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Agenda: Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, Colorado Natural Resources, Energy And Environmental Law Review

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

On July 12 and 13, 2012, experts convened at Colorado Law to demonstrate the extent to which a model law could help address the global problem of indoor air pollution from inefficient cook stoves. The air pollution that results from inefficiently burning biomass as fuel for cooking has serious health and climatic consequences. The workshop produced two sets of Model Laws and commentaries to help nations solve the problem, and the commentaries were published in the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law Review.

Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations Workshop, July 12-13, 2012, Boulder, Colorado: Introduction, Lakshman Guruswamy

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

11 pages.

"This Essay introduces the framework for deliberation and legislative drafting undertaken at the workshop: Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations on July 12-13, 2012, in Boulder, Colorado. There are a number of fundamental premises upon which the workshop was based, and this Essay refers to the most salient among them."-- Excerpted from 24 Colo. Nat. Resources, Energy & Envtl. L. Rev. 319 (2013).

Un-Obtainium: The Quest For Rare Earth Elements, Brahm Heyman

International Political Economy Theses

The 17 "rare earth elements" are essential for the development of new technologies. Over the last several decades, China has established a virtual monopoly on the rare earth industry, producing over 97% of the world's current demand. This was achieved by effectively undercutting other producers who stopped competing in this market. In 2010, in an effort to bolster its domestic market, China decided to reduce the amount of rare earth elements that it would export. This situation can be used to consider China's relations with the rest of the world from two perspectives. (1) The realist perspective views China's actions …

Learning From Libya, Acting In Syria, Caitlin A. Buckley

Journal of Strategic Security

The international community has reached an impasse. The violence committed by Syrian President Assad's government against opposition forces, who have been calling for democratic reform, regime change, and expanded rights, has necessitated a response from the international community. This article explores various ways the international community could respond to the crisis in Syria and the consequences of each approach. It compares the current calamity in Syria to the crisis in Libya and examines the international community's response to the violence perpetrated by Qaddafi's regime. It further analyzes reports, primarily from the UN and news sources, about the ongoing predicament in …

“Unfree" Labour On The Cattle Stations Of Northern Australia, The Tea Gardens Of Assam, And The Rubber Plantations Of Indo-China, 1920–50, Robert Castle, James Hagan, Andrew Wells

Robert G. Castle

This chapter examines unfree labour in three industries in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It focuses on the forms and consequences of protest which arose amongst workers in these industries in response to the conditions under which they were employed. The Assamese tea industry, Vietnamese rubber plantations and Northern Australian cattle ranching used differing means of production, technology and investment but all relied on colonial governments to enable them to recruit and retain a 'contracted' labour force. The forms of the labour relationship varied but led to protests which often took on a wider meaning in struggles for liberation.

Sociological Perspectives On Ethnicity And Education In China: Views From Chinese And English Literatures, Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, Emily C. Hannum, Chunping Lu

Emily C. Hannum

This paper reviews Chinese- and English-language literature on ethnic minorities and education in China. Six major research topics emerge from the Chinese-language research: (1) Marxism and ethnic minority education; (2) patriotism and national unity in education for ethnic minority students; (3) multicultural education; (4) determinants of ethnic differences in education; (5) school facilities and teacher quality; and (6) preferential / affirmative action policies. Four research themes are identified from the English-language literature: (1) policy overviews; (2) education and ethnic identity; (3) incentives and disincentives for buy-in to the education system; and (4) educational stratification. The majority of quantitative research from …

The Death Penalty In A Changing Socialist State: Reflections Of 'Modernity' From The Mao Era To Contemporary China, Elizabeth Lehmann

Honors Theses

In the past century, China has abandoned its feudal system, created a republic, ended the republic for a communist socialist society, closed its markets and then opened them; now, China is an established world power, has a strong economic base, and is often perceived as having an iron fist regarding domestic crime and punishment. Modern day China’s criminal law, in the context of capital punishment, has undergone many drastic transformations in the past sixty years. The death penalty has been so differently implemented in modern China that within a span of twenty years, the usage of the death penalty and …

