{"title":"Fiscal Pressure, Inter-Industrial Allocation of Land and Agglomerations Effects","authors":"Xiuye Bai, Jiankun Lu, Pei Li","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Land is a production factor that supports industrial development and also an important resource for increasing local government revenue. The scientific allocation of land has a positive effect on applying a new development philosophy. Based on the data of China’s micro land transaction, this paper constructs the industrial dispersion indicator of land transfer to discuss about how short-term fiscal pressure affects allocation of land resources among industries and then analyzes its impacts on agglomeration effects. The results show that the greater the short-term fiscal pressure, the higher the dispersion of land transfer among industries, which holds true after going through a series of robustness tests. Further analyses show that the dispersion of land transfer among industries deteriorates the policy orientation of giving priority to key industries. Finally, the practice of dispersion of land transfer among industries weakens agglomeration economies. The research results of this paper show that local governments’ strategy of land transfer among induestries for coping with short-term fiscal pressure has the characteristics of “increasing fiscal revenues and weakening the role of industrial guidance.” This means that in the new stage of development, local governments urgently need to enhance their understanding of the multiple functions of land and avoid impairing industrial development for addressing the short-term fiscal pressure.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"38 1","pages":"65 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139300494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Trade Rules and the Position of Chinese Enterprises in the Global Value Chain","authors":"Yindan Wang, Junjun Hou, Zhenguo Wang","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Digital trade rules and higher positions of enterprises in the global value chain (GVC) are both important topics in the context of high-quality economic development. This paper refers to the data of RTA digital trade rules concluded by China in the TAPED database in 2000–2014 and the matched data in the WIOD database, the China Customs Import and Export Database and the China Industrial Enterprise Database to investigate the effects of digital trade rules on Chinese enterprises as to their ascending GVC positions. It finds that signing the RTA digital trade rules can steadily and significantly promote the position ascendance; compared with the digitalization rules on trading objects, signing the digitalization rules on trade modes produces greater effects of driving up the positions, which are realized mainly via the three channels of advancing cross-border flow of R&D factors, promoting corporate digital transformation, and improving professional management. Digital trade rules that are horizontally broader and vertically deeper are in greater favor of Chinese enterprises for ascending in the global value chain, which is especially evident among those in digital industry and processing trade. During the negotiations of digital trade rules, it’s imperative to pay close attention to the rules on e-commerce cooperation, awareness of e-commerce importance, intellectual property protection, attempts in big data-related trade in goods, and cross-border data flow, so as to secure the core interests of Chinese enterprises in gaining higher positions. This paper offers great policy implications as to how to sign digital trade rules by China in the future and how to select partners in greater support for Chinese enterprises to ascend to the middle and high end of the global value chain.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"13 1","pages":"106 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139301927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Common Prosperity and Reshaping China’s Economic Cycle: Theoretical Logic and Empirical Evidence from a Political Economic Perspective","authors":"Xiaonan Qiao, Xin Li, Peizhi Pu","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Fostering a new development dynamic is in nature about reshaping the relations between domestic and international economic cycles to achieve self-reliance and self-strengthening at higher levels. Economic cycle is the integration of various links such as production, distribution, exchange and consumption. This paper attempts to study the influence on economic cycle from income distribution based on the principles of political economy and therefore link common prosperity with the new development dynamic. It finds that labor income share is central to income distribution. On the supply side, income distribution affects choice of technology and production efficiency through changing wages; on the demand side, it influences size of demand and level of capacity utilization both directly and indirectly. Specifically, changing wages lead to changing size of reproduction and consumption by laborers in the direct way and cause changing profit margins and thus affect accumulation in the indirect way. The two channels produce effects simultaneously, yet in opposite directions, which justifies the categorization of economies into “profit-oriented” and “wage-oriented” ones according to the different influence of changing wages on the level of capacity utilization. In this theoretical logic, the paper comprehensively analyzes China’s income distribution, wages, all labor productivity, organic composition of capital, profit margins, accumulation rates, level of capacity utilization and relations between domestic and international economic cycles, and finds that Chinese economy has turned from “profit-oriented” to “wage-oriented” since the turning point of 2010. It signals both necessity and feasibility of promoting common prosperity and fostering a new development dynamic. This paper also proposes some policy suggestions on promoting common prosperity from the perspectives of ownership, distribution, government-market relations and spatial structure.