nep-cna New Economics Papers
on China
Issue of 2022‒10‒10
four papers chosen by
Zheng Fang
Ohio State University

  1. Judicial Independence, Local Protectionism, and Economic Integration: Evidence from China By Ernest Liu; Yi Lu; Wenwei Peng; Shaoda Wang
  2. The Chinese accounting profession in the People’s Republic: A preliminary understanding from an oral history perspective By xue, qingmei; zan, luca
  3. Measuring the effects of power system reform in Jiangsu province, China from the perspective of Social Cost Benefit Analysis By Li, T.; Gao, C.; Pollitt, M.; Chen, T.; Ming H.
  4. Keep calm and trade on: China's decisive role in agricultural markets under turmoil By Kuhn, Lena; Jaghdani, Tinoush Jamali; Prehn, Sören; Sun, Zhanli; Glauben, Thomas

  1. By: Ernest Liu; Yi Lu; Wenwei Peng; Shaoda Wang
    Abstract: We show that judicial independence can reduce local protectionism and foster cross-regional economic integration. We exploit a judicial independence reform in China with staggered roll-out since 2014. The reform removed local governments’ control over local courts’ financial and personnel decisions, thereby substantially improving local courts’ independence. Combining novel data on the universes of civil lawsuits and business registration records, we show that local defendants’ rate of winning court cases against non-local plaintiffs declined by 7.0% after the reform. The effect is mainly driven by improvements in the quality of judicial decisions and is more salient for politically connected local defendants. Over time, the reduction in local protectionism encouraged smaller non-local firms to file lawsuits against larger local firms. Using the shareholding network extracted from business registration records, we find that the decline in local protectionism could attract 8.4% more inward investment flows into reformed localities. This has the potential to increase China’s GDP by 2.3% when the judicial independence reform is implemented nationwide.
    JEL: K0 P48 R11
    Date: 2022–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30432&r=
  2. By: xue, qingmei; zan, luca
    Abstract: While oral history still has a marginal role in accounting literature in general, it has not been applied at all in relation to the history of Chinese accounting. Within broader research on accounting change in China, this paper uses oral history to investigate patterns of the career of accountants in China. We interviewed 21 retired accountants, aging from 60 to 90 at the time of the interview, asking them to share their professional experience in open and unstructured talk. We reconstruct individual experiences, which provides insights into the working lives of our interviewees. Unlike previous studies that only focus on influential informants, we investigate Chinese accounting changes as they emerge from the collective memory of everyday accountants. Taking a pluralist perspective, we collect non-archival data to illustrate the education and common elements in accounting career development. Our approach takes a ‘view from below’, underlining the limitations of top-down perspectives in most of the literature on accounting change in China. The findings contribute to our understanding of accounting changes in China and their social and economic impacts on the profession while providing interesting implications for oral history in accounting in general.
    Keywords: oral history; accounting profession; China; Chinese accounting
    JEL: M41 N35
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:114407&r=
  3. By: Li, T.; Gao, C.; Pollitt, M.; Chen, T.; Ming H.
    Abstract: The paper uses a social cost benefit analysis (SCBA) approach to measure the effects of the power system reform starting from 2015 in Jiangsu province, China. We review the background of Jiangsu power system and summarize the implemented policies since the publication of “Document #9†. Then we pick the average industrial and commercial retail price and analyse the sources of price reductions. We show that the nominal industrial and commercial price fell by 21.3% between January 2012 and May 2021. We then analyse the likely overall welfare change facing industrial and commercial customers using SCBA and conclude that there is a permanent gain equivalent to 9.1% lower prices per year mainly because of the reform. This figure is a significantly more positive consumer gain than that calculated in previous SCBAs of electricity reform in other countries.
    Keywords: Power system reform (PSR), social cost benefit analysis (SCBA), electricity market, industrial and commercial electricity price
    JEL: L94
    Date: 2022–09–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2247&r=
  4. By: Kuhn, Lena; Jaghdani, Tinoush Jamali; Prehn, Sören; Sun, Zhanli; Glauben, Thomas
    Abstract: International agricultural trade is key to improving global food security. It ensures access to more diversified foods (e.g. Krivonos and Kuhn 2019 ), acts as a safety net against local production shortfalls (Glauben et al. 2022) and helps make use of regional climatic or resource-related production advantages. While local production and short supply chains can reduce transport costs, they do not necessarily equate to resilient food systems or lower carbon footprints (Stein and Santini 2022). Currently, though, international agricultural trade is facing supply chain disruptions and rising world market prices resulting from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, increasing global food demand and extreme weather events. Both are threatening already strained food security, in particular in import-dependent, low-income regions. Geopolitical risks, such as the China- US trade war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, are further rattling the food market. As the world's largest consumer of agricultural goods, China's trade strategies influence world markets, with ripple-down effects for consumers around the world, particularly in the Global South. This policy brief aims at shedding light on China's current market actions, and the likely short- and mid-term developments and their impacts. We argue for moderation in response to short-term shocks. Excessive mobility and trade restrictions as well as extreme stockpiling should be avoided. These harm the trade system's overall capacity to resist further and more serious global challenges related to population growth and climate change.
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iamopb:45e&r=

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