Financing urban growth in China: A case study of Guangzhou

Rapid urban growth has become a global phenomenon. As these city populations expand, urban governance is even more of a daunting challenge in many countries. China is not an exception. It is at once a transitional state still undergoing urbanization and economic development; it is also currently experiencing a slowing economy. China's cities must simultaneously continue to improve the quality of urban life while maintaining social stability. Using the city of Guangzhou as an example of China's mega-cities, this study explores the financing strategies used by Chinese cities to manage urban growth. While economic growth has always been the main priority, Guangzhou's strategy has not followed China's traditional approach of growth for growth's sake; instead, it is relying on investment in innovation and transportation to promote the local economy. Education is also being stressed as a means of fostering human resources. However, undisciplined infrastructure financing and ineffective intergovernmental fiscal relations are jeopardizing the city's fiscal sustainability. To correct this will require further reforms of China's fiscal system and a careful sequencing of reforms to maintain a sustainable growth in the urban area.     

Winners and losers in Vietnam equitisation programs

This article develops a computable general equilibrium model of Vietnam to assess the long-run likely effects of the country's equitisation programs on its national economic outcomes and industries. Equitisation is found to be pro-growth as reflected in its contribution to increasing real GDP growth rate in the long run. In terms of industrial output growth rates, the winners include electrical, steel and other manufacturing, while the losers include rice and paddy, and oil, gas and petroleum. To achieve better economic outcomes, the coverage of equitisation should be extended to include medium to large state-owned enterprises across all industries.     

India's surge in modern services exports: Empirics for policy

India's exports of modern services have grown consistently over the last three decades and more so since 1991. Sustaining modern services exports (MSEs), which in India enjoy comparative advantage, is important for sustaining service-led growth and maintaining stability on the external sector. In this context, we examine key drivers of India's surge in MSEs which have important implications for policy. The results reveal that endowment factors such as human capital, tele-density, financial development, physical infrastructure and institutions are the key drivers of India's MSEs along with the world demand, exchange rate and foreign direct investment. Therefore, India needs to focus on and speed up the ongoing reforms to improve supply side factors such as education, infrastructure, financial sector deepening, governance and broad-band tele-density to improve competitiveness of India's modern services exports.     

Social Policy in Greece: Rhetoric versus Reform

This paper reviews the major social policy developments in Greece during the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on social security, health and employment policies. It argues that the concept of social policy and the practice of politics have been distorted in this country. Social policy reflects the legacy of a heavily politicized and centralized policy‐making system, an impoverished administrative infrastructure and poorly developed social services. Its emergence is characterized by the pursuit of late and ineffective policies. It lacks continuity, planning and coordination, being oriented towards short‐term political expediency. It is largely insurance‐based, reproducing huge inequalities and institutional arrangements which are behind the times. It provides mainly cash benefits, low‐quality but rather expensive health services and marginal social welfare protection. Moreover, the lack of a minimum income safety net confirms the country's weak culture of universalism and social citizenship. By implication, complex policy and interlocking interest linkages have tarnished the “system” with a reputation for strong resistance to progressive change. At the same time, sources of change such as globalization, demographic developments, new household and family/gender patterns, unstable economic growth, fiscal imperatives, programme maturation, as well as persisting unemployment, changing labour markets and rising health care costs, have produced mounting pressures for welfare reform.     

On the determinants of public infrastructure spending in Chinese cities: A spatial econometric perspective

In the context of fiscal decentralization, we use cross-sectional data of 242 Chinese cities in 2005 to explore the major factors contributing to the decline of public investment. The main finding is that a city government appears to reduce its own infrastructure spending as a response to the rise of infrastructure spending of its neighboring cities, revealing evidence of positive spillover effects of public infrastructure expenditure. This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing a new perspective for understanding the decline in public investment. In addition, this paper sheds some light on the ongoing debate on the nature of government competition in China and has important implications for policy makers in making fiscal arrangements among government tiers in a decentralized economy.     

How crime affects economic performance: The case of Guatemala

The impact of crime on economic growth is obviously substantial, but measuring the degree of its effects on a country's economic performance is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. This paper primarily attempts to close this gap using the economics of crime monitoring model, a new economic instrument that could be used to evaluate the impact of crime on economic performance. Guatemala was used to illustrate the applicability of the model from where analyses provide a coherent evaluation of the degree to which crime can affect a country's economic performance.     