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"3 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139295321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Transformation, Information Search, and Women’s High-Quality Employment","authors":"Hua Qiu, Zhichao Yin","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The promotion of fuller and higher-quality employment is a prime task for China’s high-quality development. Both employment security (ES) and employment quality (EQ) need to be improved for women who, as an essential part of labor force, have long been faced with high stress and employment threshold. The role of digital transformation in promoting women’s employment through reducing the cost of job information search is analyzed with the Job Search Theory in this paper. By using China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data, this research found that digital transformation of households in China contributes to women’s employment significantly, raises the number and proportion of female family members in employment, and enhances women’ access to medical care insurance, endowment insurance, unemployment insurance, housing fund and overtime pay. Digital transformation can improve the information accessibility of households, and the reduction in information asymmetries benefits women’s employment, as indicated by the mechanism analysis. The positive impact of digital transformation is more pronounced for households in Central China, Western China and provinces with high unemployment rates, as well as those supporting the elderly and without housing. This paper will serve as a reference to fuel high-quality employment and reduce difficulties for women in the context of digital transformation.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"14 1","pages":"45 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139304711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analysis on Trade Gains from the Economic Dual Circulation in China","authors":"Shaojun Zhang, Yuwen Fang, Shantong Li","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Accelerating the building of a new development pattern with domestic market as the mainstay and domestic and international markets reinforcing each other is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core in light of changes in the development stage, environment and conditions in China. Trade gains are an important indicator of the development trend of domestic and international circulations for a country. With the quantitative model of trade gains containing the multi-sectoral input-output relations, this paper estimates the trade gains from the economic dual circulation in China between 1987 and 2017, based on the kernel density estimation and Markov chain, and the main findings are as follows. (1) The trade gains from the domestic circulation in China showed a downward trend, while the trade gains from the international circulation presented a trend of first rising and then declining. But the former still outweighed the latter. (2) Compared with the international circulation, the continuity, spatial correlation effect and rising potential of the trade gains from China’s domestic circulation were greater. (3) There was no positive spatial correlation effect between the trade gains from the domestic and those from the international circulation. China should make overall plans for opening up both externally and internally, and unblock sticking points between the two circulations, so as to realize the positive interaction of the trade gains from the dual circulation, and accelerate the formation of a new development pattern with domestic market as the mainstay and domestic and international markets reinforcing each other.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"211 1","pages":"83 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139305565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Local Government Debt, Sectoral Linkage and Resource Allocation Efficiency","authors":"Xin Lyu, Wenlin Fu, Rui Zhou","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Increasing the efficiency of resource allocation is the basis and guarantee for boosting high-quality economic development. Based on the panel data of Chinese industrial enterprises and cities from 2008 to 2013, this paper studies the influence of infrastructure construction demand shocks represented by local government debt expansion on the efficiency of sectoral resource allocation from the perspective of sectoral linkage. According to the empirical findings, local government debt significantly reduces the resource allocation efficiency of manufacturing sector that is highly related to infrastructure construction. This conclusion is still tenable after the robustness test using the simulated local government debt as an instrumental variable. Further mechanism tests show that there are two reasons for the decline of the efficiency of resource allocation in manufacturing sector that is highly related to infrastructure construction. First, more product demands and investments brought by the expansion of local government debt flow to less productive enterprises in the sector. Second, resource misallocation reduces the probability of high-productivity enterprises entering the market and low-productivity enterprises exiting the market, and the effect is more prominent in cities with high dependence on state-owned enterprises and high pressure on officials to be promoted. According to this study, the performance management of local government debt should be further strengthened, and particular attention should be paid to the influence of local government debt on enterprise investment and financing crowding out and resource misallocation.