Diagnosing The Roots Of Chinas Growth Miracle: An Examination Of Strategies That Have Most Influenced Chinas Economic Development In The Twenty-First Century, Katharine Manko

Honors Theses

There are significantly different views regarding what strategies underlie China’s economic growth and development in the past decade. An examination of these varied opinions will indicate the complexity of determining which strategies have been most conducive to China’s economic expansion. This paper will use data from several developing and developed countries along with an analysis of a number of strategies that economists and scholars have listed as aiding the economic growth process. The analysis of the scatter pot data will then be applied to China as a case study to determine which factors and strategies have been most conducive to …

The Fragmentation Of Collective Action In Contemporary China: Micro-Regions And Occupation, Jessica Sherrod

Honors Theses

Since the creation of labor markets in China, there has been a rapid increase in collective contentious action, such as striking and protesting, and this has attracted the attention of many scholars. Because the country contains such a myriad of diverse regions, scholars have commonly analyzed Chinese collective action through a “regional” lens. While that approach has been useful, this paper goes further by disaggregating Chinese collective action along two dimensions: by micro-region and by occupational sector. More specifically, this research disaggregates large macro-regions to show diversity at the city-level within regions. It also considers differences in collective action across …

Building Effective Business Relationships In China, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

China’s ways of doing business are becoming more Westernized. But non-Chinese executives still must work hard at building trust in relationships with their Chinese business partners.

Time To Cry Over Spilled Milk: An Investigation Into China's Food Safety System, Rachel Baker

Honors Theses

China is plagued with food safety scandals ranging from contamination of dairy, to exploding watermelons in the countryside. This thesis explores the four main reasons that China has many food safety regulatory issues: the wide dispersion of farms in China, the fragmentation of the food safety regulatory system, weakness of local implementation, and the poor structure of commerce. Using the case studies of the dairy and pork industries this thesis examines these four proposed flaws and proposed solutions for improving food safety in China. Governmental flaws and mistakes are mostly responsible for these problems, but the current structure of government …

Women’S Entry Into Self-Employment In Urban China: The Role Of Family In Creating Gendered Mobility Patterns, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zi Pan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How did family characteristics affect women and men differently in self-employment participation in urban China? Analyses of national data show dual marriage penalties for women. Marketization made married women more vulnerable to lay-offs from state-sector jobs; their likelihood of being pushed into unskilled self-employment surpassed that of any other groups. The revitalized patriarchal family tradition favored men in family businesses and resulted in their higher rates of entering entrepreneurial self-employment. Married women who had the education to pursue entrepreneurial self-employment were constrained by family responsibilities to state-sector jobs for access to family services, and had much lower rates in entering …

The Impact Of Local Environmental Quality On International Tourism Demand: The Case Of China, Cong Huang

Master's Theses

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of local environmental quality on international tourism demand based on a panel data set of tourist arrivals from ten foreign countries in 18 typical provinces in China over the period of 1999-2010. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) with different specifications show that the growth of pollution has a negative and significant influence on the international tourism demand. More specifically, the air quality plays a crucial role in this relationship, whereas the water quality does not. In addition, similar results can be found after addressing the potential endogeneity between environmental quality and tourism with the use …

Productivity Measurement In The Presence Of "Poorly Priced" Goods, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard K. Perrin

Richard K Perrin

Young (1995) estimated Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. He reported moderate growth rates for these four regions. This means that rapid growth of GDP in these four economies is due mainly to fast increase of inputs. Young (2000) also estimated the TFP growth rate of China to be 1.4% per year during the period of 1978 to 1998. Similar to his claim for the four 'Asian Tigers', he concluded that 'the productivity performance of the non-agricultural economy (of China) during the reform period is respectable, but not outstanding.' China's real GDP grew …

Liberalization Of Taiwan’S Securities Markets: The Case Of Cross-Taiwan-Strait Listings, Wen-Yeu Wang, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Christopher Chao-hung CHEN

