China's Fiscal Decentralisation and the Financing of Local Services in Poor Townships

This article examines the implications of the decentralisation of public finance for the provision of rural health services. It compares two townships (the lowest level of government) to demonstrate the increasing inequalities in local government finance. Rural enterprises make a significant contribution to government revenues in the richer township, enabling it to finance a range of local social services. In the poor township, although agricultural house-holds bear a heavier tax burden, revenues barely cover the salaries of government staff and health services receive insufficient funding

The Economic Characteristics of an Aging Society: a Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

China is experiencing rapid population ageing. The elderly 65 and older accounted for 13.5 per cent of the total population in 2020. It will continue to increase to 40 per cent in 2100. What’s the economic implication of population aging? Most research has focused on the macroeconomic effects of a declining labour force and increasing elderly. There is insufficient research on the changes in demand for goods and services brought about by population ageing. The research on the impact of such changes on the economy under the computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework is even rare. This paper attempts to fill the research gap in this area. Using a dynamic CGE model of the Chinese economy, in the baseline scenario we projected China’s economic growth path over the period of 2019 to 2100. We assumed that there is no change in the age-specific consumption demand even though there is population ageing which is reflected by the declining working-age population and the increasing elderly population. The simulation results revealed that China has to rely on technology improvement and capital stock increases to support its economic growth. The increasing elderly will put high pressure on China’s general government budget balance. Starting with the baseline described above, we constructed a policy scenario that deviated from the baseline due to ageing-induced changes to household and government consumption preferences for education, health and aged care services. With ageing, demand shifts against education and towards health and aged care services. The simulation results show that the effects on the macroeconomy of age-structure driven changes are negligible, even though the changes will affect the industrial outputs and cause small adjustments to economic structure. The increased demand for medical and aged-care services will exceed the decreased demand for education, thus driving up the general government budget deficit

The Economic Characteristics of an Aging Society: a Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

China is experiencing rapid population ageing. The elderly 65 and older accounted for 13.5 per cent of the total population in 2020. It will continue to increase to 40 per cent in 2100. What’s the economic implication of population aging? Most research has focused on the macroeconomic effects of a declining labour force and increasing elderly. There is insufficient research on the changes in demand for goods and services brought about by population ageing. The research on the impact of such changes on the economy under the computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework is even rare. This paper attempts to fill the research gap in this area. Using a dynamic CGE model of the Chinese economy, in the baseline scenario we projected China’s economic growth path over the period of 2019 to 2100. We assumed that there is no change in the age-specific consumption demand even though there is population ageing which is reflected by the declining working-age population and the increasing elderly population. The simulation results revealed that China has to rely on technology improvement and capital stock increases to support its economic growth. The increasing elderly will put high pressure on China’s general government budget balance. Starting with the baseline described above, we constructed a policy scenario that deviated from the baseline due to ageing-induced changes to household and government consumption preferences for education, health and aged care services. With ageing, demand shifts against education and towards health and aged care services. The simulation results show that the effects on the macroeconomy of age-structure driven changes are negligible, even though the changes will affect the industrial outputs and cause small adjustments to economic structure. The increased demand for medical and aged-care services will exceed the decreased demand for education, thus driving up the general government budget deficit

Remote Sensing Data Fusion to Evaluate Patterns of Regional Evapotranspiration: A Case Study for Dynamics of Film-Mulched Drip-Irrigated Cotton in China’s Manas River Basin over 20 Years

The accurate quantification of evapotranspiration (ET) is critical to the sustainable management of irrigated agriculture. In this study, we proposed a remote sensing data fusion method for predicting ET, coupling a surface energy balance system model with an enhanced spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model utilizing remote sensing inversion with satellite data from Landsat and MODIS. The method was tested for a case study with cotton fields under film-mulched drip irrigation (FMDI) in the Manas River Basin. Areas under FMDI were identified, and ET patterns were evaluated for a 21-year period spanning from 2000 to 2020. A field experiment, a regional survey, and data retrieved from the literature provided results demonstrating that the method allowed reliable estimation of ET distribution with simultaneously, relatively high spatial and temporal resolutions at both field and regional scales. ET was found to decline from upstream to downstream in the basin, with the difference gradually diminishing over time. Supported by the promotion of FMDI technology, the area under cotton production in the basin increased by an average of 4.9% annually. Limited irrigation quotas to farmers and, therefore, water application per area led to a decreasing ratio of relative water supply for potential ET and, thus, to a reduction in average actual ET of 7.5 mm year−1. The average ET in the basin declined to about 415.7 mm in 2020, 287.2 mm lower than its water demand. The dynamics of fused ET provide a reliable scientific basis for agricultural water resources planning and management and for the sustainable utilization of water and soil resources in the basin. The method, with simultaneously high temporal and spatial resolutions, should have both local and global practical potential

China: The intersections between poverty, health inequity, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS

From her research in rural China, Joan Kaufman looks at the impact of inequities and under investment on health problems like reproductive health and critical disease threats such as HIV/AIDS. She argues that both a public health system that provides basic care as well as outreach and health education to poor women are required in order to change risk behaviors and adopt health promotion actions. Development (2005) 48, 113–119. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100187