWC services as of 2011. Based on econometrics analysis, the authors show that villages that are richer, more populous, and villages with more small hamlets are more likely to provide RSWC services.Originality/value The analyses are based on primary survey data and the first to quantify trends in waste management services in the beginning of the twentieth century. The authors believe that the results will have significant policy implications for China in its continuing quest for better waste management policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nature of two military alliances under Chinese threat. The findings are as follows: First, South Korea does not consider China a significant threat while Japan and the United States have recognized China as a serious threat since the 1990s and the 2000s, respectively. Second, the relationship between South Korea and the United States is a true military alliance for all time periods, but the nature of the alliance has changed since the 1970s. Third, although Japan began to form an alliance relationship with the United States in the 1990s, Japan is considered a more significant ally by the United States. This paper implies that, should China provoke a military confrontation, it might be difficult to deduce a common solution among the three countries because of the different response to military threats from China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As China's economy enters a new normal, economic growth shifts from factor investment to innovation. The quality of government needs to be improved to create a good environment for the development of innovation and entrepreneurship. This paper uses the CGSS data to empirically study the impact of government quality on the happiness of entrepreneurs. Research shows that the improvement of government quality can significantly improve the self-rated happiness of entrepreneurs, but these three dimensions have different effects, and only the public goods supply index has a significant impact. According to the analysis by region and city level, the government quality has a significant impact on the happiness of entrepreneurs in the less-developed non-eastern and non-provincial cities, but insignificant in the eastern and provincial cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With a framework of incomplete contract, this paper shows that for provision of public goods such as medicare and education, pure privatization may not promote competition. On the contrary, the co-existence of public and private provision may enhance de facto competition. Two competitive effects are identified. When consumers are heterogeneous, the co-existence of public and private ownership gives consumers freedom to choose from different ownership, improving allocation efficiency (Tiebout effect). While consumers are homogeneous, the co-existence can promote yardstick competition, squeezing out information rents from both ownerships, improving production efficiency (benchmarking effect). In either case, the co-existence dominates unique ownership. The paper ends up with some implications for China.s medicare and education reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the development process of China's rural governance system, indicating that the current system of "township governance based on village autonomy" is facing a new situation such as the weakening governance capacity of grass-roots authorities and the emergence of new governing bodies. Aiming at promoting practical rural planning, the paper conducts research about the rural governance system, public goods supply, and rural planning reform. It divides the rural governance mechanisms on public goods supply into three categories: government, community and market. The paper then focuses on how to achieve a community-based supply of public goods via emerging "rural organizations," as well as on how to transform the public service center allocation and spatial planning philosophy and methods in rural planning accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' participation in rural public goods provision (PGP) is vital to improving rural public goods conditions and achieving rural revitalization in China. The factors influencing farmers' participation are, however, far from clear. This paper aims to investigate how social capital and income, the two most prominent factors, affect rural residents' participation in PGP. We use the Heckman sample selection model to empirically estimate the effects of both social capital and family income on farmers' participation and contribution to PGP based on a household survey conducted in four representative provinces in China. We further investigate the moderating effect of village location and elite ability on the effect of social capital on farmers' participation. Our results show that social capital generally has a positive impact on farmers' participation. Specifically, improving the formal norm, size of networks, and density of network would increase farmers' participation propensity. Enriching norms, particularly formal norms, can significantly improve farmers' contribution to public goods. Surprisingly, family income, mainly non-farm income, has a slightly negative effect on farmers' participation. Moreover, village-county distance can undermine the effect of social norms on farmers' participation, while elite ability can enhance the effect of social trust on farmers' participation. Thus, we suggest authorities should focus on enhancing social capital in the rural community to promote farmers' participation in PGP. • Nearly 50% Chinese farmers have never participated in public goods provision. • Social capital such as formal norms has a positive effect on farmers' participation. • Social capital matters more than income in promoting farmers' participation. • The distance to county capital moderates the effect of social capital on farmers' participation. • The elite ability can enhance the effect of social capital on farmers' participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the commodification process initiated through a series of state-led programs and questions the sustainable public goods provision in rural China. We challenge the unilateral understanding of spontaneous commodification by the