Abstract: The fiscal federalism and decentralization literatures suggest that larger cities often deliver better public goods more effectively because of scale economies. Yet small cities exhibit higher rates of access to basic health and education services in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. Why is this the case? Building on modernization theory and models from urban economics, we argue that citizens in smaller cities prioritize investments in basic health and education facilities because there are few low- cost substitutes for government offerings, and because they face few characteristically “urban” problems, such as congestion and insecurity. Residents of larger cities, in contrast, prioritize investment in a wider set of policy areas because they experience more negative externalities from urban growth and can turn to a larger supply of non-state providers of basic social services. Moreover, public officials in smaller cities find it easier to earn political returns for investments in “divisible” infrastructure for service delivery, such as schools and clinics, because they can coordinate lobbying and credit-claiming more effectively than politicians in larger cities. We illustrate the mechanisms underlying these differences across policy areas through data analysis and paired comparison of representative cities of different sizes in Brazil, and with shadow cases from Indonesia.

Alison Post is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Metropolitan Studies.  Her research lies at the intersection of comparative urban politics and comparative political economy, with regional emphases on Latin America and South Asia. Her research examines regulation and business-government relations, decentralization, and urban politics and policy.  She is the author of Foreign and Domestic Investment in Argentina: The Politics of Privatized Infrastructure (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and articles in the Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Governance, Perspectives on Politics, Politics & Society, Studies in Comparative International Development, World Development, and other outlets. She is currently the President of the Urban and Local Politics section of the American Political Science Association and Chair of the Steering Committee for the Red de Economía Política de America Latina (Repal). 

LIVESTREAM HERE: https://tinyurl.com/apostlive

This event is co-sponsored by Center for Latin American Studies and Center for South Asia

 

Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) 2021-22 Colloquium series "Aligning Incentives for Better Health and More Resilient Health Systems in Asia”

Friday, October 29, 2021, 8:30am - 9:30am (Beijing time)

This paper investigates the impact of China’s reform of the system for medical payments from traditional fee-for-service to prospective payment in the form of diagnosis-related group. The paper explores comprehensive aspects of the reform, taking advantage of a large-scale administrative data set from a pilot city in China. It finds that medical expenditure per admission dropped by 7.3 percent, with greater impact on patients who spent a larger amount. To better understand the changes, further decompositions find that the expenditure reduction is fully explained by reduction in the quantity of services instead of using cheaper ones, and by reduction in the use of drugs but not reduction in other types of services, including examination, treatment, and nursing care. In addition, no evidence is found on quality deterioration or behavioral responses, including upcoding and cream skimming. Hospitals maintained their revenue through attracting more patients to contend with cost containment induced by the payment reform.

Julie Shi is Associate Professor of Health Economics in the School of Economics and the School of Global Health Development at Peking University. Dr. Shi’s research focuses on the design and impact of health care payment systems, the economics of health insurance coverage, drug regulations, and the trend of medical expenditures. Shi’s work has contributed to the theory and practice of China’s payment system reform. Her research on health insurance includes the impact of insurance on medical utilization. She has conducted academic and policy research on government regulations on prescription drugs. She also works on the trend of expenditures for patients with catastrophic diseases.

Dr. Shi’s undergraduate degree is from Tsinghua university and her PhD is from Boston University, both in economics. Before joining Peking University, she was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. Her work has published on leading academic journals including Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Health Economics, and Health Economics. She received awards for paper of the year in 2014 from the National Institute of Health Care Management (NIHCM) in the United States. She has conducted multiple projects for central and local governments in China for policy recommendation.

 

Jakarta time: Friday, October 8, 2021 07:00 - 08:30 AM

Students often ask themselves: Do I want to be a specialist or a generalist? A hedgehog digging deeper or a fox ranging wider? The answer embedded in Gita Wirjawan’s life so far is unequivocal: Go broad. Think big. And be optimistic. For his weekly virtual podcast Endgame, Gita has interviewed many people, including Stanford’s Southeast Asia Program director Don Emmerson.  Don will turn the tables and interview Gita in this event. Gita will highlight life lessons from his international childhood and consider questions such as these: How well or poorly is Indonesia coping with corrupted governance, religious extremism, Covidian infection, and climate change? How should it respond to worsening US-China relations? To China’s efforts to control the South China Sea? To America’s exit from Afghanistan? To Myanmar’s brutal junta and ASEAN’s apparent impotence? Worldwide, looking forward, is eco-suicide avoidable? Will surveillance technology doom liberal democracy? If there is a global endgame to be played, how should concerned actors play it? Have present perils made Gita’s proactive optimism all the more necessary? Or all the more naïve? Attend the event and find out.

