Local Government Behavior behind China's Excessive Investment under Decentralization——Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Based on Manufacturing Sector

This paper investigates the effect of local government intervention on capital deepening of manufacturing sector by using interprovincial panel data sets of 28 Chinese provinces,municipalities and autonomous regions between 1994 and 2011.Theoretical research indicates that as a transitional economy,China's local government intervention in corporate investment behaviors will cause excessive investment,thus bringing about a long-term and sustained tendency of capital deepening in manufacturing sector.Empirical test further discovers that in a certain range,the phenomenon of capital deepening in manufacturing sector is not an inevitable result endogenous to economic development and technology progress,and that investment behaviors of manufacturing sector are largely subject to the external institutional environment.Fiscal decentralization has indeed promoted capital deepening of manufacturing sector.Financial credit expansion and interventions in SOEs are major instruments for local governments to intervene in the capital deepening of manufacturing sector and such an influence is particularly significant for China's central,western and northeast regions.Therefore,clarifying government functions and improving local government performance review mechanism are of great significance to the healthy development of China's manufacturing sector.

Socio-Economic Implication of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Project in Bonny Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria

Notably, the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) project is the pioneer Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Nigeria, aimed at both the diversification of the petroleum industry and utilization of the vastly flared natural gas resources of the nation. However, large scale energy projects have been known to generate both positive and/or negative impacts. Environmental Management Plans (EMP) have often been the compendium of information on approved mitigations, which normally include activities that could maximize the benefits of the host communities, and it’s not unusual for the Community Development and Corporate Social Responsibility (CDCSR) department of such an organization to be saddled with these contributions. But the activities of Nigeria LNG Ltd.’s CSR department have often been the source of criticism, as well as aspiration for improvement by host communities and other stake holders. This article thus aims to present a comprehensive compendium of NLNG’s CDCSR activities, up to the year 2010, and also highlight the level of satisfaction of the immediate and distant host communities against the level of performance of other donors in the area. Also the arrays of negative socio-economic consequences of the Nigeria LNG Ltd.’s activities were identified based on community perception. The results generally showed that comparatively, NLNG project has made more innovative positive socio-economic and health contributions to its areas of operation than the three tiers of government and other donors (including SPDC and Mobil Producing Nigeria). Surprisingly, agitations against Nigeria LNG Ltd.’s activities have not overshadowed its community development provisions, which have been of major assistance in several communities. There is however a dire need to review several aspects of Nigeria LNG Ltd.’s CDCSR activities, especially in the fulfilment of documented promises, as well as in project conception and community participation, for better completed projects acceptance by indigenous host communities. Conflict management strategies also need to be improved, while the dissatisfaction over benefits in New Finima needs to be urgently addressed.

Alternative policy implementation: Theoretical explanation and case analysis of local government's action logic

Since the reform and opening up, the local government has played a key role in promoting the economic and social development of our country, and the effective implementation of the local government has become an important research topic. Therefore, based on the literature, the observation method of in-depth interviews, practice investigation and participation is adopted in this paper, which focuses on the implementation of special groups of social assistance policy. The theoretical framework of government' rational choice reveals the status of local government implementation policies and behavior behind the mechanism and organizational structure. The study found that:(1) the local government is easy to choose a quantifiable policy to implement;(2) there is a coexistence between the local government departments;(3) the local government selectively meets the needs of special personnel;(4) the local government's seeking political promotion and power leads to its behavior alienation.

Growth Model of Local Government Websites

To clarify the concept framework to assess web based information systems (WIS) evolution from an information perspective instead of the usual systems perspective, and to seek for in-depth understanding of maturing patterns of WISs based on the framework, several central concepts related to the information aspect of WIS are firstly discussed, then a growth model of local government websites based on a survey study is proposed.

