Migration, urban population growth and regional disparity in China

The main objective of this paper is to study the determinants of city population growth in China during the 1990s’, as well as the determinants of migrations towards cities, which constitutes the main source of urban population growth in this period. A second objective is to identify regional differences in the urban growth and migrations, that is, whether urban growth and migration patterns are different between coastal and inland provinces. Additionally, we are interested in the differences between temporary and permanent migrations towards urban areas.

Does China’s increasing coupling of ‘urban population’ and ‘urban area’ growth indicators reflect a growing social and economic sustainability?

Over the last four decades, China has experienced rapid parallel economic development and urbanization, leading to internal mass -migrations of its people from increasingly marginalized rural areas to urban centers where job opportunities and wealth are now concentrated. We compare the relative temporal growth trends in population-related and land-(i.e., area-) related urbanization systems to evaluate China's urbanization in the context of the ‘New-Type’ Urbanization Program (2014–2020). Based on coupling coordination models, we observed that the two systems were overall slightly decoupled since spatial urban expansion commonly outgrew urban population growth, but the degree of coordination between the two parameters was increasing. Employing exploratory spatial data analysis, we revealed that a high degree of coupling coordination has spread from Eastern to Western provinces. Urban planning and land policies have contributed to an increasing urban vegetation cover and the control of excessive urban land expansions. While China's urbanization appears to have become increasingly sustainable due to the increasing degree of coupling coordination between its subsystems, ongoing urban expansions require strong oversight to limit the environmental impacts of the country's sprawling mega-cities

Migration, urban population growth and regional disparity in China

The main objective of this paper is to study the determinants of city population growth in China during the 1990s', as well as the determinants of migrations towards cities, which constitutes the main source of urban population growth in this period. A second objective is to identify regional differences in the urban growth and migrations, that is, whether urban growth and migration patterns are different between coastal and inland provinces. Additionally, we are interested in the differences between temporary and permanent migrations towards urban areas.cerdi

Measuring Regional Sustainability by a Coordinated Development Model of Economy, Society, and Environment: A Case Study of Hubei Province

AbstractRegional sustainability concerns a complex system that mainly consists of three subsystems, being the economy, society, and the environment. A complex system involves intensive interactions and correlations among its components. Therefore, the way how these components are organized to work together efficiently is of great significance to the development of a complex system. For that reason, measuring regional sustainability should not only focus on changes in each subsystem individually, but also consider the interactions and relationships among the subsystems. In this paper, we apply a modified method to assess coordinated development, which highlights the simultaneous promotions of economic grow, social well-being, and environment al conservation. By introducing the model of coordinated development, we evaluate the sustainable development of Hubei province which is a typical region in Central China. The result shows that Hubei performed poorly in coordinated development. Although the coordinated development index was consistently increasing, the speed was very slow. In a detailed analysis of the economic, societal, and environmental subsystems in Hubei, the shortage of an economic driving force was found the main cause of the poor development of Hubei Province

CDM Potential for Rural Transition in China Case Study: Options in Yinzhou District, Zhejiang Province

This paper aims to examine the potential of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to address energy- related issues during the rural transition process in China, using a case study of quickly urbanizing and industrializing Yinzhou district in coastal Zhejiang province. Yinzhou's per capita GDP reached US$3100 in 2002, three times China's average, and is targeted to achieve$10,000 in 2020. We assess the current energy status of Yinzhou, and provide projections of energy consumption and CO2 emissions up to the year 2020. Energy resource shortages and limited possibilities to obtain coal-fired electricity from national grid illustrate the opening gap between energy supply and demand. We find that Yinzhou's CDM potential is concentrated in efficiency improvement on the demand side. In that context, we suggest to systematically explore the CDM potential in the industrial sector. Projects will have to involve many stakeholders and the necessary local capacity has to be built. These CDM projects can be considered as killing three birds with one stone, namely maintaining continuous economic growth, alleviating local environmental pollution as well as mitigating global climate change.Clean Development Mechanism, China, urbanization, energy efficiency, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q 540, Q 580,

Urbanization without growth : a not-so-uncommon phenomenon

To find out why African countries'experience with urbanization and sustained growth appeared to differ from that of other countries, the authors investigated the determinants of urbanization across countries over 40 years. Rather than studying individuals'decisions to migrate, they relied on macroeconomic data and cross-country comparisons. A central hypothesis of their study: that individuals move (with varying degrees of ease) in response to economic incentives and opportunities. If location incentives are distorted, so is growth. The authors find that urbanization levels are closely correlated with levels of income. But urbanization continues even during periods of negative growth, carried by its own momentum, largely a function of the level of urbanization. From that viewpoint, Africa's urbanization without growth is not a puzzle. Factors other than income that help predict differences in levels of urbanization across countries include: a) income structure; b) education; c) rural-urban wage differentials; d) ethnic tensions; and e) civil disturbances. In addition, the relationship between economic incentives and urbanization is weaker in countries with fewer civil or political liberties. Factors other than initial urbanization level that help explain the speed of urbanization include: 1) The sector from which income growth is derived; 2) ethnic tensions; 3) civil disturbances and democracy (these two slow the pace of urbanization if all else is constant); 4) rural-urban wage differentials, whether they represent an urban bias or simply lower productivity in agriculture relative to other sectors. The weak relationship that this study shows between urbanization and traditionally accepted migration factors suggests that in Africa economists are overlooking part of the urbanization story. The fact that the informal sector appears to provide a significant source of income for urban migrants, coupled with the overlap between rural and urban activities, may shed light on the nature of urbanization in Africa.Banks&Banking Reform,National Urban Development Policies&Strategies,Urban Housing and Land Settlements,Public Health Promotion,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Housing and Land Settlements,National Urban Development Policies&Strategies,Governance Indicators,Banks&Banking Reform,Urban Services to the Poor

Research on the Leading Value Drive of Rural Homestead Transfer under Rural Revitalization——Based on the Evidences of China

With the development of urban-rural integration in China, the functional value of homestead bases has evolved from a single residential security value to a multiple composite values, and the property income of homestead bases has gradually become the value driver of transfer and the intrinsic demand of farm households. This paper takes Baitafan of Jinzhai County, Chongqing City, and Xiaofang Yu Village of Ji County as examples for in-depth discussion, and finds that the dominant value drivers of home base transfer mainly include three kinds: capitalization income, commercialization income, and non-farm employment income. The study concludes that it is important to give full play to the resource endowment effect and identify the dominant value of home base transfer according to local conditions to promote the standardized home base transfer and implement the rural revitalization strategy

Infrastructure and economic growth in East Asia

This paper examines whether infrastructure investment has contributed to East Asia's economic growth using both a growth accounting framework and cross-country regressions. For most of the variables used, both the growth accounting exercise and cross-country regressions fail to find a significant link between infrastructure, productivity and growth. These conclusions contrast strongly with previous studies finding positive and significant effect for all infrastructure variables in the context of a production function study. This leads us to conclude that results from studies using macro-level data should be considered with extreme caution. The Authors suggest that infrastructure investment may have had the primary function of relieving constraints and bottlenecks as they arose, as opposed to directly encouraging growth.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Banks&Banking Reform,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Non Bank Financial Institutions