This paper investigates the outstanding economic and scientific-technological achievements of the Soviet Union during the 1945–1953 period and analyzes how these successes influenced New China’s decision to adopt the Soviet development model. Drawing upon a review of the key Chinese studies and the influential Western works, this study synthesizes diverse research methods,including historical institutional analysis, archival research, and econometric modeling, to examine the driving forces behind Soviet economic development, its quantitative achievements, and its evolving international status relative to the United States. Moreover, the paper reviews the development of Sino-Soviet relations during both the Kuomintang era and the early years of the People’s Republic of China, and it provides a comprehensive factor analysis of why New China chose to introduce the “Soviet model.” The paper also discusses recent quantitative research that employs statistical models to assess the impact of Soviet achievements on China’s economic planning. The findings underscore that the rapid reconstruction and modernization of the Soviet economy not only set new benchmarks in industrial output and scientific progress but also provided a persuasive example that shaped China’s early development strategy.

The development of industrialization runs through the history of the People’s Republic of China. In the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union provided important help for China’s industrialization construction, capital lending, talent training and technology transfer. By analyzing the proportion of China’s industrial output value in the total output value and the output of major industrial products during the period of the Soviet Union, it shows that the assistance of the Soviet Union had a very positive role in promoting the realization of ChinaIs industrialization, and helped China to lay the foundation of industrialization.In addition, some problems in accepting the Soviet Union’s aid to China also deserve our attention when promoting the new industrialization. The research explores both the internal and external factors that led to China’s acceptance of Soviet assistance.The study examines the political, economic, and historical contexts that created a favorable environment for such aid, analyzes the various modes and scales of the assistance implemented, and presents statistical data that underscore the transformative social and economic achievements derived from this partnership.Furthermore, the paper highlights the contributions of quantitative analyses in understanding the aid’s impact, discusses the experiences and lessons learned from the Soviet aid period, and assesses the evolving dynamics of Sino—Soviet relations,particularly the gradual divergence in economic development models. The findings shed light on how Soviet aid laid the groundwork for China’s industrialization while also foreshadowing future ideological and developmental separations.

The development of industrialization runs through the history of the People’s Republic of China. In the early years of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union provided important help for China’s industrialization construction, capital lending, talent training and technology transfer. By analyzing the proportion of China’s industrial output value in the total output value and the output of major industrial products during the period of the Soviet Union, it shows that the assistance of the Soviet Union had a very positive role in promoting the realization of ChinaIs industrialization, and helped China to lay the foundation of industrialization. In addition, some problems in accepting the Soviet Union’s aid to China also deserve our attention when promoting the new industrialization. The research explores both the internal and external factors that led to China’s acceptance of Soviet assistance. The study examines the political, economic, and historical contexts that created a favorable environment for such aid, analyzes the various modes and scales of the assistance implemented, and presents statistical data that underscore the transformative social and economic achievements derived from this partnership. Furthermore, the paper highlights the contributions of quantitative analyses in understanding the aid’s impact, discusses the experiences and lessons learned from the Soviet aid period, and assesses the evolving dynamics of Sino—Soviet relations, particularly the gradual divergence in economic development models. The findings shed light on how Soviet aid laid the groundwork for China’s industrialization while also foreshadowing future ideological and developmental separations.

This paper studies whether and how policies that promote a currency’s use in trade invoicing can also strengthen its role as an anchor currency in other economies’ exchange rate baskets. We exploit the establishment of RMB swap lines by the People’s Bank of China as a natural setting to examine this mechanism. We first estimate countries’ implicit currency baskets and the weights assigned to the RMB, and then use a staggered difference-in-differences design to assess the effect of initiating swap line agreements on the RMB’s weights in these baskets. Our results indicate that RMB weights increase by approximately 5% about nine months after a swap line is introduced and remain persistently higher thereafter. Finally, we develop a three-country DSGE model to interpret these findings, showing that by promoting RMB invoicing, swap lines reinforce the RMB’s role as an anchor currency for exchange rate stabilization.

This paper studies whether financial technology (FinTech) changes loan contract design by reducing banks’ reliance on collateral in corporate lending. Using loan-level data on Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2023 and exploiting the People’s Bank of China’s 2019 FinTech Development Plan as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that banks with stronger pre-policy FinTech capability significantly reduce secured lending after the policy shock. In the benchmark specification, the probability that a loan is secured falls by 1.64 percentage points, or about 2.7% relative to the baseline secured-loan share. The result is robust to alternative loan classifications, matching procedures, alternative measures of FinTech adoption, aggregated lending outcomes, and alternative inference procedures. The pattern is more pronounced among small and medium-sized enterprises, lower-tier branches, and branches located outside bank headquarters’ cities, where borrower information is likely to be more limited. Supplementary analyses are consistent with FinTech reducing banks’ information-production costs and suggest that technological proximity to FinTech-active peers may amplify the collateral-reducing effect. Overall, the evidence indicates that FinTech can enhance banks’ screening capacity and shift lending decisions away from reliance on asset-based guarantees toward information-based credit assessment.