China-Africa Local Government Cooperation Essential for Growth

The First Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation was held in Beijing on August 27-28, 2012. Vice President of the Chinese People＇s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries （CPAFFC） Feng Zuoku, shared his insights on the Forum and China-Africa local-level cooperation with ChinAfrica reporter Yu Nan. Excerpts follow：

“Scrambling”: Logic of horizontal competition between local governments based on three cases of interprovincial disaster counterpart support

Interprovincial counterpart support is a cooperative system used by local governments to achieve horizontal flow of resources based on cross-regional cooperation.Existing research has mainly focused on governance ef‐ficiency,institutional advantages,and ranking incentives while ignoring the scrambling behavior and opera‐tional mechanisms of local governments formed by ranking incentives and territorial responsibilities.This study selected the Wenchuan earthquake,Yushu earthquake,and COVID-19 as three typical cases.We con‐structed a theoretical framework for competition among provincial local governments and found that competi‐tion in interprovincial disaster counterpart support followed a dual behavioral logic of“striving to be first”and“fear of being last”.Specifically,local governments will choose striving to be first under the logic of time coercion,content games,and territorial responsibility;they will choose fear of being last under the logic of re‐sponsibility avoidance and moral pressure.This type of scrambling-based horizontal competition reflects the logic of local government competition tournaments.This study further revealed the specific processes,mecha‐nisms,and results of horizontal local government competition,which can provide inspiration for cross regional and provincial cooperation.

Research of Mechanism on the Impact of Local Governmental Competition on Farmland Conversion

In the perspective of local governmental competition, the impact of local governmental competition on farmland conversion is analyzed in terms of political competition, factors competition and products competition, and the empirical analysis is conducted according to the provincial data from 2002 to 2007. The results show that the endowment of land resources correlates negatively with the scale of farmland conversion, and the population, the tendency of exceeding capital investment and the competition of research and development input correlate positively with the scale of farmland conversion. According to these research results, corresponding policies and countermeasures are put forward: we should overhaul the system of performance evaluation of local governmental officials; we should normalize the local governmental competitive behavior.

Local Government Debt,Sectoral Linkage and Resource Allocation Efficiency

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.

The Governance of Local Government Debt from the Perspective of Fiscal and Financial Coordination:Evidence from Financial Markets

Theories based on fiscal guarantees cannot explain either the fact that the continuously decline in local fiscal resources has not significantly increased local government financing costs,or the fact that local government debt has been rising at a time of strict central government regulation.The theoretical and empirical analyses provided in this study show that it is the financial resources under local government control that provide the implicit guarantee for local government debt.Such financial resources lower local governments’financing costs but have the potential to lead to the contagion of financial risk through local government to the financial sector.Therefore,to look at the question solely in terms of either fiscal or financial sector guarantees will not be sufficient to resolve the problem of local government debt.The central government needs to coordinate fiscal and financial policies under a joint management framework in a way that rationally disperses and resolves the risks attached to local government debt and avoids the assumption of excessive risk by either sector.At the same time,close attention should be paid to local financial institutions’asset quality and their money market reputation to avoid the risk of contagion from local financial institutions to local public finance.

Analysis of the Pull Effect of Local Government Special-Purpose Bond Investment on Economic Growth Under the Input-Output Framework

In this paper,we discuss the development process of local government special bonds,and the role channels of local government special debt investment in driving China’s economic growth.Based on the specific decomposition of Xinjiang local government special bond investment,this paper uses the non-competitive input-output model for the first time to analyze the net pulling effect of Xinjiang local government special bond investment on Xinjiang’s GDP and employment in 2020.Two measure calibers are set in this paper based on whether the financing costs are considered or not;in addition,we set up four scenarios based on two conditions:Whether to consider retained fun and whether to consider using special-purpose bond investment to leverage social capital.The results show that:1)when financing costs are not considered,the RMB77.4 billion local government special-purpose bonds can push the GDP of Xinjiang to grow by RMB42.27 billion,RMB35.12 billion,RMB77.548billion and RMB69.34 billion respectively under the four scenarios;2)when financing costs are not considered,the number of jobs driven by the RMB77.4 billion local government special-purpose bonds was respectively 372,300,324,500,718,500 and 601,300 in the four scenarios;3)when financing costs are considered,the RMB77.4 billion local government special-purpose bonds can push the GDP of Xinjiang to grow by RMB71.876 billion and RMB64.268 billion under scenario 3)and scenario 4).

