After China eradicated absolute poverty in 2020, the problems of relativepoverty and urban poverty will draw more attention. Social protection system in urbanareas lays the groundwork for economic transition and social stability. The targetingaccuracy of urban minimum livelihood guarantee (Dibao) system is the key to the successof the system. After analyzing urban Dibao’s targeting practice and performance withhousehold survey data, this study found that the issuance of Dibao payments took accountof household income, assets and demographic characteristics to ensure minimum livelihoodguarantee and meet recipients’ urgent needs. This practice is of great importance duringChina’s economic transition. Under the multidimensional review mechanism, the exclusionerror of urban Dibao is in the range of 38.45% and 66.28%, and the inclusion error isbetween 54.59% and 69.17%. By 2013, Dibao’s targeting efficiency improved significantlyover 2007. In evaluating Dibao’s targeting efficiency, it is more appropriate to adoptmultidimensional criteria instead of income alone. Multidimensional evaluation is also ofgreat importance for evaluating Dibao’s targeting policy.
China’s anti-poverty strategy in the post-2020 era will focus on reducingchronic poverty and alleviating relative poverty. As a common international approachfor long-term multidimensional poverty reduction, conditional cash transfer (CCT)payments reduce current poverty, prevent future poverty, and improve income distributionby providing poor households with cash allowances and promoting children’s humancapital accumulation. For such reasons, CCT serves as an anti-poverty policy instrumentworth referencing for China. This paper systematically reviewed the theoretical basis anddevelopment journey of CCT, the short-term and long-term implementation effects, aswell as the decision-making basis, design and potential limitations. In this paper, we havefurther analyzed the poverty-reducing effects and problems of China’s rural public transferpayment policies in the current stage and discussed the achievements and inadequaciesof China’s ongoing CCT pilot programs. Results indicate that the further development ofCCT in China calls for a combination top-down and bottom-up policy-making approachesin project design and implementation, as well as an evolving poverty governance systemcomplementary with other relevant policies.
Improvement of the macroeconomic governance system as an important partof the national governance system is a key initiative to address major economic problemsin the new era. The coordination and economic regulatory effects of fiscal and monetarypolicies are subject to the arrangements of fiscal and financial decentralization systems.Analysis revealed a mismatch between China’s fiscal income decentralization and fiscalspending decentralization, as manifested in the clear decentralization of fiscal revenueand vague decentralization of fiscal spending; in pursuing local economic stability,local governments seek other sources of revenue and compete for financial resources, asmanifested in apparent financial centralization and implicit financial decentralization,causing financial decentralization to be inconsistent between various levels of governmentand between government and the market. The above-mentioned problems are reflected inmutual conversion between public finance and financial intermediation as two financialallocation methods and mutual transmission between fiscal and financial risks, makingthe case for enhancing coordination between fiscal and monetary policies. In creatinga scientific macroeconomic governance system, therefore, we must establish clear localgovernment responsibilities, reduce the proportion of local fiscal spending, clarify theorientations and relief boundary of fiscal and monetary policies, moderately decentralizefinancial powers, and give better play to the role of local governments in improving thequality of economic development and controlling major risks.
In this paper, we performed an empirical study on the TFP effect of structuraltransformation based on panel data of economic growth in 169 countries across the world.Our findings are threefold: First, structural transformation has an inverted U-shaped effecton TFP. When the degree of structural transformation is on the left side of the inflectionpoint, structural transformation is conducive to softening industrial structure and inducingTFP; when the degree of structural transformation is on the right side of the inflectionpoint, structural transformation will induce industrial hollowing out and inhibit TFP.Second, since the reform and opening up program was launched in 1978, China’s structuraltransformation has evolved from the stage of adaptation to the stage of strategic adjustmentwith an increasingly evident trend towards a service-based economy, but structuraltransformation remains on the left side of the inflection point of the inverted U-shapedcurve, i.e. the TFP effect of structural transformation is positive. Third, TFP improvementlies at the heart of high-quality development. In pursuing high-quality development, Chinashould lower growth rate expectations, attach greater importance to supply-side structuralreforms, and accelerate structural transformation to promote TFP improvement.
