Suchergebnisse

Development and environmental policies have accompanied China's economic growth progress, and played significant roles in the process. The economic field in China has experienced its own growth and transition process. Over more than three decades of economic reform and transition, Chinese economists have learnt from the West, from similar countries undergoing economic reform and transition and, more importantly, from the lessons and experiences in China's unique reform process, and have grown to be an increasingly strong force behind policy change and national development. The following are two examples of policy interactions between economists and policy makers that made an identifiable difference.

AbstractThis special issue covers several important aspects of China's environmental policy, ranging from evaluation of government programs (biogas and the Sloping Land Conversion Program) that aim directly to enhance the rural environment, to the reform of natural resource sectors (collective and state forest reforms) that set foundations for the sustainable use of natural resources, and to the impacts of urban environmental policies (including urban transportation management and industrial pollution control policy). We provide an overview of the topic and a brief introduction to each of the contributed papers.

AbstractIn this paper we evaluate the long-run sustainability of China's Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) by investigating the determinants of farmers' self-predicted post-program land use decisions. We use data from a household survey conducted in 2005, with a particular focus on a dependent variable that reflects farmers' ordinal responses to a question about their probability of converting the enrolled lands back to cultivation after the program ends. First, we find that targeting the program on steeper sloped and lower quality plots can significantly decrease the probability of reconversion. Second, there is a significant and robust household income structure effect on the reconversion probability. Third, participating households with the right to decide what to plant on enrolled land have a higher probability of maintaining the reforested land after the program ends. Finally, subsidy shortfall has a positive influence on the probability of reconversion.

Rural institutional innovation in China encompassed changes in land tenure arrangements and commodity pricing, and their effects hinged on how they were carried out. Properly implemented, the incentive structure would improve, forest production would increase, and thus producers and consumers would benefit. Otherwise, if the reform programs were inappropriately implemented, as reflected in market control and price distortions as well as policy uncertainty, then the incentive structure might improve only slightly. Chances for production increase could be diminished, making it hard for producers and consumers to benefit. (DSE/DÜI)