China’s pension system is in need of comprehensive reform in that it is fragmented in its coverage and significantly under-funded. Attempts to improve the coverage will likely exacerbate the financial strains. Thus it is urgent to improve the financial sustainability of the system and one...

China is under considerable pressure to reduce its CO2 emissions and has given a public commitment to substantial cuts by 2020. Policy-makers are acutely aware of the possible adverse economic consequences of such cuts and an important part of this issue is the regional dimension – will policy...

The extent of inter-regional disparities is an important policy issue in China and the sources of these disparities have been subject to considerable empirical research. Yet we have relatively little empirical knowledge of the effects on the regional distribution of output of shocks to national...

Inter-regional disparities in China have been an important concern for central-government policy-makers for most of the past 60 years. One of the main policy instruments for redressing the balance between the prosperous coastal region and the poorer inland region has been the allocation of...

Fiscal decentralisation has played a significant role in the development of China’s economy over the past three decades. Yet there has been only limited analysis of the way in which decentralisation might affect variables such as welfare, output and income at the aggregate level and none at...

Both before and after the federal election campaign in 2010, Australians were frequently told that they were spared the worst effects of the Global Financial Crisis because of the government’s timely and decisive fiscal stimulus. However, there are at least two other possibilities: monetary...

This paper reviews the history of the development of the Chinese stock market, analyses the market scale and structure, and sheds light on the prospects of the market. The development of the stock market can be classified into four stages, namely, the early stage of stock market development...

This paper examines the relation between trading volume and stock returns for two Chinese A-share markets and ten individual stocks in the energy sector. We also investigate the effects of exogenous government policies on the relation between trading volume and stock return. Using daily data...

There has been a resurgence of interest in the effect of stock price changes on the real economy in the wake of the long stock market boom of the 1990s and the subsequent correction starting in 2000. One of the primary variables linking the stock market and output is consumption expenditure,...