The purpose of this paper is to examine the liberalization of Taiwan’s capital market regarding cross-Taiwan-Strait listing of securities. Taiwan is in an advantageous position to compete with other Asian rivals to attract issuers and capital from China. However, the long political hostility ensures that there is little regulatory cooperation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Assuming that the creation of a cross-strait capital market is an unstoppable trend, this paper examines from the perspective of regulatory competition several regimes that may facilitate Taiwan to overcome regulatory obstacles arising from the special Sino-Taiwan relationship. This paper argues that regulatory …

China In Africa Examining Chinese Foreign Aid In Africa And Implications For Us Interests, Zachary Desjardins

Political Science

China’s engagement with Africa has drawn the attention of policy makers worldwide. While Chinese interests in the region appear relatively passive at present, there is the potential for either a detrimental or largely positive impact on US interests. I assert that the US should engage with Chinese to support both their interests while providing a quantum leap for African development.

Love And Money By Parental Match-Making: Evidence From Urban Couples In China, Fali Huang, Ginger Jin, Lixin Collin Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Parental involvement in marriage matchmaking may distort the optimal spouse choice because parents are willing to substitute love for money. The rationale is that the joint income of married children can be shared among extended family members more easily than mutual attraction felt by the couple themselves, and as a result, the best spouse candidate in the parents' eyes can differ from what is optimal to the individual, even though parents are altruistic and care dearly about their children's welfare. We find supporting evidence for this prediction using a unique sample of urban couples in China in the early 1990s.

Disproportional Ownership Structure And Pay–Performance Relationship: Evidence From China's Listed Firms, Jerry Cao, Xiaofei Pan, Gary Tian

Xiaofei Pan

This paper examines the impact of ownership structure on executive compensation in China's listed firms. We find that the cash flow rights of ultimate controlling shareholders have a positive effect on the pay–performance relationship, while a divergence between control rights and cash flow rights has a significantly negative effect on the pay–performance relationship. We divide our sample based on ultimate controlling shareholders' type into state owned enterprises (SOE), state assets management bureaus (SAMB), and privately controlled firms. We find that in SOE controlled firms cash flow rights have a significant impact on accounting based pay–performance relationship. In privately controlled firms, …

Managerial Compensation, Ownership Structure And Firm Performance In China's Listed Firms, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma, Aelee Jun, Qingliang Tang

Aelee Jun

This paper investigates managerial compensation and its relationship with firm performance in China's listed firms. In China, the largest shareholder dominates other shareholders, controls the firm and therefore exercises substantial impacts on manager compensation. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics, we find that manager remuneration is greater and pay-performance relation is stronger for privately-controlled firms than for state-controlled firms. We also document that state-controlled firms exercise performance-based manager incentive schemes, which is contrary to evidence found in some earlier studies. Our results also indicate that top executives in firms with a foreign ownership are more highly compensated, relative …

Legal Representation In The Chinese Criminal Court, Yudu Li, Hong Lu

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

Abstract: Legal representation plays an important role in criminal sentencing decisions. China has recently stipulated a mandatory legal representation clause for all offenders facing capital charges in its Criminal Procedural Law (1996). This study uses data generated from criminal court case documents involving three serious violent crimes: murder, intentional assault, and robbery. All these crimes carry a maximum of sentence of death. The study examines whether and under what conditions legal representation has an effect on criminal sentencing decisions in China. While the overall multi-regression model did not find that having a legal representation significantly reduces the criminal sentence, a …

Ethical Dilemma Of Foreign Aid And China's One-Child Policy, Kip Klingman

Kip Klingman

Discussion: whether to or not to provide funds for a group in China, which provides family health clinics in the most poverty-stricken regions in China.

Income Inequality And Social Stratification: The Effect Of Market Versus State In Transitional Urban China, Qiong Wu

Masters Theses

The rise of inequality in China is one of the most serious social problems in the reform era in China. Previous studies have debated the relative importance of human capital, political capital, and other factors in determining personal income. By using a new dataset from 2006 China General Social Survey (CGSS2006), I replicate earlier tests to measure whether the market or state has more impact on incomes as a way to the competing hypotheses related to human versus political capital.