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"51 1","pages":"28 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139346990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Leading High-Quality Development of Service Industry with Institutional Innovation","authors":"Yueying Wang, Jiechang Xia","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract To realize the transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development, it is necessary not only to change the way and path of economic growth, but also to speed up the improvement of the institutional system that is compatible with high-quality development. China has unique institutional advantages in promoting the high-quality development of the service industry (HQDSI), but the service industry is a typical institution-intensive industry that faces higher institutional barriers than the manufacturing industry. Therefore, institutional reform and business environment optimization are particularly important to the promotion of HQDSI, and the effect is also very prominent. Facing the future, we should lead HQDSI by building a high-standard socialist market economy, promote the high-quality and efficient development of the service industry by standardizing it, and encourage the innovation and entrepreneurship of the industry by improving the institutional environment, thus steadily boosting HQDSI in the new era of reform and opening up.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"113 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139345020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"VAT Neutrality and Corporate Cash Holdings —Based on the Research of Uncredited VAT Refund Policy","authors":"Yanxiang Xie, Jiaqi Qin, Zhen Jin, Mingyang Geng","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper regards the uncredited value-added tax (VAT) refund policy promulgated in 2018 as an exogenous shock to improve the neutrality for VAT. Based on the statistics of listed companies in the non-financial sectors from 2013 to 2020, this paper applies the difference-in-differences (DID) approach to study the impact of the uncredited VAT refund policy on corporate cash holdings. The study finds that the policy has eased the impact of non-tax-neutral impact of non-refundable tax credits and lowered the level of corporate cash holdings. Furthermore, the analysis of capital sources verified that the policy has optimized the corporate capital conditions. These findings have proved to be robust after a series of tests. At the level of cross-sectional differences, the uncredited VAT refund policy exerts both “resource effect” and “signal effect”, enabling companies to reduce cash holdings in the dimensions of both tax endowment and market expectation. At the level of policy effects, the policy improved the corporate behavior of high cash holdings for the production and operation cycle, with more notable impact on enterprises with higher tax credit rating. At the level of economic consequences, the adjustment of corporate cash holdings induced by uncredited VAT refund policy has significantly improved operating performance and reduced performance volatility, with a greater impact on enterprises with high capital intensity. The research findings evaluate the uncredited VAT refund policy from the perspective of tax neutrality, laying a theoretical foundation for further optimizing the uncredited VAT refund policy and the modern fiscal, tax and financial systems.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"67 1","pages":"49 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139345313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Size of Individual Social Networks and Rural-Urban Migrants’ Wages—Findings from a Survey of Migrants in China’s 6 Provinces and 12 Cities","authors":"Renkun Yang, Ruimin Wang, Ran Tao","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Based on a survey of migrants in 12 cities across four major urbanizing areas in China, this paper empirically studies the impact of the size of individual social networks on the migrants’ wages. After controlling for potential endogeneity using an instrumental variable approach, our empirical results from 2SLS estimation provides no evidence for significant average causal effect of network size on wage. A further exploration of quantile regression analysis with endogeneity issue managed by using the control function approach shows that a significant positive network size effect can only be found in the low-income end.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"53 1","pages":"94 - 112"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139345469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unintended Results: Inter-Provincial Differences in Environmental Protection Tax Rates and Relocation Strategies of Polluting Enterprises","authors":"Zhenfa Xie, Fangmin Chen, Zhuoheng Chen","doi":"10.1515/cfer-2023-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cfer-2023-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Environmental Protection Tax Law that took effect in 2018 gave local authorities a certain amount of discretionary power to set the local rates for environmental protection tax. The inter-provincial gradient tax rates pattern may induce strategic relocation of enterprises, leading to unintended policy results. Combined with the data on trans-regional investment of listed companies, this paper employs the Difference-in-Difference (DID) approach to study the impact of inter-provincially different environmental tax rates on the trans-regional migration of polluting enterprises. The study shows that due to the regional differences in the tax rates, the polluting enterprises opt for the relocation strategy of “avoiding high tax rates and opting for low rates”, setting up more subsidiaries in regions with relatively low tax rates. Further research demonstrates that the trans-regional migration induced by different tax rates can help reduce production costs and increase corporate profits, while dampening the corporate enthusiasm for green innovation in the short term and resulting in pollution transfer. This paper reveals the unintended policy effects that may derive from the environmental tax reform, providing concrete proof for the comprehensive evaluation and understanding of the actual policy effects of existing environmental tax reform.","PeriodicalId":505490,"journal":{"name":"China Finance and Economic Review","volume":"3 1","pages":"72 - 93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139345572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}