Gita Wirjawan is the founding chairman of the Ancora Group of private-equity investors and wealth managers in Indonesia. He has held leadership positions in Citibank, JP Morgan, and other such firms. His philanthropy sustains the Ancora Foundation, which seeks to improve access to quality education in Indonesia across a range of endeavors—from funding the training of kindergarten teachers to endowing scholarships for students to attend universities around the world including Stanford. His passion for sports led Gita to chair Indonesia’s badminton association (2012-16). His public service career has included heading Indonesia’s trade ministry (2011-14) and investment coordinating board (2009-2011). A jazz pianist, he has performed in concerts and composed and played pieces in more than a dozen albums. His degrees include masters in business administration (Baylor) and public policy (Harvard). Indonesia’s School of Government and Public Policy sponsors his wide-ranging podcast “Endgame with Gita Wirjawan.”

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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Co-sponsored by the Stanford Center at Peking University.

In honor of its release, contributors Mary Bullock, Thomas Fingar, and David M. Lampton will join editor Anne Thurston for a panel discussion of their volume Engaging China: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations (Columbia University Press, 2021).

Recent years have seen the U.S.-China relationship rapidly deteriorate. Engaging China brings together leading China specialists—ranging from academics to NGO leaders to former government officials—to analyze the past, present, and future of U.S.-China relations. Bullock, Fingar, Lampton, and Thurston will reflect upon the complex and multifaceted nature of American engagement with China since the waning days of Mao’s rule. What initially motivated U.S.’ rapprochement with China? Until recent years, what logic and processes have underpinned the U.S. foreign policy posture towards China? What were the gains and the missteps made during five decades of America’s engagement policy toward China? What is the significance of our rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations today? Speakers will tackle these questions and more at this critical time when tensions between the U.S. and China continue to intensify.

For more information about Engaging China or to purchase a copy, please click here.

Mary Bullock, president emerita of Agnes Scott College, is an educator and scholar of U.S. – China relations. She served as the founding executive vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University from 2012-2015. Previous positions include distinguished visiting professor at Emory University, director of the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and director of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China. She is vice-chair of the Asia Foundation, a trustee of the Henry Luce Foundation, and a member of the Schwarzman Academic Advisory Committee and the Council on Foreign Relations. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese history from Stanford University. Her most recent publications include The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China (2011) and, as co-editor, Medical Transitions in Twentieth Century China (2014).
 

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar's most recent books are The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020).
 

David M. Lampton is Senior Fellow at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute and Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins--SAIS. Immediately prior to his current post he was Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2019-2020. For more than two decades prior to that he was Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Lampton is former Chairman of the The Asia Foundation, former President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and former Dean of Faculty at SAIS. Among many written works, academic and popular, his most recent book (with Selina Ho and Cheng-Chwee Kuik) is Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2020). He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in political science where, as an undergraduate student, he was a firefighter. Lampton has an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies. He is a Life Trustee on the Board of Trustees of Colorado College and was in the US Army Reserve in the enlisted and commissioned ranks.

Anne Thurston is the director of the Grassroots China Initiative, where she works with local NGOs in China. Thurston is a former associate professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, assistant professor at Fordham University, and was a China staff member at the Social Science Research Council. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thurston is also a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations. Thurston is the author of numerous publications, including The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet (2015), and Muddling Toward Democracy: Political Change in Grass Roots China (1998). She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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Peter Martin joins us to discuss his recent book, China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy. Chinese diplomacy in the past several years has become more assertive and its diplomats have used sharper language, earning them the title "wolf warriors." The book traces the roots of China's approach to diplomacy back to the communist revolution of 1949 and tells the story of how it's evolved through social upheaval, famine, capitalist reforms and China's rise to superpower status. It draws on dozens of interviews and -- for the first time -- on the memoirs of more than 100 retired Chinese diplomats.

Peter Martin is a political reporter for Bloomberg News. He has written extensively on escalating tensions in the US-China relationship and reported from China's border with North Korea and its far-western region of Xinjiang. He previously worked for the consultancy APCO Worldwide in Beijing, New Delhi, and Washington, where he analyzed politics for multinational companies. In Washington, he served as chief of staff to the company's global CEO. His writing has been published by outlets including Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, the Guardian, the Jamestown China Brief, the Diplomat and the Christian Science Monitor. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, Peking University and the London School of Economics.