1,020 research outputs found
China’s Energy Situation and Its Implications in the New Millennium
Many are interested in China’s energy situation, however, numerous energy related issues in China still remain unanswered. For example, what are the potential forces driving energy demand and supply? Previous reviews focused only on fossil fuel based energy and ignored other important elements including renewable and ‘clean’ energy sources. The work presented here is intended to fill this gap by bringing the research on fossil-based and renewable energy economic studies together and identifying the potential drivers behind both energy demand and supply to provide a complete picture of China’s energy situation in the new millennium. This will be of interest to anyone concerned with the development of China’s economy in general, and in particular with its energy economy.China China; Energy; Fossil fuels; Renewable Energy
The Strawberry Growth Underneath the Nettle: the emergence of entrepreneurs in China
Chinese entrepreneurs innovatively manage organisations in the absence of strong economic institutions, under conditions of high environmental and technological uncertainty. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study designed to investigate how Chinese entrepreneurs can be successful in such an environment. We found that Chinese entrepreneurial activity relies on social institutions rather than on economic institutions. We offer a sociological theory which explains why the reliance on social institutions leads to such an unprecedented success. We conclude that the strong rule-enforcement mechanisms generate reliable behavioral patterns, and that these in turn efficiently reduce uncertainty to tolerable levels.networks;social capital;evolutionary economics;Comparative business systems;private sector in China
The shadow price of capital in China
The shadow price of capital is the present value of the stream of future consumption generated by current marginal investment. This paper derives an estimate of the shadow price of capital for China based on estimations of the marginal productivity of capital, the marginal propensity to save and the consumption rate of interest. Macro-economic data from independent accounting units of state industrial enterprises is compared to micro-economic data from World Bank project reports to produce a more realistic estimate. Using a simple model with no reinstatement, where the shadow price of capital depends only on the marginal productivity of capital and the consumption rate of interest, a lower limit for the shadow price of capital of 2.1 is estimated. Using a more complex aggregate function approach, an upper limit of 4.2 is estimated. The mean value of 3.2 is chosen as the shadow price of capital or the value of public investment in China. This estimate indicates that opportunity cost of capital is two times of its market price. In other words, the use of capital in China is subsidized. To exploit its labour-intensive comparative advantage and to correct capital market distortions, capital should be made more expensive to the user in China
Electricity Restructuring in China: The Elusive Quest for Competition
The continuation of China’s remarkable economic growth will depend on continued increases in electricity supply. China has commenced a program of electricity sector restructuring, with the announced aim of relying on markets and competition to provide incentives for attracting private investment and encouraging efficiency. However, a close examination of the generation markets being created suggests that truly free wholesale prices are likely to be both high and volatile. This may be the reason that these prices have not yet been freed – and it may not bode well for true market liberalization in the future.Electricity Restructuring, Competition, China
Central-provincial Politics and Industrial Policy-making in the Electric Power Sector in China
In addition to the studies that provide meaningful insights into the complexity of technical and economic issues, increasing studies have focused on the political process of market transition in network industries such as the electric power sector. This dissertation studies the central–provincial interactions in industrial policy-making and implementation, and attempts to evaluate the roles of Chinese provinces in the market reform process of the electric power sector. Market reforms of this sector are used as an illustrative case because the new round of market reforms had achieved some significant breakthroughs in areas such as pricing reform and wholesale market trading. Other policy measures, such as the liberalization of the distribution market and cross-regional market-building, are still at a nascent stage and have only scored moderate progress. It is important to investigate why some policy areas make greater progress in market reforms than others. It is also interesting to examine the impacts of Chinese central-provincial politics on producing the different market reform outcomes. Guangdong and Xinjiang are two provinces being analyzed in this dissertation. The progress of market reforms in these two provinces showed similarities although the provinces are very different in terms of local conditions such as the stages of their economic development and energy structures. The actual reform can be understood as the outcomes of certain modes of interactions between the central and provincial actors in the context of their particular capabilities and preferences in different policy areas. This dissertation argues that market reform is more successful in policy areas where the central and provincial authorities are able to engage mainly in integrative negotiations than in areas where they engage mainly in distributive negotiations
Will land transport infrastructure affect the energy and carbon dioxide emissions performance of China’s manufacturing industry?
Abstract(#br)The energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of China’s manufacturing industry accounted for 12.8% and 15.5% of the world in 2016, respectively. On the other hand, the construction of land transport infrastructure has become the focal point of the Chinese government recently. However, there is very little literature investigating the influencing mechanism of land transport infrastructure on the energy and environmental efficiency of the sector. Therefore, it is crucial and meaningful to study how the latter is affected by the land transport infrastructure to alleviate global energy and environmental issues. Non-radial directional distance function was used to calculate two indicators measuring energy and carbon dioxide emissions performance in this paper. The panel Tobit model was then applied to focus on factors affecting the performance. The results indicate that land transport infrastructure, economic growth, technological progress, energy prices, industrial structure have significant impacts on the energy and environmental efficiency of China’s manufacturing industry. Different from the results at the national level, from a regional perspective, the development of land transport infrastructure in the eastern region plays a negative role in the performance of the manufacturing industry. Finally, some targeted policy recommendations are proposed to improve the policy design of the government
From Divergence to Convergence: Re-evaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom
China's long-term economic dynamics pose a formidable challenge to economic historians. The Qing Empire (1644-1911), the world's largest national economy prior to the 19th century, experienced a tripling of population during the 17th and 18th centuries with no signs of diminishing per capita income. In some regions, the standard of living may have matched levels recorded in advanced regions of Western Europe. However, with the Industrial Revolution a vast gap emerged between newly rich industrial nations and China's lagging economy. Only with an unprecedented growth spurt beginning in the late 1970s has the gap separating China from the global leaders been substantially diminished, and China regained its former standing among the world's largest economies. This essay develops an integrated framework for understanding this entire history, including both the long period of divergence and the more recent convergent trend. The analysis sets out to explain how deeply embedded political and economic institutions that had contributed to a long process of extensive growth subsequently prevented China from capturing the benefits associated with new technologies and information arising from the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, the gradual erosion of these historic constraints and of new obstacles created by socialist planning eventually opened the door to China's current boom. Our analysis links China's recent economic development to important elements of its past, while using the success of the last three decades to provide fresh perspectives on the critical obstacles undermining earlier modernization efforts, and their removal over the last century and a half.
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