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This paper examines the variation in the value of travel-time savings (VTTS), a fundamental element determining the market demand for high-speed rail. Following a review of time allocation theories, a time allocation model for general travel behavior is proposed as a further elaboration of Evans’ (1972) activities analysis. There are relationships among activities that can be expressed using a linear inequality to show the constraints on the arrangement of activities. This model indicates that two or more activities can be simultaneously rearranged to improve time management, which may be a source of variation in VTTS. This time allocation model can explain why large-scale high-speed rail construction in China faces significant market risks and a high likelihood of economic loss. Data from a new ticket sales and booking system for railway passengers indicate that passengers prefer conventional overnight sleeper trains, rather than high-speed trains, for long-distance travel, which supports the analysis of the time allocation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper estimates the impact of monetary policy on income inequality in China. The empirical modelling finds that a battery of monetary indicators, including a monetary overhang measure derived from a money demand equation, and the change in the unemployment rate lead to increases in the Gini coefficient. However, only unemployment is statistically significant. The lack of significance of the monetary indicators is robust to alternative specifications with variability in nominal aggregate demand instead of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the distribution of individual annual incomes across the majority of the population in China from 1992–2009. The cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) and probability density functions (PDFs) are presented. Overall, the CDFs follow the Gaussian function for the majority of individuals in the population, while the PDFs obey the function . The width of the PDF has widened from 1992 to 2009, suggesting the factor has been progressively skewing the curve to the right. This long tail representing the high income range is reminiscent of an exponential distribution curve. This indicates that a few individuals obtain extremely high incomes, leading to increasing levels of financial inequality in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Optimistic commentators welcome ‘the rise of the South’ as a phenomenon that will transform geopolitical architectures and development thought. This essay situates this alleged rise and ‘South–South relations’ within world market capitalism and discusses their liberating potential with a case study of Chinese mining investment in Ecuador. Despite the ostensibly differing approaches to development embodied in the Chinese and Ecuadorian alternatives to neoliberalism, the Mirador project reveals eerily familiar outcomes, dominated by visions of national modernization and business-state alliances that reproduce market inequalities and postcolonial exclusions. While the Mirador project grants significant economic clout to pursue development through redistributive means, it also attests to the role of the state in opening new market frontiers and securing conditions for transnational capital accumulation. I argue that in this context and similar ones, it is problematic to project the attributes of the South as a symbol of struggle for emancipation on to the nation-state. Although the South remains a useful concept, it should be understood as a space made up by those who are subject to diverse forms of oppression in the name of globalization and national development – a space that is reshaped by the works of the state in multiple and often contradictory ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]