摘要:

Hong Kong's role has been integral to China's unprecedented economic growth, but privatization ranks first in importance. Another key factor is Beijing's putting economic reform before political reform. Giving democracy to a society in chaos likely makes matters worse. Hong Kong and China both have profited from their partnership. As China has opened up to allow transformation into a market economy, Hong Kong has provided informational impetus for change, a capitalist model to copy, and middleman functions for China to participate in outside‐world goods and financial markets. The collapse of Communism in China and elsewhere has increased the supply of cheap labour perhaps by 2 billion. Manufacturing countries with expensive labour and high cost welfare programmes—such as those in the United States, Canada, and Europe—will have difficulty. Capitalists in these countries will do well by investing abroad but not in their own countries. Though wrong in detail, the factor price equalization theorem—that international movement of goods and international movement of factors of production are equivalent—basically is correct. If China continues moving toward privatisation and joining the international community, it will become fiercely competitive, and prospects will be bright for both China and Hong Kong. However, China's recent drift from capitalism clouds those prospects. Fundamentally, three kinds of rights systems exist: (i) a capitalist system, with well defined private property rights, protected by law, where control of resources is based on ownership; (ii) a hierarchical system, such as Communism, where control of resources is based on one's rank in the hierarchy; (iii) a system of corruption, where control of resources is based on bribes and patronage. China rapidly had been making a transition from the second system to the first but recently seems to have derailed into the third. In any case, Communism's collapse is one of the great events in human history. The hero of that event is Deng Xiaoping—not Gorbachev, nor Thatcher, nor Reagan. Hong Kong, by contributing significantly to China's capitalist movement, has led the Communist worl

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00705.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Despite the phenomenal success of China's economic reform, the Chinese economy encounters a series of increasingly perilous problems, such as the recurrence of a “boon‐and‐bust” cycle, inflation, corruption, and regional disparity. This paper argues that the root of these problems is the discrepancy between the reforms in the macropolicy environment and the reforms in the micro‐management institution and resource allocation system. In October 1993, the Chinese government introduced a reform package in a bid to make the macro‐policy environment more consistent with the liberalized micro‐management institution and resource allocation system. However, the traditional macro‐policy environment was formed endogenously to facilitate implementing the “catching‐up and forging‐ahead” development strategy. Unless, the Chinese government abandons that strategy, it cannot complete the reforms in the macro‐policy environment and it cannot uproot the problems appear

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00706.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

My perspective of China's economic reform is in the context of a so‐called transitional socialist economy, i.e., a centrally planned economy moving to a market‐based economy. Extensive literature on this covers theories on the big‐bang approach as opposed to the gradualist approach, etc. But the issue is much more subtle than these approaches suggest. It involves what I call thetroika, which comprises budgetary reform, enterprise reform, and banking r

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00707.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

China's economic reforms succeeded in decentralizing decision making power down to the local and enterprise level. This decentralization has permitted a vibrant non‐state sector to emerge alongside the state sector. Growing out of the state plan accounts for much of China's spectacular economic growth. However, productivity in the state sector has experienced little improvement. One can trace recurrent macroeconomic imbalances and inflation to the state policy to provide cheap credit to cover the huge losses sustained by state‐owned enterprises. Attempts to reimpose controls to cool down an overheated economy repeatedly have halted the momentum for economic reform. Failure to introduce banking and financial reforms threatens future growth of the non‐state sector. The success of such reforms depends critically on efforts to restructure and privatize state‐owned enterprises. Growing out of the state plan requires officials to adopt an explicit policy to stop supporting the losses in the state owned ente

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00708.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper reviews factors that significantly affected Hong Kong's rapid economic development in three consecutive periods: (i) the period of industrialization from 1952 to 1974, (ii) the period of diversification from 1974 to 1980, and (iii) the period of economic integration with China since 1980. The paper discusses the role of Hong Kong's government in the territory's development process, examines the advantages and drawbacks of Hong Kong's development strategy, and analyzes the territory's economic future. The analysis relates Hong Kong's development experience to the “endogenous growth” the