Local Governments as an Integrative Organizer:The Policy Practice of Constructing Innovation Platforms in South China

Based on an in-depth study of one city district and four new investment projects in South China,this article analyses the implementation practice of innovation policy by Chinese local governments.It is found that at the regional level,innovation policy as practice is a highly mixed-up and integrated process composed of steps from targeting emerging industries,to constructing platforms,and to developing new clusters,during which the most important policy concept of“innovation platform”is used in a distinctive way by local governments to effectively foster regional innovation-oriented development.In general,the local government intervenes heavily in or even“manages”every step of the implementation process with specific policy approach and instrument.Managing regional development as a whole process of innovation,the entrepreneurial Chinese local government indeed plays a role of meso-level organizer equivalent to the innovation project manager in business sector.These new practical approaches of regional innovation development with Chinese characteristics can inspire other emerging and catch-up economies for their policy making in five aspects.

Local Government Debt, Factor Misallocation and Regional Economic Performance in China

This paper examines total factor efficiency and productivity performance by taking into account local government debt （LGD） in 31 Chinese provincial regions for the period 2000-2013. The results show that neglecting LGD may overstate economic performance in Chinese provinces. The eastern region shows better performance in single jactor efficiency and total factor efficiency than the non-eastern regions. The western region shows the worst total factor performance. The north-eastern region is the only region that has experienced a decline in total factor performance. The state-dominated, investment- driven development model may help technological progress across Chinese regions but could lead to significant factor misallocation. We argue that biases towards more state- dominated investment and land supply in less productive western, central and north- eastern regions, at the expense of investment and land supply in more productive eastern regions, have contributed to the recent slowdown in economic growth in China. Therefore, .further market-oriented reforms in factor markets should be considered in the future.

Assessing Local Government Debt Risks in China： A Case Study of Local Government Financial Vehicles

Strong credit expansion in China after the recent global financial crisis has brought local government financial vehicles （LGFV） into the spotlight. Rapid growth of LGFV has triggered concern about local government indebtedness, banks＇ asset quality and, more broadly, China＇s medium-term financial stability and sovereign risk. This paper constructs a unique frm-level dataset to evaluate the country ＂s local government debt. We find an uneven distribution of LGFV, which are concentrated in the coastal areas, and a deterioration of their debt repaying ability from 2010 to 2012. We use principal component analysis （PCA ） along with multivariate discriminate analysis （MDA） to identify the credit risk of LGFV based on conventional financial variables as well as local governments ＇fiscal status. We also estimate the safe boundaries of debt bearing at the provincial government level. The estimations reveal more severe local government debt risks in the middle-western provinces and higher risks associated with LGFV at the municipal and county levels. Although it is very unlikely that there will be a national debt crisis in China, the high risk of LGFV should be noted and effectively controlled by improving the fiscal transparency of local governments and reforming the fiscal system.

Status analysis and control measures of the debt risk in Chinese local government:based on the study of the relationship among“power,responsibility and interests”

From the view of current condition and developing trend of the debt scale in Chinese local government,if it could not be controlled by an effective way,the debt crisis will explode in the near future.According to the regional distribution in our country,except for Beijing,Shanghai,Tianjin and Hainan,the debt risk mainly concentrates in the western region.In a further step,it can be seen that this risk of debt is resulted by the imbalanced relationship among“power,responsibility and interests”which contains none-accordance of debt power(such as debt financing power),confusion of debt responsibility(such as debt management responsibility)and distortion of debt interests(such as the private benefit and the public interests).If we want to correct this problem,the keynote is to prevent the local government’s debt to be used by the purpose of reaching the private interests.Actually,it should play a role that the local debt financing takes to the“faithful”service for the social interests.For realizing this purpose,it should keep eyes on the relationship among“power,responsibility and interests”,which is the most important factor as for setting up the control system of debt risk about our local governments.Particularly,it includes the following aspects.First of all,it should find the right time to empower the local government with the debt power.Secondly,on the basis of both positive and negative sides,it should design a system to restrict the debt responsibility in the local government,in order to solve the problems such as new debt,invalid debt and overdue debt expansion.Thirdly,it should propose the guidance mechanism to realize the convergence from the private benefit to the social interests on the local debt.