profit-seeking community, and argue that the influence exerted by the Chinese government cannot be ignored. It is found that a preliminary partnership among the state, private investors and villagers was formed to create a hot-spring village called Tangjiajia in suburban Nanjing. The reconstruction was the result of a state-led renovation of the built environment, but it also catalyzed villager entrepreneurship and boosted community consensus. Regarding the public goods provision, stakeholders in the village now enjoy high-quality facilities and services provided by the government for free but have failed to foster reciprocal cooperation to replenish the subtractability of the rural commons. We claim that state intervention is temporal but not a cure-all. A pricing mechanism for the sustainable delivery of public goods is urgently needed in the community. The state-led commodification has undermined the previous low-level equilibrium of rural governance. From the stance of rural sustainability, only self-organization of the rural community can solve the dilemma. • Government wields built environment programs to revitalize the countryside. • The state-private-farmer partnership is initially established. • Stakeholders fail to replenish subtractability of rural commons. • Sustainable provision of rural commons is still in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tendencies to marketization and privatization in higher education, along with other factors, have challenged the idea of higher education as a public good in many countries over the years. China has experienced this situation to some extent. During the last 20 years, this has triggered various discussions on higher education and public good(s) in China. Drawing on qualitative data from 24 semi-structured interviews in both government departments and universities, this study defines and explores public and common good(s) in relation to higher education in China. As the first empirical study on this theme in the country, it is argued that this study makes a significant and original contribution to knowledge with international relevance. This paper identifies the complex nature of higher education in China and proposes that it may be better described in relation to common good(s). Also, as a common good, higher education in China contributes to the (global) common good and generates (global) common goods in many aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within an open system of cities, compensating differentials theory predicts that local real estate prices will be higher in cities with higher quality non-market local public goods. In this case, more polluted cities will feature lower home prices. A city's air pollution levels depend on economic activity within the city and on cross-border pollution externalities. In this paper, we demonstrate that air pollution in Chinese cities is degraded by cross-boundary externalities. We use this exogenous source of variation in a city's air pollution to present new robust estimates of the real estate impact of local air pollution. We find that reductions in cross-boundary pollution flows have significant effects on local home prices. On average, a 10 % decrease in imported neighbor pollution is associated with a 0.76 % increase in local home prices. We also find that the marginal valuation of clean air is larger in richer Chinese cities, and hukou barrier of labor migration has been further phased out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the spillover effect of fiscal decentralization on the provision of local public goods. The paper's objectives are as follows. First, we seek to discuss whether fiscal decentralization can affect “Promotion Tournament Game” among local governments through spillover effect of local public goods supply. Second, we also examine the intrinsic mechanism of such decentralized spillover effect. Finally, we analyze, if the spillover effect is possible, how much influence of fiscal decentralization on local public provision from both expenditure and revenue perspectives. Our analysis is based on a user fee model. The panel data from 31 Chinese provinces for the period of 1994–2013 are estimated using the spatial econometric method. The results show that revenue decentralization is negatively related to the local public provision, which is consistent with the “Leviathan hypothesis”. However, expenditure decentralization leads to an increase in the local public provision, which statistically proves the fierce competition in “Promotion Tournament Game” among Chinese governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although China's asymmetric fiscal decentralization system has been criticized for many years, there have been few studies giving direct evidence of its negative incentives on local government spending policies. By introducing the mechanism of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers to the objective function of local government, this paper studies the incentive effects of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers on spending policies of local governments, and uses the provincial panel data to carry out an empirical test. The conclusion shows that the asymmetric decentralization significantly weakens the incentives of local government to increase social expenditure, and as a solution to asymmetric decentralization, fiscal transfers fail to play a good role. Due to the relatively large income effect, the financing mechanism of fiscal transfers not only significantly reduces the incentives of local government to provide social public goods, but also weakens the constraint effect of fiscal competition on expenditure policies of local governments because of the increase in the relative cost. Although the distribution mechanism of fiscal transfers has a significant positive incentive to local government in regions where the net inflow of fiscal resources is more than zero, because of common pooling effects, the comprehensive effects of fiscal transfers in the distribution of incentives of local governments to provide social public goods are negative in all regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental fiscal transfers can be important tools for redistributing resources and enhancing public services in areas