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00709.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Rapid economic growth in the Asian‐Pacific region provides economic hope for the region's low‐income countries but raises international environmental dilemmas and could be unsustainable. The strong international and Asian political support for Asia's economic growth often makes little mention of the environmental issues involved. The natural resources water, air, and soils as well as Asia's conservation of living resources and maintenance of biodiversity are important environmental issues. Tourism development—especially ecotourism—could combine economic development and conservation, but as Asian examples illustrate, it has limitations. Other environmental influences include the rapid urbanisation of Asia and the likelihood of increased international and transboundary conflicts over use of natural resources as economic growth in Asia proceeds. Markets and market reforms are not sufficient to deal with Asia's economic problems. Institutional and other reforms also are needed. One must reject the view that economic growth neglecting the environment is acceptable even in low‐income countries. Polluting and degrading the environment now and repairing it later is a dangerous policy to follow, particularly for larger Asian countries. In fact, a strong case exists for high‐income countries to support the environmental conservation efforts of low‐inc

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00710.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This paper briefly analyzes the state of vehicular pollution and control measures in Hong Kong. Vehicular emissions contribute largely to Hong Kong's air pollution and will become more important as the vehicle fleet expands. Hong Kong is unique in that a large fraction of its vehicles use diesel engines. The analysis here explicitly accounts for the composition of emissions and quantifies the relative magnitude of emissions by each of the five main sources: private cars, taxis, light buses, heavy buses, and lorries. The paper analyzes alternative pollution control policies with respect to effectiveness and efficiency.

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00711.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The environmental problem is no different from any other economic problem. The basic problem is scarcity. Wants are unlimited while resources are limited. Once we recognize our inability to satisfy all of our ecological wants, how do we decide which wants we will satisfy? Most efforts to address environmental concerns have used political institutions to answer this question and to devise policy responses. Environmental concerns have been addressed in the same manner that socialist nations sought to address broader economic concerns.This paper argues that such policies cannot succeed in the environmental realm any better than they did in the broader economic realm. Whether the political approach chosen relies on command‐and‐control or “market‐based” mechanisms (eco‐taxes or eco‐quotas) matters little in resolving government's inability to prioritize. The dispersed nature and enormity of information needed to prioritize risks and the inability of government to create the rich system of incentives necessary to mobilize human ingenuity renders effective government controls infeasible.This paper argues for greater attention to environmental problems but concludes that we can better address environmental quality by integrating ecological resources into the economy via ecological privatization. This property rights approach to environmental policy—“free market environmentalism”—may entice more economists to address the important environmental questions and devise more

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00712.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

While market approaches are clearly valuable for improving U.S. environmental policy, they cannot solve all of the problems, and not necessarily the most difficult ones. They can ensure that a given total abatement is achieved at minimum cost. But, if pollution damages depend on how abatement effort is allocated among polluters, this is not necessarily the most desirable outcome. One also needs to be sure that the potential gains from trade implicit in market solutions will actually be realized within some given time; the empirical evidence here is not necessarily promising. Rather than how aggregate abatement should be distributed among polluters, the chief difficulty often lies in determining how much overall abatement is required. A key factor that economists tend to overlook is the difficulty of ascertaining just how benefits vary with abatement effort. Uncertainty and risk aversion in connection with the marginal benefit curve may explain regulatory actions that are otherwise hard to justify.

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00713.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Environmental reformers often seek to impose partial, market‐like mechanisms into costly, complex new environmental statutes. These mechanisms are likely to offset only a small fraction of the loss in economic welfare created by the rest of the legislation. A far better approach is to write cost‐benefit requirements directly into all new legislation. Such requirements, when enforced by the courts, are likely to yield far greater improvements in economic welfare than are the weak market mechanisms found in new statutes such as the 1990 Clean Air

ISSN:1074-3529    

DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7287.1995.tb00714.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1995

数据来源: WILEY