This paper studies whether and how policies that promote a currency’s use in international invoicing can also strengthen its role as an anchor currency in other economies’ exchange rate baskets. We exploit the establishment of swap lines by the People’s Bank of China as a natural setting to examine this mechanism. First, we estimate countries’ implicit currency baskets and the weights assigned to the RMB. We then use a staggered difference-in-differences design to assess the effect of initiating swap line agreements on the RMB’s weights in these baskets. Our results indicate that RMB weights increase by approximately 5% about nine months after a swap line is introduced and remain persistently higher thereafter. Finally, we develop a three-country DSGE model to interpret these findings, showing that by promoting RMB invoicing, swap lines reinforce the RMB’s role as an anchor currency for exchange rate stabilization.

Small scale mining has always been part of life in Ghana, but its illegal form known as galamsey has grown into one of the country’s biggest problems. Galamsey gives work to many people, yet still it destroys rivers, forests and farms, leaving communities struggling to survive. This paper looks at the laws that guide small scale mining in Ghana, from the days of traditional mining, through the colonial period, the Small Scale Gold Mining Law of 1989, and the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) as amended by Act 995. It explains how weak enforcement, corruption, political interference and the role of foreigners, especially some Chinese nationals, have made the laws less effective. The paper also shows, through recent court cases such as Republic v Fynn and Republic v Domotey and Others, that Ghana’s courts are ready to punish offenders when cases are well presented. The courts have given long prison terms and heavy fines, showing that they are not the weak link in the fight. The real problem is poor enforcement and selective justice, since many foreigners are deported instead of being put on trial. The paper argues that solving the galamsey problem needs strong enforcement, freedom from political interference, the setting up of special environmental courts, and better job opportunities for rural communities. With these steps, Ghana can protect the environment while also supporting its people to make a living in lawful ways.

Central bank digital currency (CBDC) is intended to boost financial inclusion and limit threats to bank stability posed by private cryptocurrencies. Our study examines the impact of implementing CBDC on the bank stability of two countries in Asia and the Pacific, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India, that initiated research on CBDC within the last ten years (2013 to 2022). We construct a bank stability index by utilizing five dimensions, namely capital adequacy, profitability, asset quality, liquidity, and efficiency, using a novel “benefit-of-the-doubt” approach. Employing panel estimation techniques, we find a significant positive impact of adopting CBDC on bank stability and a moderating role of monetary policy. We also find that the effect is greater in India, a lower-middle-income country, than in the PRC, an upper-middle-income nation. We conclude that by taking an accommodative monetary policy stance, adopting CBDC favors bank stability. We confirm our results with various robustness tests by introducing proxies for bank stability and other model specifications. Our findings underscore the potential of adopting CBDC, when carefully managed alongside appropriate monetary policy, for enhancing bank or overall financial stability.

Background: How to cope with the rapid growth of LTC (long-term care) needs for the old people without activities of daily living (ADL), which is also a serious hazard caused by public health emergencies such as COVID-2019 and SARS (2003), has become an urgent task in China, Germany, Japan, and other aging countries. As a response, the LTCI (longterm care insurance) system has been executed among European countries and piloted in 15 cities of China in 2016. Subsequently, the influence and dilemma of LTCI system have become a hot academic topic in the past 20 years.Methods: The review was carried out to reveal the effects of the LTCI system on different economic entities by reviewing relevantliterature published from January 2008 to September 2019. The quality of 25 quantitative and 24 qualitative articles was evaluated using the JBI and CASP critical evaluation checklist, respectively. Results: The review systematically examines the effects of the LTCI system on different microeconomic entities such as caretakers or their families and macroeconomic entities such as government spending. The results show that the LTCI system has a great impact on social welfare. For example, LTCI has a positive effect on the health and life quality of the disabled elderly. However, the role of LTCI in alleviating the financial burden on families with the disabled elderly may be limited. Conclusion: Implementation of LTCI system not only in reducing the physical and mental health problems of health care recipients and providers, and the economic burden of their families, but also promote the development of health care service industry and further improvement of the health care system. However, the dilemma and sustainable development of the LTCI system is the government needs to focus on in the future due to the sustainability of its funding sources.

As China’s Zero-COVID policy has come to an end and travel restrictions have been removed, the country’s mobility patterns are very likely to become more heterogeneous than during the pandemic. Human mobility is a key mechanism through which economic activities emerge and viruses spread. It can bring both advantages and challenges to cities with different characteristics. This paper investigates intra-city mobility trajectories of 368 Chinese cities within a non-linear time-varying latent factor framework to uncover the evolution of heterogeneity in local travel behavior amidst that China has been approaching the turning point of the post-pandemic new normal. To this end, we compiled a novel panel on a weekly basis, using the latest Baidu Mobility Data and the risk-level data released by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. We further examine the effects of exposure to high COVID-19 risk in the city on commuting behavior between May 17, 2021 and June 26, 2022. Our results provide stylized facts on stratified local travel across China: first, the 368 cities can be categorized into six clusters based on their mobility dynamics, and second, the gaps in intra-city mobility tend to narrow within each cluster but widen between different clusters. Moreover, exposure to high COVID-19 risk has a stronger impact on home-workplace commuting rates than on dining-, leisure, and recreational travel rates, persistently dampening commuting behavior. In addition, divisions in intra-city travel strength and commuting behavior between western regions and the rest of China are evident. In sum, this paper suggests that the daily life and economic activities which depend heavily on human mobility are recovering at different rates across China.