with limited local resources. Meanwhile, politicians can use fiscal transfers to build patronage networks, weaken opposition candidates, or engage in rent-seeking. An understudied feature of governmental transfers is that local governments can become fiscally dependent on higher-level government. This dependence might lead local officials to favor the priorities of higher-level government while compromising responsiveness to local residents. Using panel data from Chinese villages, I demonstrate that when villages become more dependent on fiscal transfers from townships, they provide fewer public goods to villagers, pay more wages to village elites, and have stronger incentives to enforce the policies favored by higher-level governments. The results also suggest that fiscal transfers will not undermine local representation when electoral competition for village leadership positions exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume of China's high-technology exports has grown sharply since the implementation of its export promotion strategy 'Revitalizing Trade through Science and Technology' in 1999. This paper investigates whether technology spillover effects are greater for high-technology exports than for primary manufactured goods exports. We present a generalized multi-sector spillover model to identify both between-spillover effects from exports towards non-exporters and within-spillover effects among export sectors. Using panel data for 31 provinces in China over the period from 1998 to 2005, we find that although high-technology export sectors have higher productivity compared with other sectors, this productivity advantage does not lead to technology spillover to both domestic sectors and other export sectors, and export technology spillover mainly derives from traditional export sectors rather than high-technology export sectors. As such findings can be largely attributed to the fact that China's high-technology exports depend significantly on processing trade by foreign-invested firms, policy implications are discussed in relation to how to best promote the role of China's high-technology exports during economic expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordinary citizens often welcome nonstate provision of public goods and social welfare, but government officials, particularly in nondemocratic and transitional systems, may view nonstate actors as political competitors. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data from rural China, this paper finds that some kinds of nonstate participation in public goods and social welfare provision can actually make local officials more optimistic about their ability to implement state policies and elicit citizen compliance. Local officials often believe that coproduction of public goods and services with community groups in particular, often with community actors taking the lead, can build trust and social capital that can spill over into increased citizen compliance with state demands, a central element of state capacity. Simply increasing levels of public goods provision, however, is not associated positively with optimistic perceptions of local state authority and capacity. Moreover, other forms of nonstate participation such as coproduction between private businesses and local officials or substitutive provision by nonstate actors have less potential for building trust between officials and citizens and are not seen by officials as beneficial for increasing citizen compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three controversies that revolve around the Hong Kong government's efforts to privatise components of its property assets in the years following the Asian financial crisis in 1997. While the rolling back of welfare and privatisation of public goods are typical features of the 'neo-liberal turn', the consequences of and responses to these processes are highly contingent upon specific historical experience and social practices. By examining the narratives of different actors over the course of these controversies, this paper aims to elucidate the contradictions and mutual entanglements between the ideology of neo-liberalism and everyday discourse and how the contestation in each of the three cases worked to reshape and ultimately to preserve the existing regime of legitimation. It also illustrates how the long-running 'laissez-faire' principles of Hong Kong's colonial period have contributed to the ongoing absorption of political critique, thus exposing the limits of 'people power'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a dataset covering a large number of randomly sampled villages across China, the present paper examines the issue of residential solid waste management service provision in rural China. Using a logistic model we evaluate the impacts of different factors on service provision at the village level with regard to residential solid waste disposal. These factors include the environmental pressures caused by residential solid waste generation, the financial capacity of the Villagers' Committee, village elections and the individual characteristics of village heads. We find that living density, village per capita income, the ratio of irrigated land, and the per capita profit submitted by village enterprises to the Villagers' Committee all have positive impacts on service provision. Moreover, village heads who are popularly elected by villagers are more likely to provide services that satisfy voters' demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the growing phenomenon of public and private partnerships (PPPs) in developing public goods – through a study of a particular instance in the development of SARS vaccine in China. The case highlights the factors shaping this development: The specific nature of SARS vaccine as a public good – which differs from other medical products – as well as the social, economic and political context in China where this development takes place. Our observation points to the pivotal elements of PPP in drawing upon complementary resources for technology development – especially in a developing country like China: The complexity of motives and incentives of individual actors, the governance and organisation of the partnership, and the role of the Chinese