A Century of Unique Friendship between Republic of China and the United States
Lyushun Shen earned his doctorate in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. He started his career at the School of Law, University of Maryland before deciding to become a professional diplomat. He has enjoyed a distinguished career serving Taiwan in its overseas missions in America and Europe, including in Washington D.C., Kansas City, Geneva and Brussels. Prior to his current appointment he was Taiwan’s representative to the European Union. His publications include: “The Republic of China’s Perspective on the US Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988” (The Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, 1989), The Issue of US Arms Sales and Peking’s Policy toward Taiwan (Taipei, 1986), “Is Peking’s Claim over Taiwan Internationally Recognized?” Monograph Series of the Asia and World Forum (Taipei, 1984), “The Washington-Peking Controversy over US Arms Sales to Taiwan: Diplomacy of Ambiguity and Escalation” (The Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, 1982), and “The Taiwan Issue in Peking’s Foreign Policy during the 1970’s, A Systematic Review” (The Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, 1981).
In this special event, Vice Foreign Minister Shen will reflect on the century-long relationship between the Republic of China and the United States, and address the future prospects and challenges of this relationship.
Bechtel Conference Center
Efficiency of Land Allocation through Tenancy Markets: Evidence from China
Tenancy markets provide an opportunity to trade land between labor-scarce farmers, that is those who engage in off-farm employment, and land-scarce farmers, that is those who want to expand agricultural production. For emerging middle-income countries where rural to urban migration is active, facilitating a well-functioning tenancy markets is important to increase farmer's income and improve agricultural productivity. Although the existing literature argues that high transaction costs are the major source of market failure, the nature of transaction costs is seldom explored. We hypothesize that the search and negotiation costs and the expected loss of land, due to weak property rights, are the major components of the transaction costs in tenancy markets and that they lead to smaller numbers of rental transactions. We also find empirical evidence in support of these hypotheses using farm household data from China.