This paper empirically examines the causal effect of railway infrastructure on local economic development using the construction of Qingzang railway as a natural experiment. We apply the difference-in-difference method and find that the Qingzang railway significantly stimulated the economy of...

This paper evaluates the impacts of China's massive drinking water program on labor reallocation and rural development. Using representative survey data, we find that improved access to drinking water at the village level significantly increased off-farm employment and household labor income....

The study focuses on two components of total poverty: chronic and transient poverty, and investigates their relative importance in total observed poverty, as well as the determinants of each components. We found that transient poverty accounts for a large proportion of total poverty observed in...

Urbanisation in China has long been held back by various restrictions on land and internal migration but has taken off since the 1990s, as these impediments started to be gradually relaxed. People have moved in large numbers to richer cities, where productivity is higher and has increased...

Urbanisation in China has long been held back by various restrictions on land and internal migration but has taken off since the 1990s, as these impediments started to be gradually relaxed. People have moved in large numbers to richer cities, where productivity is higher and has increased...

This study attempts a first causal examination of the role of state capacity in China's economic performance. Effective state capacity connotes not just ability to extract tax from citizens but also the ability to convert taxes into public investment. Equally importantly, these capacities must...

Given the need for accelerated development of the Chinese and Russian economies, infrastructure, being one of the key drivers of economic growth, is becoming an important asset for modernization. In this regard, the article analyzes the development of one of the fundamental tools for creating...

Climate resilient communities can be achieved with the support of global research, development, deployment, and diffusion of environmentally sound low GHG emission technologies and processes. Technology cooperation should lower emissions remaining mindful of biodiversity, ecosystem services and...

China and India increasingly provide aid and credit to developing countries. This paper explores whether India uses these financial instruments to compete for geopolitical and commercial influence with China (and vice versa). To do so, we build a new geocoded dataset of Indian...