Since shifting to reform and open-door policies at the end of the 1970s, China has leveraged an abundant workforce and low wages to achieve rapid development. However, as labor shortages have become increasingly apparent lately, its potential growth rate has declined sharply. China needs to transform its pattern of economic development by shifting its growth engine from expanding labor input to speeding up productivity growth through innovation. While in the past, innovation was led by the government, as the market economy progresses, private companies, particularly those in the IT industry centering on the internet, are emerging as the dominant force. Against this backdrop, the international reputation of innovation in China has been rising rapidly.

View full abstract

Today, many economists start to show interest in the development of social welfare reform in China. They see it as a mean to increase domestic consumption, which suits the “New Normal” model advocated by Xi Jinping. However, the result of social insurance reform during Hu Jintao regime does not consolidate this assumption. The rapid pace of establishing new health insurance and pension system that are eligible to all rural and urban residents caused the further fragmentation of social security funds. In large cities, social security contribution became conditionality to obtain local household registration, thus excluded migrant workers from rural urban integration. Traditional social safety-net, i.e., family and land, continued to be the main risk reduction.

View full abstract

Based on several published data, this paper clarifies changing and unchanging environmental issues in recent China. According to the results, air and water pollution emissions from industrial sector and CO2 emissions per GDP are steadily decreasing. On the other hand, diversified pollution sources and geographical expansion of pollutions are the bad side of changing issues. Automobiles become the major source of air pollution, and living and agricultural sectors become the major source of water pollution. Emphasized unchanging issues are the high level of environmental deterioration and the government’s environmental policies which cannot manage it. Although the environmental investment is increasing, its ratio to GDP is not much increasing in recent years. The government policies to protect further environmental deteriorations do not seem to improve drastically. The recent five-year plans set some environmental targets, which local governments have to attain. Moreover, the new Environmental Protection Law, enforced in 2015, defines the authority and responsibility of local governments and public participations for environmental issues. However, these are merely parts of the centralized environmental governance by the communist party and the central government. It is doubtful whether this biggest unchanging issue can properly control the environmental issues changing for the worse.

View full abstract

The purposes of this study are threefold. Firstly we briefly introduce the current situation of the Henan Chamber of Commerce which are jointly established in various places by the entrepreneurs from Henan province. For this purpose we use the results of the survey conducted in 2013. Secondly we offer the overview of the Chinese industrial transformation from the Eastern region to the Central-Western region. The factory attracting policies implemented by the local government promote the industrial transformation. Thirdly we investigate the possibility that HCC contribute to the industrial transformation in their hometown, Henan through the investment to that place. In this part we conducted a simple regression analysis using the data from our survey. The tentative conclusion of this study is that the Chamber of Commerce is an important factor composing the Chinese market economy on the whole but the problems that should be improved still remain.

View full abstract

This paper provides evidence on the determinants of self-employment for migrants in urban China. Using CHIP2007, the employment status is divided into four categories: self-employed employers, own-account workers, employees, and the unemployed. Several major conclusions emerge. First, compared with the employee, holding other factors (e.g., human capital) constant, the wage premium associated with the self-employed employer is higher, while wage premium associated with own-account workers is statistically significant. Second, the probability of becoming a self-employed employer is estimated to be negatively affected by the wage premium (logWer/Wee), and the influence of the wage premium (logWoa/Wee) on the probability of becoming an own-account worker is statistically insignificant, showing the business creation hypothesis is rejected and the disguised unemployment hypothesis is suppored. Third, the influence of the wage premium (logWer/Weepri) on the self-employed employer is negatively significant, and the influence of the wage premium (logWoa/Weepri) on the own-account workers is statistical insignificant. Based on these robust check results, the business creation hypothesis is rejected and the disguised unemployment hypothesis is supported once again. These results revealed that compared with the employees, the self-employed employers or the own-account workers are seemly not better choices for migrants in urban China. It is indicated that in order to promote more new business for greater economic growth in the future, the establishment and implementation of the financial support policies for the small firms, the registration system reform and the integration policies of employment and social security system are important issue for Chinese government.

View full abstract