The general financial stress confronting Chinese local governments requires public spending to become more efficient. While previous work has attempted to study what determines the efficiency, the focus was put on various factors that were not under direct control by policymakers. This paper...

Background: China has five layers of government including the central government. Recently, some prefectural governments meet fiscal distress. Methods: We investigate the effects of urban and rural populations and area sizes on the expenditures of the prefecture-level local government by...