No abstract

This paper measures the unequal development of the regional economies in China and investigates the primary factors leading to the inequality. The official data on China's regional GDP and the regional GDP of three industrial sectors from 1991-2001, as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook and A Statistical Survey of China, are adopted to calculate and decompose the Gini coefficient for each year. The primary finding is that the levels of inequality in China's regional economies clearly showed a slight upward trend after 1991. The inequality of the overall GDP is primarily attributed to the between-group effect rather than to the within-group effect. It is also found that the regional inequality of the secondary industry sector's development accounted for half of the overall inequality. Thus, this study suggests that it is crucial for China to formulate and adhere to policies that will help it to develop the economy more equally among all areas and to develop the secondary industry sector among all regions/provinces in order to overcome the important issue of the inequality in regional economic development.China, Economic Development, Gini Coefficient Decomposition, Inequality, JEL Classifications: D39, O10, R12,

No abstract

In its analysis of the impact of foreign investment on China's productivity, this article develops two empirical models: one using labor productivity and the other using total factor productivity (TFP). Using cross‐provincial data on Chinese industries for 1993, 1994, and 1997 to regress the empirical models, it is concluded that the impact of investment differed depending on its source, with that from these overseas Chinese enterprises contributing to the spillover effect in regions with a high technology gap, whereas that from other foreign enterprises tending to improve productivity and TFP primarily in regions with a low technology gap. (JEL D24, F13, F15, L60)

The purpose of this study was to utilize the data from the Survey on Family Income and Expenditure in Taiwan to investigate the influence of peer effects on the behavior of charitable giving. Based on the definitions of the reference group in this study, the estimation results suggested that peer effects on households' decisions on both whether to make charitable giving and how much to contribute were quite modest. The study also found that the price elasticity and the income elasticity of charitable giving in Taiwan were larger than those in the U.S., which may partially explain the low ratio of charitable giving to GDP in Taiwan. The earthquake in 1999 substantially increased the amount of charitable giving though its effect diminished after sometime.