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22. When Dragons and Kangaroos Trade: China's Rapid Economic Growth and Its Implications for China and Australia
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Jun Yang, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 02-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- China's economy has experienced remarkable growth since economic reforms were initiated in the late 1970s and pushed forward by a number of complementary policies. Since the mid-1980s, rural township and village-owned enterprises (TVEs) development; measures to provide a better market environment through domestic market reform; fiscal and financial expansions; the devaluation of exchange rate; trade liberalisation; the expansion of special economic zones to attract foreign direct investment (FDI); the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform; agricultural market liberalisation, and many other reforms have all contributed to China's economic growth. In response, the annual growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) was about nearly 10% in 1979–2004 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2005).
- Topic:
- Agriculture and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, Australia, and Australia/Pacific
23. Vote of Confidence, A? Voting Protocol and Participation in China's Village Elections
- Author:
- Xiaopeng Pang and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The goal of our paper is to provide an empirical basis for understanding progress (or stagnation) in the evolution of China's village committee elections. To meet this goal, we pursue three specific objectives. First, we seek to identify patterns (and trends) of voting behavior and develop ways to measure participation in the voting process. Second, we analyze who is voting and who is not (and document the process by which their votes are cast). Finally, we see to understand the correlation between propensity to vote and the quality of village elections.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
24. Village Elections, Public Goods Investments and Pork Barrel Politics, Chinese-style
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Renfru Luo, Linxiu Zhang, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influences the allocation of public resources. In this paper we exploit a unique survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly selected villages describing China's recent progress in village governance reforms and its relationship to the provision of public goods in rural China between 1998 and 2004. Two sets of questions are investigated using an empirical framework based on a theoretical model in which local governments must decide to allocate fiscal resources between public goods investments and other expenditures. First, we find evidence—both in descriptive and econometric analyses—that when the village leader is elected, ceteris paribus, the provision of public goods rises (compared to the case when the leader is appointed by upper level officials). Thus, in this way it is possible to conclude that democratization—at least at the village level in rural China—appears to increase the quantity of public goods investment. Second, we seek to understand the mechanism that is driving the results. Also based on survey data, we find that when village leaders (who had been elected) are able to implement more public projects during their terms of office, they, as the incumbent, are more likely to be reelected. In this way, we argue that the link between elections and investment may be a rural China version of pork barrel politics.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, Political Economy, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- China
25. The Role of Agriculture in China's Development: Past Failures, Present Successes and Future Challenges
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Keijiro Otsuka, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The view toward agricultural and rural development in the modern world has changed dramatically in the past several decades. Traditionally, agriculture was thought of an inferior partner in development. Since the size of the sector falls during development, it was logically considered that it could be ignored. Why is that leaders would ever want to invest in a sector that shrinking? Some academics urged policy makers to treat agriculture like a black box from which resources could be costlessly extracted (Lewis, 1954). All investment was supposed to be targeted at the industry and the cities. As a low productivity sector, it did not deserve investment.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
26. Irrigation Water Pricing Policy in China
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Qiuqiong Huang, Richard Howitt, and Jinxia Wang
- Publication Date:
- 02-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- As water becomes scarcer in northern China, designing policies that can induce water users to save water has become one of the most important tasks facing China's leader. Past water policies may not be a solution for the water scarcity problem in the long run. This paper looks at a new water policy: increasing water prices so as to provide water users with direct incentives to save water. Using a methodology that allows us to incorporate the resource constraints, we are able to recover the true price of water with a set of plot level data. Our results show that farmers are quite responsive if the correct price signal is used, unlike estimates of price elasticities that are based on traditional methods. Our estimation results show that water is severely under priced in our sample areas in China. As a result, water users are not likely to respond to increases in water prices. Thus as the first step to establishing an effective water pricing policy, policy makers must increase water price to the level of VMP so that water price reflects the true value of water, the correct price signal. Increases in water prices once they are set at the level of VMP, however, can lead to significant water savings. However, our analysis also shows that higher water prices also affect other aspects of the rural sector. Higher irrigation costs will lower the production of all crops, in general, and that of grain crops, in particular. Furthermore, when facing higher irrigation costs, households suffer income losses. Crop income distribution also worsens with increases in water prices.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, and Environment
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
27. Water User Associations and the Evolution and Determinants of Management Reform: A Representative Look at Northern China
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Qiuqiong Huang, Jinxia Wang, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 02-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Increasing demand for China's limited water resources (across China, but mostly in northern China) from rapidly growing industry, urban populations and agriculture implies potentially dire consequences for the sustainability of water use and drastic changes in cultivation patterns (Zhang, 2001). Problems in the water sector also have significant implications for China's future trade position in key crops and may affect the income of the farming sector (Huang et al., 1999).
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Environment, and Government
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
28. Water Management Reform and the Choice of Contractual Form in China
- Author:
- Siwa Msangi, Qiuqiong Huang, Jinxia Wang, Jikin Huang, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 02-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- This paper explains the puzzling fact that in organizing the management of surface water, village leaders have provided incentives to canal managers in some areas, but not in all. Our study indicates that the optimal contractual choice depends on the relative abilities of the leader and the manager, the design of the cultivated land, the characteristics of the canal system and the opportunity costs of the leader and the pool of managerial candidates. The unifying mechanism is the relative change in the ability of the leader and manager to perform the unmarketable activities that are needed to provide irrigation services.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Environment, and Government
- Political Geography:
- China
29. Why Did the Communist Party Reform in China, But Not in the Soviet Union? The Political Economy of Agricultural Transition
- Author:
- Johan Swinnen and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- The dramatic transition from Communism to market economies across Asia and Europe started in the Chinese countryside in the 1970s. Since then more than a billion of people, many of them very poor, have been affected by radical reforms in agriculture. However, there are enormous differences in the reform strategies that countries have chosen. This paper presents a set of arguments to explain why countries have chosen different reform policies.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Government, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union
30. Information, Incentives and Institutions: Experimenting with Private-Public Partnerships to Link the Poor with Modern Supply Chains
- Author:
- Jikun Huang, Johan Swinnen, Marcel Fafchamps, Tom Reardon, Bart Minten, and Scott Rozelle
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- To lift more than 10,000 farmers directly out of poverty by developing new Best-Practice Models for linking the poor to modern supply chains and after scaling up by our private and public partners to lift more than 1 million farmers out of poverty.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Non-Governmental Organization, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa, China, India, Asia, Senegal, and Madagascar