KINA: Towards a viable social welfare system and a sustainable economic
development of China.
Sammendrag:
Cooperation is planned with ….
1. The Frisch Centre aims at conducting research at a high level. One of the mechanisms
to achieve that aim is to develop an international network of researchers. Over the last
years we have had project based cooperation with researchers in Sweden, Denmark,
Finland, England, Italy and Australia. We also have researchers and Ph D students from
China at the Frisch Centre. With the expected development in Chinese Universities,
academic cooperation with Fudan University will be strategically important for the Frisch
Centre.
2. Based on the workshops, we will develop a research proposal which will be sent to the
Research of Norway. Depending on the discussions, this will be either for general social
science research or to a specific program, such as Welfare research.
3. In the proposal, as in many of the projects at the Frisch Centre, we will apply for
funding of a doctoral student which will be enrolled in the Ph D program at the Faculty of
Social Sciences (in Economics). The Frisch Centre has long experience with this. At the
moment we have 7 doctoral students.
Introduction
China has seen a vast economic growth after the “open door” policy implemented in the
earlier 1980’s and become a more and more important global player in the world
economy. The impact of openness of Chinese economy has not only changed the
situation in China, but also influenced the western economy with the scale of
unprecedented importance. Today China has undoubtedly become the “World Factory”,
with low labor cost, unlimited human resources and fast pacing development of
technology. Experts estimate that within the next 20-50 years, China would be the
world’s largest economy.
As a small open economy, to understand the impact of the Chinese vast development is of
vital importance for Norway towards future sustainable growth. The import of low cost
products releases the inflation pressure for the Norwegian domestic market. The huge
demand of capital and high technology provides the welcome opportunity for Norwegian
enterprises. Especially the ever growing Chinese demand for energy has made great
impact on the global energy market. Norway as a major oil exporting country outside
OPEC shall see more of Chinese influences on the global energy market.
The challenges that both China and the west face now is very complex. The sustainability
of Chinese economy has been an important factor both for the welfare of Chinese people,
and for the growth of global economy. After 30 years of fast paced development, China
has now begun to experience challenges that western developed countries have faced:
increasing labor cost, aged population, inequality of new founded wealth, needs for well
balanced and egalitarian public health policies and social welfare systems. Especially are
the Chinese very interested in drawing experience from the Nordic countries, as the
Nordic countries, among these Norway, are regarded the leading examples of welfare
states.
The strategic cooperation in economic research between Norwegian institutes and
Chinese counterparts can be very important for both countries. This could be seen in
several aspects: firstly, as china’s role in the world economy becomes more and more
important, the sustainable and healthy development of Chinese economy is not only vital
to china, but also important to other small open economies such as Norway. Therefore to
understand the challenges of Chinese economy is the first step to understand the impact
of China’s growth on global economy. Secondly, due to the unimaginable large scale and
heterogeneousness of Chinese economy, there are many issues that have not yet
happened in Norway have already happened in China. Experiences from dealing with
such issues could provide lessons for Norwegian economy. Thirdly, since china is a
changing economy, it has provided opportunities in shaping and reform public policies.
This could invite the possibilities of social experiments in large scale, which generally
might not be possible in Norway. Through such social experiments, economists and
policy makers may gain valuable experiences.
Proposed projects cooperation with the School of Social Development and Public
Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
1. Unemployment and social welfare
As moving from planned economy to market economy, China has experienced major
reform of its industrial sector. The structural changes and reform of deregulation and
privatization of state-owned enterprises involve large scale reallocation of labor force and
inevitable introduce massive layoff. Unemployment has become a new phenomenon for
the previously state-owed factory workers. Although in recent years the government has
made substantial efforts in reallocation and reeducation of the laid-off workers,
unemployment has created major challenge for the social security system. How to create
a well-balanced unemployment insurance system which not only ensure the welfare of
the unemployed, but also provide incentives to rejoin the labor force can be an interesting
subject for joint project.
The Frisch Centre has long experience in analyzing the impact of both of active labor
market policies, such as training programs, a well as impact of replacement ratios.
