Making central-local relations work: Comparing America and China environmental governance systems

The challenge of making central requirements work at local levels is a common problem for environmental governance throughout the world.Countries can learn from one another’s approaches,but must understand the local con-text in which they are set.This paper compares the features of the China and US environmental governance systems that need be understood by those working between the systems.Key features include:(1)common values which shape the environmental governance choices in both countries,but which may have different practical meanings in each country;(2)America’s common law-based environmental governance system,and China’s civil law system,which involves plan(s)as well as law;(3)America’s Federal central-local system,and China’s unitary central local system.This paper con-cludes by suggesting areas in which further comparative understanding may be of value,including:(1)better under-standing of the role of plan and law in China’s governance system;(2)comparing the American Federal-state agreement system for implementation of environmental law with the China central-local system of target responsibility agreements for plan implementation;(3)improving understanding of nongovernmental resources needed to assure compliance with environmental laws and plans;(4)identifying institutions that can coordinate central-local and cross-border environmental governance.

From Government to Enterprises： How Tax Sharing Interacts with Tax Rates

Tax sharing embodies central-local government fiscal relations and tax rates reflect government-market relations.Research on the interactions between tax sharing and tax rates helps uncover the effects of central-local fiscal relations on government-market relations.According to our study,China's flexible tax sharing and differential tax rates facing firms are two important typical facts;theoretical analysis discovered that effective corporate tax rates are influenced by local government preferences and tax sharing ratio;empirical analysis found that increasing CIT and VAT sharing ratios for governments at city and county levels led to the reduction of tax evasion and increase of effective tax rates.The above conclusions have revealed the unique mechanism of how government-market relations are influenced by fiscal system,explains the sources of differential tax rates facing Chinese firms,and provides reference for next-step fiscal reform.

Legal and Political Practices in China's Central-Local Dynamics

This article investigates China's central-local dynamics in the process of adjusting regulatory discrepancies among different levels of government from both legal and political perspectives.It finds that in China’s central-local interactions,legal practices have been rather limited and only developed lately,and political practices have long been in place to fill the blank left by legal practices and accommodate China's growing rule of law in the contemporary era.Regarding legal practices,this study explores the legislative review interactions between the central and local state organs which have been opaque and experience a leap forward from 2017 with China's advancement of the rule of law.As for political practices,this study focuses on two types of interactions between the central and local governments,top-down campaigns and bottom-up bargaining.Campaigns and bargaining have a long history in China’s central-local dynamics and intertwine with China’s contemporary legal development in policy-making and implementation processes.Drawing on data collected from China's practical governance,this article attempts to provide a roadmap in the explanation of the patterns of central-local dynamics from a multi-disciplinary angle and contributes to a comprehensive understanding of China5s central-local dynamics that smooth central-local tensions and drive China forward along the economic development path as a monolith.

The Path to Common Prosperity:Rising Social Construction and Livelihood Expenditure

Since 2000,China has undergone a“golden age”of livelihood security construction similar to that of the Western industrialized countries in the 1960s to 1980s.Nowadays,China has built up the world's largest social security and housing support systems;the coverage of compulsory education has reached the average level of high-income countries;and the main health indicators are generally better than the average of middle-and highincome countries.Obviously,China is nolongera“low-welfare”country.Livelihood expenditure,with a share of GDP close to the level of developed countries around 1980,has become the principal part of public expenditure,and the central government is also playing an increasingly prominent role in ensuring people's livelihoods.China is building a new livelihood security system with responsibility shared among multiple levels of government.

Managing Public Finance through Palace Memorials： The Controversy over Taxation Transfer, 1860-1900

Lacking a centralized fiscal administration to manage taxation collection and transfer before 1904, the Qing court relied solely on the palace memorial system to enforce overland silver shipment when transferring provincial revenues. However, after 1860 provincial officials gradually discarded the conventional procedure for overland silver shipment and employed third-party private financiers to deliver provincial revenues. After four failed campaigns against private financial firms＇ interference in imperial fiscal affairs, the palace memorial system became inefficient for the implementation of public financial policies at the local level. The Qing dynasty＇s prolonged and uneasy financial transformation from a minimalist Confucian agrarian empire to an expanding modem fiscal state from 1860 to 1904 was the underlying reason for the declining effectiveness of the palace memorial system in supervising public finance and the ultimate reason for the empire＇s increasing financial vulnerability during that period.