A State‐centred Explanation of the Finance‐Pension Nexus: New Zealand's Pension Reforms as a Typical Case

This study analyses the decision‐making processes that led to the introduction of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (a public pension reserve and investment fund), as well as the KiwiSaver Scheme, which is New Zealand's first soft‐compulsory private pension scheme. Why and how are governments engaged in the development of funded pensions? These are the questions this study addresses. In analyzing the finance‐pension nexus in New Zealand, this article adopts a state‐centric approach. It argues that pension funding reforms are shaped by state officials who pursue their own motives because policymakers frame funded pensions as an instrument for achieving broader fiscal, economic and financial policy outcomes. Because New Zealand is a typical case of a state‐centric explanation, a study of its pension funding reforms helps in finding causal links between finance and pensions.     

Rate of return guarantees for mandatory defined contribution plans

Many mandatory defined contribution systems provide a rate of return guarantee. The guarantees provided have generally been backed by a sequential combination of two or more of six different financing sources. Those sources are (1) reserve funds established within the pension fund, using investment earnings on the fund; (2) reserve funds established using funds provided by the owners of the pension fund management companies; (3) a defined benefit plan associated with the defined contribution plan; (4) central guarantee funds financed by contributions from pension funds; (5) funds provided by employers; and (6) the government. Nearly all the guarantees are first backed by a limited liability guarantee derived from investment earnings that would otherwise accrue to workers. In some instances, the guarantee may be funded by employers. Then they are backed by a guarantee financed by capital market institutions — pension fund managers directly or a central guarantee fund. Lastly, they are backed by an unfunded governmental guarantee with unlimited liability that is contingent on the insufficiency of private sector guarantees.     

Recovery Growth and Key Features of the Current Economic Situation in Russia

The tremendous growth of the country's industrial and power facilities is posing the problem of keeping the air clean.     

Effect of financial development on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the overall economic growth effect when the growth in finance and real sector is disproportionate relying on panel data for 29 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980–2014. Results from the system generalized methods of moments (GMM) reveal that, while financial development supports economic growth, the extent to which finance helps growth depends crucially on the simultaneous growth of real and financial sectors. The elasticity of growth to changes in either size of the real or financial sector is higher under balanced sectoral growth. We also show that rapid and unbridled credit growth comes at a huge cost to economic growth with consequences stemming from financing of risky and unsustainable investments coupled with superfluous consumption fueling inflation. However, the pass-through excess finance–economic growth effect via the investment channel is stronger.     

经济增长:内生增长理论与中国人力资本投资

内生增长理论是现代经济增长理论中的一个核心内容.从长期经济增长率所依赖的路径来看,人力资本和技术进步作为经济增长的内生因素,可以弥补因其他要素收益递减而带来经济增长停滞这一局面.技术进步是由人力资本投资所形成的有效机制而演化成增长动力的一种必然结果.中国技术进步贡献度低下的最主要原因,是由于人力资本投入不足(人力资本积累不足)造成的.在国家财政政策干预下,以内生增长为动力,逐步形成有利于经济增长的物质资本投资向人力资本投资转换的机制.     

Agricultural economic reforms,gender inequality and poverty in Senegal

In Senegal, as in many developing countries, the agricultural sector plays a key role in the economy. In addition to supplying food, agriculture is the most important source of employment, especially for women. Through the Plan for an Emerging Senegal (PES), the Senegalese government is implementing an ambitious financing plan to improve the productivity of the agricultural sector and enhance employment opportunities for women. Our study assesses the impact of two PES measures (investment subsidies and an increase in production subsidies for the agricultural sectors) on economic growth, women's employment, poverty and inequality using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model. The results show that both policies have generally positive effects in reducing poverty and gender inequalities. However, investment subsidies in the agricultural sectors have stronger impacts in reducing gender inequality and poverty in the long term.     

On the supply of China's healthcare resources in a decentralized healthcare system

The structure of China's current governance bears prominent features of fiscal decentralization. The supply of healthcare resources in China has clearly witnessed slower growth in the last two decades during which the fiscal decentralization process has taken place. Using China's provincial panel data, we examine the determinants of healthcare resource supply while paying particular attention to the role of fiscal decentralization. We find that the supply of healthcare resources is inversely related to the degree of decentralization, which, using spatial econometrics, is attributed to the presence of strategic substitutes in healthcare spending across city governments. These findings have important implications for policy makers in making fiscal arrangements among different government tiers.     

