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AbstractOfficials in China claim that voting rates in rural village elections are high. However, the true voting rate is lower, especially for women. We postulate that women are less likely to vote owing to insufficient knowledge about their rights. The objective of this paper is to test whether the knowledge levels of women and village leaders about women's voting rights can affect women's voting behaviour. We report on the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 700 women in China's Fujian and Liaoning provinces. Villages were randomly assigned to either a control group or one of three intervention groups. One intervention provided voting training to women only, another provided training to both women and village leaders, and the third provided training to village leaders only. After women received training, their scores on a test of voting knowledge increased, and they more fully exercised their voting rights. When only village leaders were trained, test scores and voting behaviour were not statistically different from the control villages.

The overall goal of this paper is to analyse the political economy of food price policies in China during the global food crisis. The results show that given China's unique economic and political context and the nature of its agricultural markets, the government's reaction to the crisis was swift and decisive. Responses, which considered the interests of the relevant stakeholders, included both short-term counter-measures that covered a wide range of domestic and border policies as well as long-term policy changes on biofuels and agricultural investment. This, in conjunction with the country's political system, meant that the decision-making process encountered no problems and that the impacts of policy responses by the government achieved the envisaged objectives.

Officials in China claim that voting rates in rural village elections are high. However, the true voting rate is lower, especially for women. We postulate that women are less likely to vote owing to insufficient knowledge about their rights. The objective of this paper is to test whether the knowledge levels of women and village leaders about women's voting rights can affect women's voting behaviour. We report on the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 700 women in China's Fujian and Liaoning provinces. Villages were randomly assigned to either a control group or one of three intervention groups. One intervention provided voting training to women only, another provided training to both women and village leaders, and the third provided training to village leaders only. After women received training, their scores on a test of voting knowledge increased, and they more fully exercised their voting rights. When only village leaders were trained, test scores and voting behaviour were not statistically different from the control villages. (China Q/GIGA)

The overall goal of this article is to understand the progress in implementing the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, while seeking to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and, in particular, to understand its effects on the incidence of catastrophic medical payment. The study is based on two rounds of nationally representative household survey data collected in 2005 and 2008. The study found that the programme has a very high level of participation, and has increased farmers' use of medical services. However, despite efforts by both central and local governments and high household participation, the programme is only partially achieving its policy objectives. In particular, it has been able to extend to almost all of the rural population, but has failed to cover expenses for catastrophic illness, due to insufficient funds.(IDS Bulletin/GIGA)

Although quality may be as important as quantity in public infrastructure management, little research has studied changes in the quality of China's infrastructure investments. This study seeks to document the quality of infrastructure projects in China's villages and to measure whether or not quality has suffered as China's investment effort has risen. The study also examines if satisfaction is rising. Using data from 100 villages in China, we have found that both the quantity and the quality of infrastructure investments have increased. We also find that rural residents are more satisfied with projects, especially when they are higher quality. (China J/GIGA)

AbstractThis paper, using unique survey data from the banking industry in rural China, investigates the effect of incentive contracts on performance. In the context of China's economic transition, we find that the incentive contracts have a positive effect on the bank manager's performance in deposit taking and non‐performing loan reduction. This finding is robust when we control for the endogeneity of incentive contracts. Our empirical results present evidence on the positive effects of incentive‐based banking reforms in rural China.