This paper examines the potential long-term impacts of global climate change on agricultural production and trade in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Using an economy-wide, global computable general equilibrium model, this paper simulates the scenarios of global agricultural productivity...

The rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the last 30 years has generated many environmental problems and a concomitant rise in the number of environmental disputes. Until 1989, legal cases arising from these disputes were usually heard in the people’s courts of...

This paper estimates trends in absolute poverty in urban China from 1988 to 2002 using the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) surveys. Poverty incidence curves are plotted, showing that poverty has fallen markedly during the period regardless of the exact location of the poverty line....

This paper explores how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) can turn the challenges posed by the current global economic crisis into opportunities for a more prosperous future. The paper proposes a one-time sharp increase of government investments in the country’s successful albeit...

Why is it that, as the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip, abandoned its core beliefs, and marketized the economy, its membership has risen markedly along with the economic benefits of joining? We use three national household surveys, spanning eleven years, to answer this question...

This paper tests three hypotheses concerning intra-household resource allocation in rural China. First, whether increasing the women's bargaining power alters household expenditure patterns. Second, whether households allocate fewer resources to daughters than to sons. Third, whether increasing...

Survey data from urban China in 2002 show levels of life satisfaction to be low, but not exceptionally so, by international comparison. Many of the determinants of life satisfaction in urban China appear comparable to those for people in other countries. These include, inter alia, unemployment,...

The year 2008 witnessed the renewed interests in earthquake risk management and insurance in the People's Republic of China (PRC), after the Wenchuan earthquake hit the country in May. Located along the southeastern edge of the Euro-Asian Plate, the PRC has a relatively high seismicity, which is...

This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability in the People’s Republic of China by empirically estimating environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) models using provincial-level panel data from 1985 to 2005. The results show that there exists an...

Flood insurance, a component of catastrophe insurance, is universally available in only a few countries. In many countries, it is available in a restricted form and its conditions vary greatly. Coverage is usually denied to those regarded as relatively high risk for flooding. This working paper...