Soon after its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China establishedan all-round planned economic system, abolished the labor market, put labor authoritiesin charge of urban employment planning and placements, and assigned rural workforceas members of the People’s Communes. This planned labor system lasted until the reformand opening up program was launched in 1978. In the face of great employment pressuresas educated youth returned from the countryside to cities, the government took a seriesof policies to bring the educated youth into the workforce through referral by laborauthorities, voluntarily organized employment, and self-employment. With the abolition ofthe centralized job placement system, China’s labor market started to develop, giving playto the comparative advantage of abundant labor force, and the dual economic structurestarted to integrate. After decades of rapid growth and job creation, China’s labor markethave turned from oversupply to undersupply since 2003, and labor remuneration increasedsharply. China’s changing resource endowment structure was accompanied by a shift in itslabor market policy from employment to the labor market. Over the past four decades ofreform and opening up, the Chinese government enacted wise labor market policies in eachcritical stage.
In the context of national governance, public finance is embedded into China’seconomic, political, and social systems as a medium between various national subsystems.As such, fiscal sustainable development should be viewed from a systematic and integratedperspective. This paper created an analytical framework consisting of three aspects: fiscalresource adequacy, institutional soundness and effectiveness, and external shocks. Chinesegovernment has a relatively healthy balance sheet with adequate fiscal resources; however,it is faced with implicit debt risks and inefficiencies. China has initially established a basicfiscal framework with Chinese characteristics that are compatible with national governance,but problems remain in terms of fiscal responsibility, lawfulness, efficiency, fairness, andcompatibility. When dealing with external shocks, policymakers should establish a clearfiscal policy rationale and approach based on the implications of fiscal sustainability. Fiscalsustainable development requires the strengthening of government capabilities to assessmanagement and operation; thus, expanding available fiscal resources. Fiscal reformsshould be expedited in order to create a modern fiscal system. Furthermore, a fiscal policysystem should be developed and optimized according to the principles of fiscal sustainabilityin order to withstand external shocks.
Based on ten rounds of CHNS data from 1989 to 2015, this paper employeddual measurement indicators of the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of earnings andthe income rank association (IRA) coefficient to measure intergenerational incomemobility in China. Our findings suggest that China’s intergenerational income mobilitywas relatively stable from 1991-2004 and started to increase after 2004. Our study basedon income grouping found that the intergenerational income immobility decreased after2004 for all income groups; however, the high-income and low-income groups werefar more immobile than other income groups; the middle-income group served as a keydriver of the relatively high intergenerational income mobility in China. Furthermore,we investigated China’s intergenerational income transmission mechanism with a humancapital analysis framework. We found that fathers’ non-education factors played a dominantrole in intergenerational income transmission; under the effects of the social institutionalenvironment, the non-education transmission mechanism started to diminish after 2004,significantly contributing to intergenerational income mobility.
This paper employs relatively more detailed and accurate data currentlyavailable from the Global Corporate Greenfield Investments Database 2005-2016 for anall-round analysis of the investment effects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) based onthe difference-in-differences (DID) model as an effective identification method for eventevaluation. Our findings suggest that the BRI has sharply increased growth in outboundgreenfield investments by Chinese companies and led to an increase in the number ofinvestment projects in BRI countries by around 32%. A series of validity and robustness testshas demonstrated the existence of such positive effects. The BRI has facilitated greenfieldinvestments by Chinese companies through “five links,” i.e. infrastructure interconnection,policy communication, financial intermediation, trade, and people-to-people exchanges.Our heterogeneity analysis found that geographically, the BRI has played a more significantrole in facilitating investment growth in the Maritime Silk Road countries and China’sneighboring countries involved in the BRI, and no significantly positive effect exists forinvestment in economies with high political risks. From a dynamic perspective, the BRIstimulates investment by expanding the intensive margins, i.e. spurring investment growthin existing investment projects or economies home to those projects. Judging by the resultsof the difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) model, the BRI’s positive effects onoutbound investment are focused on infrastructure sectors such as energy, transportationand communication. In terms of the sources of investment, the BRI did not create anysignificant investment promotion effect for key Chinese provinces involved in the BRI..
The 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) is a critical transition for China’ssocial and economic development. After achieving moderate prosperity and eradicatingabsolute poverty in 2020, China will embark upon a new journey towards an affluent societywith rural revitalization replacing poverty eradication as a new priority of governmentagenda on agriculture and rural affairs. In the 14th FYP period, China should increase ruralprosperity in all respects, modernize agriculture and the countryside, address food securitychallenges, raise farmers’ incomes, and roll out rural reforms.