The first book to comprehensively analyze the regulation of dirty industry migration - a global issue that has complex economic, environmental and social implications. The book examines the mechanisms of regulation of dirty industry migration under internal trade, investment, environment and human rights laws. Other than international law, the host and home country regulation of dirty industry migration in the context of domestic laws and policies are examined. Finally, this book critically evaluates the voluntary codes relating to corporate environmental citizenship and social responsibility which bear implications on the regulation of dirty industry migration. Based on detailed and up-to-date research
In less than three decades, China has grown from playing a negligible role in international trade to being one of the world's largest exporters, a substantial importer of raw materials, intermediate outputs, and other goods, and both a recipient and source of foreign investment. Not surprisingly, China's economic dynamism has generated considerable attention and concern in the United States and beyond. While some analysts have warned of the potential pitfalls of China's rise—the loss of jobs, for example—others have highlighted the benefits of new market and investment opportunities for US firms. Bringing together an expert group of contributors, China's Growing Role in World Trade undertakes an empirical investigation of the effects of China's new status. The essays collected here provide detailed analyses of the microstructure of trade, the macroeconomic implications, sector-level issues, and foreign direct investment. This volume's careful examination of micro data in light of established economic theories clarifies a number of misconceptions, disproves some conventional wisdom, and documents data patterns that enhance our understanding of China's trade and what it may mean to the rest of the world.
Truths and Half Truths is aimed at economic and social science academics and students who are interested in the dynamics of China’s institutional development and societal transformation. Covering the complexity of the social, economic, and governance reforms behind the economic miracles achieved by China since its reform in 1978, and particularly in the past twenty years, this book provides much needed insight and critical thinking on major aspects of China’s reform. Topics include employment, environment, anti-poverty; urbanization and rural development; education, corruption, political regime and media. Readers will be able to re-evaluate the costs and benefits of China’s modernization from a point-of-view of sustainability. Written by highly knowledgeable and well respected academics in law and economics with decades of experience in China studies Provides an insight from academic points of view written in a reader-friendly journalistic style An integrated monograph; each chapter addresses a particular area of reform and can be read independently
Yawen Zheng evaluates China’s foreign investment legal regime’s guiding of its two-way investments towards the country’s development goals: building technological capacity, deepening integration into the global economy, promoting green development, protecting security, and participating in global economic governance and rule-making.
The key challenges facing China in the next two decades derive from the ongoing process of urbanization. China's urbanization rate in 2005 was about 43%. Over the next 10-15 years, it is expected to rise to well over 50%, adding an additional 200 million mainly rural migrants to the current urban population of 560 million. How China copes with such a large migration flow will strongly influence rural-urban inequality, the pace at which urban centers expand their economic performance, and the urban environment. The growing population will necessitate a big push strategy to maintain a high rate of investment in housing and the urban physical infrastructure and urban services. To finance such expansion will require a significant strengthening and diversification of China's financial system. Growing cities will greatly increase consumption of energy and water. Containing this without at the same time constraining the economic performance of cities or the improvement in the standards of living will call for enlightened policies, strategies, careful urban planning, and significant technological advances. This volume identifies the key developments to watch and discusses the policies which would affect the course as well as the fruitfulness of change.
In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion – or close to 70 percent of the country’s population – by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level.
Nowhere has the divide between advocates and critics of globalization been more striking than in debates over free trade and the environment. And yet the literature on the subject is high on rhetoric and low on results. This book is the first to systematically investigate the subject using both economic theory and empirical analysis. Brian Copeland and Scott Taylor establish a powerful theoretical framework for examining the impact of international trade on local pollution levels, and use it to offer a uniquely integrated treatment of the links between economic growth, liberalized trade, and the environment. The results will surprise many. The authors set out the two leading theories linking international trade to environmental outcomes, develop the empirical implications, and examine their validity using data on measured sulfur dioxide concentrations from over 100 cities worldwide during the period from 1971 to 1986. The empirical results are provocative. For an average country in the sample, free trade is good for the environment. There is little evidence that developing countries will specialize in pollution-intensive products with further trade. In fact, the results suggest just the opposite: free trade will shift pollution-intensive goods production from poor countries with lax regulation to rich countries with tight regulation, thereby lowering world pollution. The results also suggest that pollution declines amid economic growth fueled by economy-wide technological progress but rises when growth is fueled by capital accumulation alone. Lucidly argued and authoritatively written, this book will provide students and researchers of international trade and environmental economics a more reliable way of thinking about this contentious issue, and the methodological tools with which to do so.
International migration, the movement of people across international boundaries to improve economic opportunity, has enormous implications for growth and welfare in both origin and destination countries. An important benefit to developing countries is the receipt of remittances or transfers from income earned by overseas emigrants. Official data show that development countries' remittance receipts totaled 160 billion in 2004, more than twice the size of official aid. This year's edition of Global Economic Prospects focuses on remittances and migration. The bulk of the book covers remittances.
This book contributes to the understanding of environment–economy relations from the perspective of economic geography, grounded in the institutional context of China. It demonstrates how classical economic geographies, new economic geographies, and geographies of economic globalization work together to affect the environment. It covers a series of classical topics like industrial location and industrial dynamics and some emerging fields like industrial evolution and global–local interaction and links them to environmental performance in China. The findings in this book echo the call for developing a more comprehensive and systematic research agenda of environmental economic geography. This book offers researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students in related fields both theoretical and practical considerations of environmental economic geography. It also offers insights into the policy-making relevant to China’s greening efforts.