2. Aging population and Pension
The aging population at least in the major cities in China has received increasing
attention recently. Although China has vast human resources, the introduction of onechild policy in the earlier 1980’s could have long term effect for China’s sustainable
development with the labor intensive industries. For an aging population, a dominant
source of income is pension. But for the time being the Chinesen pensione consists
mainly of pension from social insurance system and occupational pension is rare. There
has not yet seen many studies on the retirement decisions, and the relationship between
pension and saving could certainly provide welcoming opportunities to design an
improved pension scheme.
Utgår: 3-5
3. Public health policies
Recent debates on whether the government should provide a general health care system
or it should let the market provide such health services have been overwhelming on the
Chinese media. To date, the reform of public health care system has not yet been
successful. This certainly invites new ideas and thoughts. Experiences from other
countries could hopefully shield lights on the subjects. We have great interests in
investigating the situation to provide suggestions in design and evaluation of alternative
health care systems.
4. Energy policy
With the fast development of Chinese economy, the demand of energy has increased
drastically. China has evolved from a price-taker on the global energy marked to the
marked maker in just a few years. The Chinese domestic energy policy thus has
increasingly been of great importance for the global energy marked. However it has not
been many studies on the energy policy, with mixed large scale energy production (hydro,
thermal etc) and variant yet increasing demand. The development of a model for energy
policy, especially numerical model could have been important to predict future global
energy market.
5. Environmental development
The negligence of environmental issues coursed by vast economic development has seen
its severe consequences in China. Nowadays, China is facing increasing problems with
pollutions and natural disasters due to lack of awareness of environmental protection
during the past decades. The government has introduced the concept of “Green GDP”
which links economic development with environmental care. But there is still long way to
go. A joint project in this area, with focus on the social optimal production and emission
control should be of great interests.
The potential cooperation partners
The Ragnar Frisch Centre is a leading research institute in Norway, with competence
within social welfare, health economics, energy policies and environmental and social
efficiency research. The Frisch Centre has good contacts with the School of Social
Development and Public Policy, Fudan University. It has been our joint attention to
develop a formal partnership and cooperation within the common interested field of
economic research.
The School of Social Development and Public Policy at the Fudan University is a leading
institute in analyzing and developing studies on social welfare and public policy in China.
It has broad contacts and cooperations with researchers from academic institutions,
officials from governmental bodies, employees from public relation division of
enterprises, mass media groups, professional staff from NGOs; etc. The research interests
of faculties at the School of Social Development and Public Policy are: Public policy and
public administration theory; Social policy and social fluctuations; Economic of the
government; Labor economics; Demography; Social security and pension study Various
advanced econometrics studies.
We found the Frisch Centre and the School of Social Development and Public Policy
have overlapped common research interests and comparable competence in the field of
economic research. We have in this application proposals for some of the research
subjects that would hopefully lead to formal project applications.
The proposed activities for BILAT startup-project
We have the intention to establish a strategic cooperative partnership with the School of
Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University. The startup-project will take
place in year 2007. The first stage of our cooperation is a one-or-two days workshop at
Fudan University, Shanghai, China, where both parties will present to each other current
research activities and current research results. The intended audiences for this workshop
could also involve other faculties at the Fudan University, and possibly government
officials or other NGO professionals. The two institutes will also discuss possible
projects for cooperation with common interests and feasibility. This workshop will take
place most likely in April/May 2007.
The second stage of startup-project will involve a visit of faculty from the School of
Social Development and Public Policy to Frisch Centre in autumn 2007. A range of
seminars will be arranged for exchange of ideas and project proposals.
The resulting project proposals will apply for grant from the Norwegian Research
Council and possibly other sources such as Chinese government grant. The intended
subjects of project proposals will stem from the joint interest within the framework of
project subjects in section 2. The actual projects will involve at first stage exchange of
faculties from both institutes, and establish one or two post doc positions at each institute.
Participants of BILAT startup-project
The Frisch Centre:
Erik Hernæs (Research Director)
Knut Røed (Senior Research, Dr.Polit)
Tao Zhang (Researcher, Dr. Polit)
(hvem skal være med?)…
School of Social Development and Public Policy
Peng, Xizhe (Dean, Professor, Ph.D)
Chen, Yuan (Associate Professor, Ph. D)
…
Budget
300,000 NOK, where we apply for 150,000 NOK from BILAT grant. The total cost will
cover expenses for travel, workshop and project proposal.