Does informal care impact the use of healthcare services in China?Evidence from the perspective of drug utilization

Based on the 2011-2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS),we investigated the effect of informal care on caregivers’utilization of medical drugs using the instrumental variable method with fixed effects.Our results indicate that caregivers are more likely to take medical drugs than non-caregivers.Additionally,caregivers tend to take a significantly higher number of drugs than non-caregivers,particularly those treating physical diseases.Moreover,the effect of informal care on the drug utilization is found more significant among those aged 45-54,male caregivers,and those who provide care for their parents-in-law compared to their respective counterparts.We further identified channels through which informal care contributes to caregivers’higher drug utilization.These channels include an increased risk of developing chronic diseases,a higher number of chronic diseases,lower their self-reported health,and reduced social activities.These results offer implications for policymakers in overcoming the challenges of establishing and developing a supportive system for informal care in China.

The Role of Institutions:A Cross-country Analysis of Renminbi Trading in Foreign Exchange Markets

We explore how China's geographically targeted policies impact RMB overseas use individually or in combination.The policies include swap agreements,clearing banks,investment quotas,and direct trading between Chinese renminbi(RMB)and non-USD currencies.Adopting a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and using Bank of International Settlements cross-country data on foreign exchange markets,we find that institution building has lowered the barriers to international adoption of the RMB.Specifically,for countries economically close to China,high RMB trading is explained by either(i)having a clearing bank in the host market and direct quotations between the RMB and the local currency,or(ii)being a financial center and having access to the Chinese capital market.This combination of policies is explained by the creation of(i)"trading posts"that provide RMB liquidity abroad,and(ii)channels that allow actors to " recycle" offshore RMB funds.We triangulate our results with interviews conducted with senior People’s Bank of China officials.

International Economic Statistics:Biased Arbiters in Global Affairs?

International economic statistics play central roles in global economic governance.Governments and international organizations rely on them to monitor international economic agreements;governments use them to understand potential imbalances in bilateral relationships;and international investors build their country assessments on such data.These statistics increasingly suffer from serious defects,however,due to globalization,the digitization of our economies,and the prominence of secrecy jurisdictions and multinational corporations.For that reason,economic data is not a neutral arbiter in international affairs.Instead,it suffers from four kinds of bias:Expert attention bias means that the objects of measurement-what they are meant to capture-epend on the preoccupations of the small circle of statistical experts.Countability bias skews economic figures in favor of countable objects and away from,fbr example,unremunerated labor and production as well as ephemeral economic process,such as knowledge production.Capitalist bias emerges because economic statistics naturalize unequal power relations in the global economy:They mistake a country's inability to fetch high prices for its products for low productivity and a lack of added value.Stealth-wealth bias,finally,means that statistics naturalize the distorted image we have of the global economy as corporations and individual hide profits and wealth in secrecy jurisdictions.This article cautions against an insufficiently critical use of statistics in international affairs.And it encourages policymakers to"know thy data"lest biases in the numbers generate skewed policies,unnecessary disputes and a gradual delegitimization of statistics in general.

多样的跨国合作——中国海外园区的多尺度主角网络

The development of overseas industrial parks is a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative and a practical way of promoting inclusive globalization by introducing new forms of cooperation between China and the host countries. In this paper, the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone(TCRIZ), and the China-Indonesia Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone(KITIC) are discussed in the context of the evolving development strategies and trajectories through three interrelated conceptual lenses – policy mobility, actor networks, and partnerships. The actor-network theory provides a lens to analyze how policy mobility and partnerships develop for two industrial zone case studies. The development, which involves a multi-scalar process, is shaped by the interactions among the national states, the regional governments and corporations against a background of globalization. Three types of transnational actor partnership networks have been identified, namely, hierarchical partnership, spontaneous partnership, and hybrid partnership. A highlight of the study is the role that the partnerships play in the process of policy mobility when it comes to the overseas industrial zones. It is argued that the partnerships are the key to achieving technology transfer on a cross-national basis, and the effectiveness of the technology transfer is dependent on partner selection and the roles of the actors in policy mobility.