Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Xu, Wenming; Weishaar, Stefan E.; Philipsen, Niels --- "Introduction" [2017] ELECD 1128; in Weishaar, E. Stefan; Philipsen, Niels; Xu, Wenming (eds), "Regulatory Reform in China and the EU" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 1

Book Title: Regulatory Reform in China and the EU

Editor(s): Weishaar, E. Stefan; Philipsen, Niels; Xu, Wenming

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785368530

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Xu, Wenming; Weishaar, Stefan E.; Philipsen, Niels

Number of pages: 10

Abstract/Description:

China has achieved spectacular economic achievements since the 1990s with a GDP growth rate of around 10 per cent per year on average. It has rapidly changed from an agricultural to an industrialized country. A strategy of incremental reform has been adopted, rather than the ‘shock therapy’ applied by former Eastern European socialist economies. To stimulate incentives for regional executives, China has enforced a ‘regionally decentralized authoritarian regime’, which combines the political centralization of political appointment and promotion structures, and economic decentralization, whereby regional governments are deeply involved in economic development within their own jurisdiction. Consequently, both central and regional governments have maintained significant influence during the development and reform process. Public fixed investments and exports have always been two important engines leading economic growth at the expense of domestic consumption. To fuel the economic success, factor prices of, for example, land, labour and capital have been (and still are) distorted and repressed.2 In some cases, inefficient state-owned enterprises have enjoyed the low-cost inputs and resources that could have been channelled to more efficient private firms. According to many commentators, this model is unsustainable.