government. The case also draws our attention to the different nature of partnership, which may have impacts on the choice of technology, the length of R&D process and long or short term effects to the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparison is not restricted to Mumbai and Shanghai but also to Bangalore and Hangzhou, Delhi and Beijing and so on. The Chinese and Indian economies are expected to be the growth engines of the global economy. In this process cities are expected to play an important role, through their transformation into “World Class” cities, a term now doing rounds in the policy circles in Mumbai, to be achieved through massive infrastructure investments made in them. In China, this has been possible because of the decentralized administrative and fiscal system in China. In contrast, in India, the system of urban infrastructure is currently evolving and making a transition from a centralized to a decentralized system. This paper: (i) compares the Chinese and Indian financial systems to explain differences in the quantum of funds available in cities in both countries; (ii) looks at urban responsibility allocations in terms of institutions; and (iii) compares capital investments made by one city each in the two countries, in Beijing (China) and in Mumbai (India). Edited by Xinyu Fan [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do authoritarian regimes try to improve the quality of their governance? In the absence of democratic institutions to monitor, reward and punish their performance, authoritarian politicians are normally expected to seek their self-interest through corruption and rewards to cronies, rather than providing for the public welfare. However, the Chinese state has actively promoted improved governance in recent years, with greater attention to quality of life issues to balance the primary focus on sustaining rapid economic growth. This paper analyses intra-national variation in the provision of public goods in urban China and the impact of public goods on regime support. Does better governance lead to higher levels of public support for the regime, even in the absence of democratic elections? Our evidence suggests that it does, with a greater impact for the local level than for the centre. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the rapid increase of the number of agricultural cooperatives in China, the problem of fake cooperatives has become more and more serious. The core problem is that some members do not use cooperative services, and elite capture phenomenon appears in the organization. Since services are one of the most important public goods attributes of cooperatives, it is important to ensure that more members use them. What are the factors that affect members' utilization level of cooperative services? Existing research does not provide a comprehensive answer. Based on the micro-survey data of 74 citrus cooperatives and 524 citrus members in China, the article found out that 50.9% of the members did not use any services provided by cooperatives, and only 20.04% of the members used cooperatives' sales services. So, this study empirically analyzes the factors that influence the use of cooperatives' services by puns model. The results show that quality of service, service convenience and mountain terrain promote the use of cooperative sales services for members. In addition, cooperative knowledge, planting area, surplus distribution, quality of service, and service convenience significantly increased the utilization leve of cooperative sales services by members. Finally, the study puts forward some suggestions, such as propagating cooperative sales service, improving the quality of cooperative sales service, perfecting cooperative distribution system. [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]

Many studies have shown that positive and negative incentives can greatly promote cooperation in public goods games. The best policy for turning a population of defectors into a population of cooperators is to provide the “carrot” first and the “stick” later. Cleaner production (CP) is a new preventive environmental strategy, and its promotion is also an example of a public goods game. Voluntary participation and other positive incentives have been widely used to encourage industries to implement CP worldwide. However, taking into consideration specific industry characteristics and new environmental management requirements in China, the Chinese Cleaner Production Promotion Law proposes use of mandatory cleaner production audits (as compared to voluntary cleaner production initiatives) as innovative measures for advancing CP. This paper provides a general overview of this innovative system, explaining how the mandatory audit system was established and promoted in various policies, regulations, and national plans, and analyzing the design of the system. The paper also summarizes implementation results of the mandatory cleaner production audit system, based on annual surveys conducted in all provinces of China between 2008 and 2011. The Chinese experience can be used as a reference case by other developing countries similar to China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper describes a project-based governance approach for public goods provision in the domain of land administration, which is a new decentralized structure within the traditional centralized system in China. Project-based governance represents a new relationship between the central and local governments that aims to cooperatively provide land-related services for public interest projects. The top–down project allocation from the central government and the bottom–up project packaging by local governments together successfully improve the incentives of the local governments and, therefore, achieve the central government’s aim of providing public goods and fostering economic development. We use Fujian Province of China as an example to show the operational process of the project-based governance approach, and we discuss in detail the features and potential effects of the new governance system. The paper may provide new evidence for governance innovation regarding decentralization in a traditionally centralized system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]