Regional Decentralization and Fiscal Incentives: Federalism, Chinese Style

Qian investigates decentralization and fiscal incentives in the central-provincial relationship during China's reform. He finds a strong correlation between local government revenue collection and local government expenditure and shows that the fiscal contracting system provides local governments with strong fiscal incentives. He also finds that stronger fiscal incentives in terms of higher marginal revenue retention rate implies faster development of non-state enterprises and more reform in state-owned enterprises. Federalism, Chinese style, is compared to federalism, Russian style. Born in Beijing, Yingyi Qian received his B.S. in applied mathematics from Tsinghua University, Beijing; his M.A. in statistics from Columbia University; his M.Phil. in management science from Yale University; and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Professor Qian's fields of research include the theory of organizations, comparative institutional analysis, economics of transition, and reform and development in China. He is the author and co-author of many papers, including "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraints," "Understanding China's Township-Village Enterprises," "Financial System Reform in China: Lessons from Japan's Main-Bank System," and "Enterprise Reform in China: Agency Problems and Political Control."