Disaggregated province-by-province analysis appears to confirm the importance of ongoing redistributive lending by the big four Chinese banks together with lending to state-owned enterprises that is especially pronounced amongst the poorer provinces. Agricultural Bank of China's own allocation...

Given its nonperforming loan ratio of over 20 percent in 2007 and its concentration on poorer areas, the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) seemed an unlikely candidate for a successful initial public offering. The major capital injection the bank received in November 2008 was preceded by signs of...

The 2009 surge in bank lending in China was accompanied by allegations that substantial funds had been funneled into the nation's stock and property markets. Using data from 1999 to 2011, possible linkages between lending activity, real estate prices, stock prices, and inflation are examined. We...

Financial liberalization in China has begun to allow more flexibility in bank interest rate setting but may threaten bank profit margins. This paper documents the initial response to the June 2012 initiative that, for the first time, allowed Chinese banks to meaningfully depart from the...

Rural-urban migration and housing for the urban poor have attracted worldwide attention from both scholars and policy makers. In China, empirical studies have revealed tremendous discrimination experienced by temporary migrants in the urban housing system, but most have emphasized constraints by...

China's fiscal arrangement in the 1980s has preserved local governments' incentive but the 1994 fiscal reform recentralized revenues. Since then, farmers' tax burdens have risen steeply and become a major challenge to the state legitimacy. How to account for the huge regional variation? Why were...

Temporary migration due to lack of social security for migrants, rural land tenure insecurity due to frequent land reallocation and abusive land requisition due to lack of functioning land markets are all major policy challenges that China is facing in its yet-to-be finished economic transition....

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/25/03.

Using nationally representative data, the present paper examines the impact of China's ongoing rural tax reform on farmers. The difficulties in further local governance restructuring are also discussed. It is argued that the issues associated with rural taxation and local governance in China...