The urban-rural return migration phenomenon in China is gradually drawing attention from researchers. Some have the optimistic notion that many returnees are successes in host urban area, so must contribute to the development in home rural area. Others have skeptical notion that returnees are failures in urban labour market. To make a stir in this controversy, using the survey data conducted in Henan province in 2010, this study empirically analyses the factors which decide return intention of Chinese migrant rural workers. In contrast with past literatures we treat the migrant’s wage in the city, which is main determinant of out or return migration, as endogenous variable. As the first stage of probit model with instrument variables, we estimated Mincer-type wage function. The estimation results support human capital hypothesis in the context of migrant labour market. The dependent variable in the second stage is the binary one which equals 1 if the migrant intends to return in the future, equals 0 if otherwise. The estimation results indicate the wage level of the migrant who intends to return is lower than the migrant who intends to stay in the city. This result seems to support the skepticism for returnees’ contribution to development of rural area. Then we divides the whole samples into two sub-samples by the intention to establish own business, estimated the same return intention functions. The estimated results are interesting. On the group that does not intend to establish own business, wage have the significantly negative effect on the intention of return as previous model. On the other hands, wage does not have any significant effect on the intention of return on the group that intends to establish own business. Although our statistical evidence isn’t strong, we conclude that we cannot reject optimistic notion of returnees’ positive impacts to the development of home rural area.

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Based on the characteristics of the Chinese financial system, this paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of how money supply, bank lending, real estate development loans, and house purchasing loans influenced the commercialized and residential building prices during the period from 2003:2Q to 2011:3Q. The study also compares the influences of money supply and total lending on commercialized building prices during the period from 1999:1M to 2003:3M with those during the period from 2003:4M to 2011:9M. The impulse response functions of the four generalized VAR models show that, besides different time lags, a positive money supply shock leads to the largest increase in commercialized building prices, followed by a positive shock to total lending and house purchasing loans, whereas a positive real estate development loans shock causes a slight decline in commercialized building prices. Residential building prices are more sensitive to a shock to money supply, total lending, and house purchasing loans than non-residential building price, whereas they are less sensitive to a shock to real estate development loans. The real interest rate shock positively influenced the commercialized building prices after 2003:3M; however its effect was smaller than that of shocks to money supply and total lending. Interestingly, the response of commercialized building prices to a money supply shock was much stronger from 2003:3M to 2011:9M than that from 1999:1M to 2003:3M because the financial system reforms after 2003 strengthened the transmission between the money supply and banking credit and, thus, enhanced the effects of money supply on commercialized building prices.

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This paper examines the determinants of industrial relocation in China by using province- and city-level data from 2004 to 2010, which some scholars call the “post-Lewisian turning point.” We particularly focus on the significant gap of economic development in China, especially in regard to industrial agglomeration and dispersion. The results show that the capital-labor ratio is positively related to industrial growth in coastal areas but negatively related in central regions. However, although agglomeration economies have been weak, the absolute scale of local industry includes a positive effect. In sum, both dispersion and agglomeration forces are observed, suggesting the existence of multi-force dynamics of spatial relocation in China.

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This paper focuses on labor migration from rural to urban China. In our probit model, we empirically analyze the probability of migrant status using the Chinese Household Income Project 2002 data. Our empirical results show that the probability of migration is higher for persons who are between １5 and 44 year of age, and company managers. On the contrary, the probability is lower for those with secondary-level or high school education, and for agriculture-related companies. Moreover, we conduct a probit model analysis for the sub-sample data focusing on the heads of households and on different regions. Last, our analysis can be treated as a complimentary analysis to the existing literature.

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The relationship between education and increasing income inequality has been getting more and more attention as income inequality has been increasing in recent China. This paper examines whether household income level, educational attainment of parents and political faction or party and social class they belong to, influence on the type of school (key school or non-key school) their child advances to. We carried out questionnaire surveys of high and junior high school students and their parents living in Beijing city, Zhejiang and Guizhou provinces in 2009 and 2010. We conclude that while child of the household of the lowest income quartile is highly probable to advance to non-key school, child whose parents having higher educational attainment or belong to communist party has more opportunity to go on key school. Another important fact finding of this paper is that donation or political influence is still used today for school admission.

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Presently, China is the largest base of overseas expansion for Japanese companies and the largest source of revenue for Japan’s foreign direct investment. In other words, the profitability of Japanese affiliates in China has a significant impact on the Japanese economy. However, in comparison to other foreign affiliates (including those from Europe, the U.S., and South Korea) and Chinese affiliates (from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau), the profitability of Japanese attiliates is at a relatively lower level in China. On the basis of empirical evidence from firm-level data, my study shows what factors determining an attiliate’s profitability and suggests ways in which Japanese affiliates can improve profitability. The main results are as follows. First, the affiliate’s total sales, the ratio of its sales in China to its total sales, and its costs (especially, of intermediate inputs) are key determinants of the profitability of a Japanese affiliate in China. Second, for these affiliates, unlike in the case of other foreign affiliates and Chinese affiliates, the ratio of sales in China has a larger positive impact on profitability for smaller-sized firms, rather than for large ones. Third, the interaction term of the ratio of sales and years of operation in China, and that of the ratio of sales and R&D activity in China contribute toward improving the profitability of Japanese affiliates. These results present very important implications for Japanese affiliates in China.

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An unstable world economic situation continues in the aftermath of the Lehman Shock, and major European and American banks are exposed to severe financial conditions. However, in China, which is maintaining rapid economic growth, the activities of domestic banks, particularly the four state-owned banks (SOBs), are noteworthy. In terms of scale, each SOB is a giant in China’s banking industry. Overthrowing state bank market control and accepting the entry of private capital were the most critical elements of the economic reform that started in the beginning of the 1980s, which sought to promote bank competition. However, the Chinese government, which forced the SOBs to become joint-stock companies, may also change existing policies to protect domestic banks since its joining of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This national protection may be the reason behind SOB growth. Because of such protective policies, foreign banks entering China might have been unable to compete within the banking industry. To verify this, we need to measure the degree of market competition within the Chinese banking industry. This study attempts to do that by using two techniques, the“ non-structural approach” and the “structural approach”, both of which have been widely used in earlier research. From the results, it is hard to say that the degree of competition improved since the joint-stock reform of the SOBs in the period 2003 to 2010, and it is clear that banks in China operate under a monopolistic or oligopolistic system of competition.

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