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"Rural development Asia, Central."
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The Geopolitics of Spectacle
Why do autocrats build spectacular new capital cities? InThe Geopolitics of Spectacle, Natalie Koch considers how autocratic rulers use \"spectacular\" projects to shape state-society relations, but rather than focus on the standard approach-on the project itself-she considers the unspectacular \"others.\" The contrasting views of those from the poorest regions toward these new national capitals help her develop a geographic approach to spectacle.
Koch uses Astana in Kazakhstan to exemplify her argument, comparing that spectacular city with others from resource-rich, nondemocratic nations in central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia.The Geopolitics of Spectacledraws new political-geographic lessons and shows that these spectacles can be understood only from multiple viewpoints, sites, and temporalities. Koch explicitly theorizes spectacle geographically and in so doing extends the analysis of governmentality into new empirical and theoretical terrain.
With cases ranging from Azerbaijan to Qatar and Myanmar, and an intriguing account of reactions to the new capital of Astana from the poverty-stricken Aral Sea region of Kazakhstan, Koch's book provides food for thought for readers in human geography, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, political science, international affairs, and post-Soviet and central Asian studies.
eBook
Impact of Initial Conditions and Reform Policies on Agricultural Performance in Central and Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, and East Asia
Macours and Swinnen separate out the impact of initial conditions (ICs), propose reform policies and estimate the total impact of ICs on agricultural performance in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and East Asia. They consider six indicator variables of ICs and, combining a principal component analysis and regression analysis, estimate their impact on gross agricultural output and agricultural labor productivity.
Journal Article
Prosper or perish
The official banking institutions for rural China are Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCCs). Although these co-ops are mandated to support agricultural development among farm households, since 1980 half of RCC loans have gone to small and medium-sized industrial enterprises located in, and managed by, townships and villages. These township and village enterprises have experienced highly uneven levels of success, and by the end of the 1990s, half of all RCC loans were in or close to default, forcing China's central bank to bail out RCCs. InProsper or Perish, Lynette H. Ong examines the bias in RCC lending patterns, focusing on why the mobilization of rural savings has contributed to successful industrial development in some locales but not in others.
Interweaving insightful and theoretically informed discussions of rural credit, development, governance, and bank bailouts, Ong identifies various sources for China's uneven development. In the highly decentralized fiscal environment of the People's Republic, successful industrialization has significant implications for rural governance. Local governments depend on revenue from industrial output to provide public goods and services; unsuccessful enterprises starve local governments of revenue and result in radical cutbacks in services. High peasant burdens, land takings without adequate compensation by local governments, and other poor governance practices tend to be associated with unsuccessful industrialization. In light of the recent liberalization of the rural credit sector in China,Prosper or Perishmakes a significant contribution to debates within political science, economic development, and international banking.
eBook
Responsiveness, Flexibility, and Market Liberalization in China's Agriculture
Brauw, Huang and Rozelle construct a way to measure how market liberalization affects the behavior of producers in transitional economies. While limited to the case of China's agricultural sector and its reforms, it is argued that this is a good laboratory to study market liberalization.
Journal Article
From Common Heritage to Divergence: Why the Transition Countries are Drifting Apart by Measures of Agricultural Performance
Lerman examines how agricultural sectors in Central Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, having started from a common heritage, are following divergent paths of market reforms, gradually creating a sharp \"East-West divide\" between the two subregions.
Journal Article
The Fundamental Institutions of China's Reforms and Development
China's economic reforms have resulted in spectacular growth and poverty reduction. However, China's institutions look ill-suited to achieve such a result, and they indeed suffer from serious shortcomings. To solve the \"China puzzle,\" this paper analyzes China's institution—a regionally decentralized authoritarian system. The central government has control over personnel, whereas subnational governments run the bulk of the economy; and they initiate, negotiate, implement, divert, and resist reforms, policies, rules, and laws. China's reform trajectories have been shaped by regional decentralization. Spectacular performance on the one hand and grave problems on the other hand are all determined by this governance structure.
Journal Article
From Transition to Development: The Economics and Policies of Rural Transition in East Asia, the Former Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern Europe: Discussion
Feder argues that articles by Alan de Brauw, Jikun Huang, Scott Rozelle and Zvi Lerman do not sufficiently represent the effects of China's market liberalization, or the differences in history and sociopolitical environment in the transition experiences of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Journal Article
Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India
Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of nonsystematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and nonprice factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is significantly price sensitive, but widespread take-up would not be achieved even if the product offered a payout ratio comparable to US insurance contracts. We present evidence suggesting that lack of trust, liquidity constraints, and limited salience are significant nonprice frictions that constrain demand.We suggest possible contract design improvements to mitigate these frictions.
Journal Article
Transfer-based decentralisation, economic growth and spatial inequality
China has adopted a transfer-based fiscal decentralisation scheme since the mid-1990s. In the 1994 tax sharing reform, the central government significantly raised its share of government revenue vis-à-vis local governments by taking most of the newly created value-added tax on manufacturing. One aim for the adoption of the transfer-based fiscal scheme was to channel more funds to less developed regions and rural areas, and to alleviate growing interregional inequality and urban–rural income disparity. In 2002 and 2003 the Chinese central government further grabbed 50% and 60%, respectively, of the income taxes previously assigned only to local governments while providing more fiscal transfers to the country’s poor regions and the countryside. Utilising the 2002–2003 change in China’s central–local tax sharing regime as an exogenous policy shock, we employ a Simulated Instrumental Variable approach to causally evaluate the effects of the policy shock on growth, interregional inequality and urban–rural disparity. We find the lower local tax share dis-incentivised local governments and led to lower growth. Although higher central transfers helped to reduce interregional inequalities in per capita GDP and per capita income, the equalising effects were only present for urban incomes. We argue that transfer-based decentralisation without bottom-up accountability was detrimental to economic growth and had limited impact on income redistribution.
自20世纪90年代中期以来，中国一直采用基于转移支付的财政分权方案。在1994年的分税制改革中，中央政府通过对制造业征收大部分新创造的增值税，大幅提高了相对于地方政府的政府收入份额。采用基于转移的财政方案的一个目的是将更多资金引入欠发达地区和农村地区，并缓解日益加剧的地区间不平等和城乡收入差距。2002年和2003年，中国中央政府进一步分别拿走了以前完全分配给地方政府的所得税的50%和60%，同时向贫困地区和农村提供了更多的财政转移支付。利用2002-2003年中国中央与地方税收分享制度的变化作为外生政策冲击，我们采用模拟工具变量方法，针对政策冲击对增长、地区间不平等和城乡不平等的影响进行因果评估。我们发现较低的地方税收份额削弱了地方政府的积极性，导致了较低的增长。虽然较高的中央转移有助于减少人均国内生产总值和人均收入的区域间不平等，但均衡效应只存在于城市收入。我们认为，没有自下而上问责制的基于转移的财政分权不利于经济增长，对收入再分配的影响有限。
Journal Article