MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 04773mam a2200481 a 4500
001 1832145
005 20220609004952.0
008 950623s1996 enka b 001 0 eng
010 $a 95033092
020 $a0521554837
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm32821442
035 $9ALR5230CU
035 $a1832145
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dOCL$dIAY$dOrLoB-B
043 $aa-cc---
050 00 $aHG1285$b.H83 1996
082 00 $a336.3/0951$220
100 1 $aHuang, Yasheng.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n95062691
245 10 $aInflation and investment controls in China :$bthe political economy of central-local relations during the reform era /$cYasheng Huang.
260 $aCambridge ;$aNew York :$bCambridge University Press,$c1996.
263 $a9603
300 $axviii, 371 pages :$billustrations ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
500 $aPartially based on the author's Ph. D. dissertation written between 1989-1991 in the Government Dept., Harvard University.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 331-358) and indexes.
505 00 $g1.$tIntroduction --$g2.$tLocal government officials as economic agents --$g3.$tLocal bureaucrats as investors: The investment roles of local governments --$g4.$tThe local officials in the bureaucratic hierarchy --$g5.$tExcess investment demand and austrity policies --$g6.$tExplaining local investment behavior --$g7.$tStrategic investment behavior during austerity --$g8.$tBureaucratic investment behavior --$g9.$tConclusion: Political institutions, inflation control, and economic reforms.
520 $aWhy has China been able to avoid the crippling hyperinflation that has bedeviled so many developing and reforming centrally planned economies? This is puzzling because the potential for inflation in the Chinese economy is enormous, the fiscal control by the central government is weak, and China's tax and monetary policies are still passive.
520 8 $aThis book analyzes an important aspect of this issue - how the central government has been able to tame inflationary investment demand and to impose investment reduction policies that go against the economic interests of Chinese local officials. Yasheng Huang focuses on the controlling role of political institutions and argues that one of the central functions of the political institutions is to make allocative decisions about bureaucratic personnel.
520 8 $aDrawing on institutional economics, he hypothesizes that centralized personnel allocations help reconcile some of policy differences between the central and lcoal governments and provide vital information to the central government about the conduct of local officials. Systematic data analysis is carried out to test the propositions developed on the basis of this hypothesis.
520 8 $aThe book also contains detailed descriptions of the roles of local governments in economic and investment management and of China's bureaucratic system.
520 8 $aHuang argues that China now has a de facto federalist system in which the central government specializes in political responsibilities and the local governments specialize in economic responsibilities. This, he suggests, has a number of important normative implications. Under the condition of political authoritarianism, this combination of economic and fiscal decentralizations with political centralization may be an optimal governance structure.
520 8 $aEconomically, a degree of political centralization is useful to alleviate coordination problems when economic agents lack financial self-discipline and when indirect macroeconomic policies are ineffective. Premature political decentralization in the presence of soft-budget constraints may have contributed to runaway inflation in other reforming centrally planned economies. Politically, the Chinese style of federalism can also be optimal because fiscal decentralization helps check the enormous political discretion in the hands of the central government, on which the Chinese political system itself places no formal constraints.
520 8 $aGiven China's recent history, this ought to be an important consideration in designing China's economic system.
650 0 $aAnti-inflationary policies$zChina.
650 0 $aFiscal policy$zChina.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008103730
650 0 $aIntergovernmental fiscal relations$zChina.
650 0 $aInvestments$xGovernment policy$zChina.
651 0 $aChina$xEconomic conditions$y1976-2000$xRegional disparities.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008114660
852 00 $boff,bus$hHG1285$i.H83 1996
852 00 $beal$hHG1285$i.H83 1996
852 00 $beal$hHG1285$i.H83 1996
852 00 $beal$hHG1285$i.H83 1996