China's efficient urban bias

Abstract

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous rural–urban migration to analyse the provision of rural and urban government services in China, with special emphasis on the role of the household registration (hukou) system in shaping its urbanization process. It argues that China's urban bias policy, which is enabled by the hukou system restricting rural–urban migration, did not necessarily reduce economic efficiency. Rather, it might have only raised urban welfare at the expense of rural residents. As the hukou system also ties people to particular geographical locations, this paper argues that China's continuous bias towards coastal and big cities has started to cause economic inefficiency as well as inequality. It suggests that progressive hukou reform reducing barriers to cross‐region migration would improve economic efficiency and welfare.

Addressing the COVID-19 Shock: The Potential Job Creation in China by the RCEP

“…The fact that agricultural factors are priced by external industry and markets can lead to unprofitable agriculture. Agricultural capital, labour and land flow to cities and industry, and agricultural employment is declining [ 24 ]. On the other hand, agricultural output in Australia and New Zealand comes from a large farm model that can generate similar returns to industry, and their agriculture is competitive [ 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”

When Poverty Reduction Meets Democracy: An Investigation into the Use of Different Evaluation Methods for Assessing the Effectiveness of a Social Program

“…Of course, a migrant worker would normally have relative high income so that they will not qualify. SeeWang and Piesse (2010),Shen et al (2021) for a discussion rural urban divide due to taxation and subsidies, andRangazas and Wang (2019),Rangazas et al (2022) for a discussion of rural urban migration and China's urban biased policy).…”