This article explores the nature of China's land-use rights system, its evolution and impact on resource allocation and local governments' public finances. In recent decades, the public ownership of land has not hindered the development of a thriving market economy. Since the inception of the...

The heavy reliance of Chinese local governments on land-leasing revenues in recent decades has attracted widespread criticism due to its potential risks and problems. This research, using a panel dataset of 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 1999-2009, explores what factors affect Chinese...

Facing a substantial loss of farmland in the reform era, the Chinese central government established a highly centralized land management system in 1998 to guarantee its capacity to meet the domestic food needs. In order to maintain high-speed economic growth, local governments in China made...

This study is the first attempt to examine the determinants of expenditure decentralization at sub-provincial levels in China. The Chinese central government gives detailed guidelines to local governments on public finance, but, ironically, their expenditure assignment is far from being...

This paper investigates the determinants of government size at the provincial level in China. We employ the panel data model as a platform for empirical analysis and control for endogeneity in the study. Our study shows that openness to trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) may curtail...

This article examines a particular type of central mandate in China, the mandate for nationwide across-the-board salary increases in the public sector. The making and implementation of this mandate epitomizes the changes and challenges in intergovernmental relations of a transition economy. Our...

China has emerged as one of the world's most active markets for public-private partnerships (PPP) in the water sector, while the pace of such development globally has slowed in recent years. This article investigates the dynamics of the development of PPP projects in the Chinese water sector...

In the literature on urban studies, the size distribution of cities has been attributed to a random growth process where transportation externalities, congestion costs, and capital formation all play a crucial role. However, the classic economics models do not fully capture the impact of...

In the literature on urban studies, the size distribution of cities has been attributed to a random growth process where transportation externalities, congestion costs, and capital formation all play a crucial role. However, the classic economics models do not fully capture the impact of...