The results of the ordinary least squares regression analysis show no significance in party membership, state ownership, and work experience, …

Pure Land And The Social Order In Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation Of "Longshu’S Treatise On Pure Land", Trevor Davis

Student Work

A 2012-2013 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Trevor Davis (Saybrook College '13) for his essay submitted to the History Department, “Pure Land and the Social Order in Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation of Longshu’s Treatise on Pure Land.” (Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, advisor.)

Davis' essay makes a powerful argument about the Pure Land Buddhist Wang Rixiu's understanding of Southern Song (1127-1279) society. Although Pure Land Buddhism is often thought to be egalitarian - or at least to challenge traditional hierarchies - Trevor shows that for Wang Rixiu, an egalitarian Pure Land coexists …

Foreigners From The Same Country, Adrian J. Lo

Senior Theses and Projects

My thesis aims to dissect the confounding factors that lead to the build up of social tension between the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese population. The three main causes of this tension are the major increase in the wealthy population within China, Hong Kong’s “autonomous” political status, and Hong Kong’s resource constraints. My thesis also aims to provide suitable solutions to diminish or extinguish the tension and give a logical prediction of Hong Kong’s economic, political and social outlook in the upcoming years.

Mexico's Quest In The North American Markets, Antonio Diaz Gonzalez Salas

Senior Theses and Projects

Since the 1980s Mexico has implemented various economic policies that have improved its financial system at times. All the policies have ultimately failed. Since the 1990s both Mexico and China have made progress in foreign trade with their respective trade organizations. Mexico entered the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. In spite of being a part of two different trade organizations, both countries had a significant increase on their GDP and consequently a change of focus and direction towards their internal investments to enhance their production of exports. …

Eu-China Economic And Trade Relations: An Overview, Zheng Lu

Zheng Lu (Chinese: 路征)

This presentation introduced the economic relations and barriers between European Union and P.R.China.

The Human Flesh Search Engine: Democracy, Censorship, And Political Participation In Twenty-First Century China, Vincent Capone

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The Human Flesh Search Engine is a recent, unique phenomenon on the Chinese internet. Comprising of thousands of forum, micro-blog, and entertainment websites and mobilizing the overwhelming number of Chinese internet users, or netizens, the search engine is able to quickly find obscure information and identify seemingly anonymous internet personalities. These websites allow netizens to have their voices heard in an otherwise restrictive government, however these websites also become a hotbed for dissent, with web users highlighting stories and figures which they deem harmful to society. Through clever investigative work, netizens hunt down an individual's identity with the goal of …

Mncs And Chinese Workers: The Foxconn Case, Lukas Danner

Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

Shanghai As An International Financial Center - Aspiration, Reality And Implication, Raph Luo

Undergraduate Economic Review

China’s rapid economic development, especially in the financial sector, has ignited the discussion of the re-emergence of Shanghai as a leading international financial center (IFC). Much still remains to be done for Shanghai to catch up with established centers such as New York and London, including deepening its capital markets and opening itself up to cross-border capital flows. While Shanghai’s current financial development has been made possible largely by China’s past economic conditions and policies, recent reforms are also likely to guarantee Shanghai the position as a world-class onshore IFC in the near future. The rise of Shanghai will likely …

Impact Of U.S.-China Trade Relations On Workers, Wages, And Employment: Pilot Study Report, Kate Bronfenbrenner, James Burke, Stephanie Luce, Robert Hickey, Tom Juravich, Elissa Braunstein, Jerry Epstein

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] In the fall of 2000, legislation was enacted by the U.S. Congress to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate, assess, and report to Congress on the economic and security implications of the bilateral economic relationship between the U.S. and China. Unfortunately, to date no government body in the U.S. has had the responsibility for collecting comprehensive national data on the wage and employment effects of trade agreements and policies. Because of this deficit of information, the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission contracted with a team of researchers from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst to conduct a …