Role of local governments in fostering the development of an emerging industry: A market-oriented policy perspective

This research investigates the role of local governments in stimulating an emerging industry and focuses on the specific growth of the new energy vehicle industry in Hangzhou,China.This research confirms that enabling firms to access emerging technology,acquire financial support,and touch customers and/or suppliers are critical to foster the emergence and development of industries.Moreover,the primary contribution of this study is to emphasize the support of the local government in the development of emerging industries on the perspective of the creation of a large-scale market demand.The creation of large-scale market demand may inspire actors to be proactive in responding to these incentives;thus,public and private actions may help increase the accessibility to technology,infrastructure,and finances.Hence,a market-oriented policy that incentivizes the creation and expansion of market demand among diverse public and private actors should be seen as the key issue for the emergence and growth of emerging industries.Policies should also be adopted promptly with the development of the market.

Developing an index of sustainable development goals for local governments:the case of Gyeonggi province in korea

This study aims to develop and evaluate the indicators of Sustainable Development Goals(hereafter SDGs)for local governments in Gyeonggi Province,South Korea from the perspective of the glocal mainstreaming of SDGs and localization.Through surveys and focus group meetings,35 SDGs indicators that are to be implemented by both the Gyeonggi Provincial government and 31 separate local governments were selected and an overall index was calculated by standardizing 27 indicators.Through the comparative analysis of the fuzzy-set,this paper revealed the four ideal types along with the arrangement of two variables,the socio-economic SDGs index(S)and the environmental SDGs index(E),which are derived from 31 local governments.In short,some examples of this arrangement are the Type 1(S^(*)E:“sustainable local gov.”)including Hanam City(fuzzy score,0.729);Type 2(S^(*)e:“imbalanced local gov.(I)”)including Hwaseong City(0.862);Type 3(s^(*)E:“imbalanced local gov.(II)”)including Gapyeong County(0.922);and Type 4(s^(*)e:“unsustainable local gov.”)including Pyeongtaek City(0.650).As a result,this paper suggests policy priority should be placed on the local governments of Type 4 where all three dimensions of sustainable development pose challenges.Furthermore,it is important for Type 2 and Type 3 to enhance policy coherence for sustainability.

Structural design and performance analysis of China’s Local Government Financing Vehicles

In this paper,we investigate the reasons for the establishment and operation models of China’s Local Government Financing Vehicles(LGFVs).We also outline the current literature on the structural arrangement and the developments of LGFVs.Moreover,we employ the empirical analysis to examine the driv-ing factors of the financial performance of LGFVs.Using 1,042 LGFVs that issued debt securities during the period 2011–2016,we find that the financial performance of LGFVs is positively asso-ciated with local tax revenues,local education levels,local saving deposits,and firm size but negatively associated with local gov-ernment spending and firm leverage ratios.Based on our empir-ical findings,we finally propose policy recommendations for the establishment of relevant investment and financing platforms.

Artistic Urbanism: Multi-Scalar Spatial Governance of Songzhuang Art District by the Local Government

Taking Beijing’s Songzhuang Art District as an example, this paper conducts an integrated evolutionary and multi-scalar governance analytical framework through participant’s observations, in-depth qualitative interviews, and extensive evaluations of policy documents. It aims to explore the transformation modes of art districts under the intervention of multi-scalar spatial governance and the roles of local governments in the course of development. The research places the spatial development into a wider theoretical context of local developmental state, local state corporatism, and entrepreneurial state, as well as to combine the socio-political objectives together with economic goals of the local government. The study argues that Songzhuang has witnessed a unique form of artistic urbanism, a process of rapid urbanization of villages in the art-led development. Local governments have competed for taking control of spatial governance through actions characterized by decentralization, alliance, and entrepreneurship, following the logic of performing an overall control over the socio-political, economic, and cultural aspects of art districts, and profiting from land market.

Local Government Debt in China:Development in Seven Decades,Current Situation,and Reform Suggestions

Since 1949,local government debt in China has gone through the stages from scratch,then banned,and reintroduced,and then to the scale expansion,market construction and improvement under the system construction.In the past 70 years,although there have been twists and turns in its development,local government debt has undergone a“perfect transformation”.Based on a comprehensive review of the development of local government debt in China from 1949 to 2019,this paper refi nes its evolution logic,forecasts its development trend,and puts forward relevant policy recommendations for the future management and risk control of local government debt in China.