Asset opportunity for the poor: an asset-based policy agenda towards inclusive growth in China

The concept of inclusive growth recently embraced by the Chinese government marks a new way of thinking about social policy and development. The primary goal of inclusive growth is to ensure that all people, especially the poorest, have an equal opportunity to participate in, and benefit from, the country's economic growth. In accordance with the new orientation of development strategies, there has been a paradigm shift in social policy from conventional income maintenance to promotion of the poor's asset accumulation and long-term development. Given China's striking social and economic inequalities, this article argues that an asset-based social policy is a key strategy in the strengthening of inclusive growth. The article highlights several areas of the welfare system where asset-based policies could be developed or expanded.     

Some Problems in Improving National Economic Planning

As we know, the present structure of the planned management of the country's economy primarily stems from the decisions of the September (1965) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. According to the decisions of the Plenum, the basic functions of planning and management are concentrated in branch ministries and agencies and in appropriate departments of Gosplan. Thus the management of unified production-technical complexes, which modern branches of the national economy are, has been concentrated in one center, and this has promoted the acceleration of the rate of scientific and technical progress, the growth of productivity of social labor, and as a consequence, the acceleration of the growth rates of the gross product and the national income. There are now substantially greater possibilities for the further improvement of the people's well-being.     

生态补偿与横向财政转移支付的理论与对策研究

过去的分税制改革确立的财政转移支付制度不能适应人口、资源、环境的协调发展,探讨适应限制类和禁止类主体功能区建设所需的基于生态补偿的横向财政转移支付制度设计,认为应该根据这两类区域进行生态保护建设的直接成本和放弃发展经济的机会成本,以及受益区域的支付意愿来共同确定横向财政转移支付的规模,最后提出了改革现有以纵向为主的财政转移支付体系,逐渐完善以生态补偿为主的横向财政转移支付制度的政策建议。     

Impact of de-globalization on development: Comparative analysis of an emerging market (India) and a developed country (USA)

Strategists observe that the world is moving toward deglobalization thinking, and developed states have already marked their beginning. In this study, we have tried to analyze how the impact of globalization is different in the case of an emerging market country and a developed country. We have chosen India for our study because of its robust growth in manufacturing and business-friendly policy reforms. On the other hand, we have taken the case of the United States pertaining to the recent policy reforms it has undergone. We have employed the SAP-LAP approach to analyze the country's case situation. This research finds that India’s way of managing globalization has positively affected its dominant performance domains like employment rate, GDP growth, and poverty. Conversely, in the case of a developed country like the United States, globalization has adversely impacted the dominant performance areas, particularly GDP, employment generation rate, and poverty.     

Capital goods imports and long-run growth: Is the Chinese experience relevant to developing countries?

In this paper, we analyze the role played by capital goods imports in the long-run growth of developing countries. We focus in the case of the Chinese economy in the last few decades. We find evidence that the ratio of imported to domestic capital goods, that is, the composition of investment, as well as the capital accumulation (both physical and human), was key determinants of the long-run growth rate of per capita GDP over the analyzed period. Furthermore, our results are also consistent with the hypothesis that the link between trade openness and long-run growth operates mainly through imports. This finding supports some recent developments of Schumpeterian models of growth, and the very specific economic policy recommendations arising thereof. In short, these models state that, in the early stages of growth, government intervention to encourage an investment-based strategy, with emphasis on large investment efforts and the adoption of foreign technology, could be an appropriate strategy for development.     

个人理财的逻辑基础与历史发展

个人理财问题与需求构成了个人理财的逻辑基础,也成为推动个人理财服务发展的历史条件。以个人投资理财为例,经历了从传统直接投融资阶段开始,经过间接投融资阶段,最后又上升到新型直接投融资阶段。在这些不同阶段里,个人理财问题与需求发生极大的变化,推动个人理财服务不断创新发展。刚刚起步的我国个人理财服务,必须奠定在自己的逻辑基础之上,才能获得更快的发展。     

Fiscal Policy and Urban and Rural Residents＇ Marginal Propensity to Consume

基于代表性家庭最优消费决策及其与财政政策的关系,估计中国财政政策对城乡居民边际消费倾向的影响,结果表明,自1998年至今,城乡居民边际消费倾向的下降幅度超过20％。城乡居民边际消费倾向下降,．除源于收入分配、经济发展程度、预期、消费结构等因素的影响外,与财政政策运用也有很大关系。其中,未预期到的财政政策冲击对居民边际消费倾向产生的综合效应显著为负。以未预期到的税收增加为融资工具的策略选择,大大抑制了结构调整的正面效应。因此,扩大居民消费,不仅要通过财政增收,提高居民消费能力,而且要通过调整财政收支策略,稳定居民消费预期,提升居民边际消费倾向。