Relationship between the central government and local governments of contemporary China / [electronic resource] Feizhou Zhou; Mingzhi Tan.

1 Introduction: The Relationship Between the Central Government and Local Governments; 1.1 Central Government and Local Governments; 1.2 Centralization and Decentralization; 1.3 "Retaking" and "Delegating" Authority; 2 Fiscal Responsibility System; 2.1 Connotation and Evolution of the Fiscal Responsibility System; 2.1.1 Pilot Stage (1980-1984); 2.1.2 Transition Stage (1985-1987); 2.1.3 Comprehensive Implementation Stage (1988-1993); 2.2 The Fiscal Responsibility System and Township Enterprises; 2.3 The Fiscal Responsibility System and State-Owned Enterprises. 2.4 Impact of the Responsibility System on the Relationship Between the Central Government and Local Governments3 Tax-Sharing System; 3.1 Background and Basic Connotations of the Tax-Sharing System; 3.2 Tax-Sharing System and Transfer Payment System; 4 Land Fiscal Revenues; 4.1 Land Requisition and Land Revenues of Governments; 4.2 Land Revenues; 4.3 An Empirical Study of the Relationship Between the Tax System and Land Finance; 5 Land Planning Quotas; 5.1 Land Management System; 5.2 Balancing Cultivated Land and Compensation: A Passive and Strict Control; 5.2.1 Summary. 5.3 Land Replacement and Conversion Quotas: A "Leeway" Under the Strict Control5.3.1 Summary; 5.4 Linking the Increase of Urban Construction Land and the Decrease of Rural Residential Land: A Quota-Stimulated Land Seeking Policy; 5.4.1 Summary; 5.5 Introduction of Plan Management and Liquidation Inspection: Narrowing Down the "Leeway"; 6 Local Practice; 6.1 Market-Oriented Logic of Quota Drift: A Case Study of the Land Quota System in Chongqing Municipality; 6.2 Relationship Among Local Governments at Various Levels Under the Land Quota System. 6.3 From Admittance Ratification to Utilization Ratification: A Case Study of the Equity Exchange Platform in Rural Areas of Chengdu, Sichuan Province6.3.1 Utilization Ratification Supersedes Admittance Ratification for Land Quota Trade in Chengdu; 6.3.2 Target Price and New Inter-regional Mechanism Under the Increase and Decrease-Linking Policy; 6.3.3 Future Development Trend; 6.4 Project Logic of Local Governments: A Case Study of the Situation in Dayi County, Chengdu; 6.4.1 Rapid Financing: Preliminary Logic in Regions of Target Selling. 6.4.2 "Pass or Fail Mark" for Admittance: Strict Budget at the Grass-Roots Level6.4.3 Bundling Project Scheme: A Time and Effort-Saving Approach; 6.4.4 Maximizing Circulating Quotas: An Inevitable Choice by Local Governments; 6.5 Rapid Expansion of Local Financing Platforms & Large-Scale Capital Investment in Rural Areas; 6.6 A Discussion on the Relationship Between the Central Government and Local Governments from the Perspective of Land Policies; 6.6.1 Logic of Strict Central Control; 6.6.2 Logic of Local Development; 6.6.3 Logic of Top-Down Incentives.

This book examines the connection between central-local government relations and the transition of contemporary China, the urbanization process and social development. Based on empirical investigations and theoretical research, it argues that this is the key to understanding the transition of central-local government relations from the overall fiscal rationing system in the 1980s and the tax distribution system in the 1990s. The former system provided the incentive for local government to "set up a number of enterprises" and resulted in rapid local industrialization, while the latter system enabled the local governments to move from "operating the enterprises" to "operating the land and cities". The book analyzes two aspects of the profound impact of the change in central-local government relations on the behavior of local governments: land quota acquisition and urbanization, thus providing valuable insights into the economic and social development of contemporary China