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Which Public? Whose Goods? What We Know (and What We Don't) About Public Goods in Rural China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2016

Sara A. Newland
Sara A. Newland*
Affiliation:
Department of political science, Villanova University. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

What have we learned from a decade of research on the provision of public goods in the Chinese countryside? This review article surveys the literature in political science, economics and Chinese area studies. It describes the three dominant types of explanations for variation in the quality of public goods: local elections, social sanctioning and economic policies. It then argues that these findings are plagued by a set of common problems. Scholars mean different things when they use the term “public goods,” making their findings difficult to compare. Furthermore, the most common measures of public goods ignore the ways in which local officials manipulate statistics to enhance their career prospects and the interconnected nature of geographic-administrative units in the Chinese state. I suggest some ways to address these problems, and make recommendations for new directions in research on the topic.

摘要

这十年来, 有关中国农村公共物品供给的研究有哪些结论? 这篇评论文章总结了政治学、经济学与中国区域研究等三个学科的研究成果。根据本文的观察, 现有的研究对于公共物品的质量不均主要有三种解释: 地方选举、社会制裁和经济政策。作者发现, 这些理论都有类似的缺点。首先, 对于“公共物品” 定义不精确, 让研究结果难以比较。此外, 常用的公共物品计量方法忽略了地方官员为了政绩操纵统计数据, 也少考虑中国各级政府间的互动与联繫。最后, 作者提出几个新的研究方向来克服上述问题, 以深化我们对于中国农村公共物品供给的认识。

Keywords

Chinapublic goodsrural politicspolitical economy中国公共物品农村政治政治经济学
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 228 , December 2016 , pp. 881 - 904
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

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