This book focuses on an attractive theoretical subject as well as a practical issue, which analyses the inner relationship of economic growth and income distribution in China. During the forty years of China’s reform and opening up many influential changes occurred in the structure of the national income distribution, the mechanism of income distribution, and the policies of distributing income with the high-speed development of China. From historical and regional analysis, this book collects a good deal of data and objectively summarizes the practice and experience of renovation of income distribution in China. Based upon the summary and conclusion above, the book paraphrases and creates a conceptual mechanism, a basic theory, and a basic methodology of socialism with Chinese characteristics and discovers the internal rules of the changing relationship between high-speed economic development and income distribution in China to guide and facilitate the further improvement and innovative development of income distribution in China. Furthermore, the book enriches the political economy theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the aspect of practical experience, as well as theory.

This book first shows that the past 40 years of China's economic reform and opening up represents the greatest magnitude of economic growth in history. Based on field trips, extensive and intensive interviews and literature surveys, this book argues that there are five general lessons for a rapid growing economy from China's economic reform and opening up, all in the area of the relationship between the government and the economy. First, the local governments need to be incentivized to help rapid entry and development of enterprises. Second, local governments need to be incentivized to help rapid land conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural. Third, financial deepening is vital; that is, inducing households to hold more and more financial assets in local currency. Financial deepening is essential to convert savings into investments. This requires financial stability, which is crucial. Fourth, the learning through opening up is the key to endogenous economic growth. The fundamental benefit of opening up is learning rather than enjoying comparative advantage. The fifth and final lesson from China is that the central government must proactively manage the macroeconomy. The rationale is that enterprises compete with each other in games of industrial organization. In order to resolve this problem, proactive measures including market-oriented means, administrative orders and reform measures should be implemented. Overall, the main lesson from China's past 40 years of reform and opening up is that proper incentives and behavior of the government, local and central, are important for economic growth. China has been conducting reforms in this regard and as a result, the government more or less has been playing the role of a "helping hand" regarding economic growth, although China's economic system is far from perfect and many reforms are still needed.

Since the onset of the twelfth Five-Year Plan, China has been at the forefront as an innovative nation based on a carefully designed strategy. Despite this, it can be argued that the Chinese government requires a series of more effective and systematic fiscal and taxation policies. This book analyses the status quo and possible optimization of China’s fiscal and taxation policies. By drawing comparisons with other countries, as well as a practical investigation into the lessons China has drawn from elsewhere, the author shows how a nation should make steadily growing and optimized financial investments in science and technology in order to foster the optimum environment for innovation. It is shown that institutional innovation should be a systematic project which involves top-level design and top-down leadership. This volume will be a useful reference for students, scholars, and policy makes who are interested in financial policy.

Since the appearance of macroeconomics in the 1940s, economists have created many theoretical frameworks to explain the origin and mechanism of economic fluctuations. However, few of these have managed to gain explanatory power over reality; nor can they solve real-life problems. This book proposes a new macroeconomic paradigm that makes breakthroughs in these areas. Based on a balance sheet approach and macro-financial linkage analysis, this book carries out a comprehensive analysis of the trends within China’s macroeconomy in 2020. The author argues that the COVID-19 pandemic created a great degree of uncertainty—therefore, supply-side structural reform and improved total factor productivity have been promoted to ensure a policy of steady growth. Given the declining economic growth rate in percentage terms, China has needed to adapt to a moderate increase in the leverage ratio while applying more effective fiscal policies to achieve a dynamic balance between stable growth and risk prevention. Scholars and students of economics and finance, especially Chinese economics, will find this book a useful reference.

China's anti-poverty campaign has liberated hundreds of millions of citizens from absolute poverty, offering a compelling model for other developing countries around the world. This book demonstrates the path of China’s poverty alleviation and explores the approach and the theory underlying the country’s experience. The authors elucidate four important stages of poverty alleviation in China. They further investigate how the administration has balanced economic growth, regional development and the protection of ecosystem and cultural and heritage sites during China's remarkable transformation. As China’s development experience have extended the theory of international poverty alleviation, this book should provide valuable insights and offer enlightenment to global scholars, NGOs and governments of other developing countries.

The prosperity of China’s people has advanced very much in recent decades. However, in many respects China is still a developing country, and this is especially true of rural areas where economic progress has not been as marked as in urban areas and where many people still live in relative poverty. The Chinese government recognizes that more hard work is needed in order to improve prosperity in the countryside. This book provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the situation in China’s rural areas, assesses the effectiveness or otherwise of current policies, and puts forward proposals for further development. Subjects covered include the changing population profile of rural areas, land ownership, agricultural improvements, and local self-government.

This open access book explores new research directions in social inequality and urban segregation. With the goal of fostering an ongoing dialogue between scholars in Europe and China, it brings together an impressive team of international researchers to shed light on the entwined processes of inequality and segregation, and the implications for urban development. Through a rich collection of empirical studies at the city, regional and national levels, the book explores the impact of migration on cities, the related problems of social and spatial segregation, and the ramifications for policy reform. While the literature on both segregation and inequality has traditionally been dominated by European and North American studies, there is growing interest in these issues in the Chinese context. Economic liberalization, rapid industrial restructuring, the enormous growth of cities, and internal migration, have all reshaped the country profoundly. What have we learned from the European and North American experience of segregation and inequality, and what insights can be gleaned to inform the bourgeoning interest in these issues in the Chinese context? How is China different, both in terms of the nature and the consequences of segregation inequality, and what are the implications for future research and policy? Given the continued rise of China’s significance in the world, and its recent declaration of war on poverty, this book offers a timely contribution to scholarship, identifying the core insights to be learned from existing research, and providing important guidance on future directions for policy makers and researchers.

While China’s growth gathered momentum in 2017, rebalancing was uneven and decelerated along many dimensions reflecting the temporary factors behind the growth pickup. Going forward, rebalancing is expected to proceed as these temporary factors recede, but elevated income inequality and leverage will remain a challenge. The authorities are already pursuing several pro-rebalancing policies which could be expanded to support each dimension of rebalancing while reducing trade-offs between them.

The rise of populism in the West and the rise of China in the East have stirred a rethinking of how democratic systems work—and how they fail. The impact of globalism and digital capitalism is forcing worldwide attention to the starker divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” challenging how we think about the social contract. With fierce clarity and conviction, Renovating Democracy tears down our basic structures and challenges us to conceive of an alternative framework for governance. To truly renovate our global systems, the authors argue for empowering participation without populism by integrating social networks and direct democracy into the system with new mediating institutions that complement representative government. They outline steps to reconfigure the social contract to protect workers instead of jobs, shifting from a “redistribution” after wealth to “pre-distribution” with the aim to enhance the skills and assets of those less well-off. Lastly, they argue for harnessing globalization through “positive nationalism” at home while advocating for global cooperation—specifically with a partnership with China—to create a viable rules-based world order. Thought provoking and persuasive, Renovating Democracy serves as a point of departure that deepens and expands the discourse for positive change in governance.