Since its founding in 1925, the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) has regularly held the Pacific Conference and supported expert-led research projects. Land utilization research has been a main focus of these research projects since the late 1920s. In particular, J.L. Buck’s studies on China and Shiroshi Nasu’ studies on Japan were given priority funding. From the perspective of comparisons with these two countries, Hoon Koo Lee conducted similar studies on Korea.

The present paper clarifies the characteristics of the research-project adoption process of these three parties. In addition, comparative analyses are performed of the three research projects in terms of 1) the amount and duration of financial support received, 2) the main source of research data (government statistics and/or field surveys conducted by the researchers themselves), 3) the research implementation system (division of labor and collaboration among the researchers’ groups), and 4) achievements in fostering the next generation of researchers who will continue to implement the project.

Nasu succeeded in obtaining financial support for a long period of time due to Japan’s status as a major IPR participant. He conducted his own studies on rural communities and took advantage of the opportunity to train the next generation of researchers. Buck, an influential American intellectual, obtained large amounts of research funding over a long period of time through his own contacts and also conducted a large-scale agricultural census. At the same time, he introduced the American research and education system to Chinese researchers. In contrast, the intellectuals of colonial Korea, including Lee, were marginalized in the decision-making process by the IPR. Lee’s research projects were small in scale and he was unable to train the next generation of researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of urban spatial structure on the wages of workers in China. Unlike conventional studies that quantify urban scale and urban density, this paper focuses on urban spatial structure and examines urban system indexes that reflect urban spatial features as well as urban sprawl indexes that reflect urban spatial density. In addition, this paper constructs a panel data regression model and a dynamic panel data regression model by using an instrumental variables method and a system generalized moment method, respectively, and then empirically analyzes the association of the urban system and urban sprawl indexes with wages as well as the synergistic effect of urban heterogeneity and urban sprawl on wages. Based on the above research, it is concluded that a decentralized urban spatial structure reduces the wages of workers. In large and medium-sized cities in the central region in particular, decentralized urban spatial structure has a relatively strong inhibitory effect on wage increases. The size of an urban population has a great effect on economic growth and wage increases because economies of agglomeration are based on the size of the population. In the future, it will be necessary for large and medium-sized cities to focus their urbanization efforts on realizing a compact urban spatial structure in order to avoid excessive land development and urban sprawl. By strengthening the agglomeration effect within cities, the urban spatial structure can improve the wages of workers.