1 Wong, Christine and Bird, Richard, “China's fiscal system: a work in progress,” in Brandt, Loren and Rawski, Thomas (eds.), China's Great Transformation: Origins, Mechanism, and Consequences of the Post-Reform Economic Boom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

2 World Bank, China National Development and Sub-national Finance: A Review of Provincial Expenditures. (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2002)Google Scholar; Dabla-Norris, Era, “Issues in intergovernmental fiscal relations in China,” IMF Working Paper, WP/05/30 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wong, Christine (ed.), Financing Local Government in the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Christine Wong, “Can the retreat from equality be reversed?” paper prepared for Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting, 22–25 March 2007, Boston Marriott Copley Place.

3 Yang, Dali L., Remaking Leviathan (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

4 Dabla-Norris, “Issues in intergovernmental fiscal relations”; Dabla-Norris, Era, “The challenge of fiscal decentralisation in transition countries,” Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. 48 (2006), pp. 100–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Dabla-Norris, “Issues in intergovernmental fiscal relations.” In fact, local expenditure responsibilities have become even heavier since many of the social services and social security responsibilities that had been taken care of by state-owned enterprises have now passed on to local governments.

7 Tsai, Kellee S., Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Li, “Working for the peasants.”

8 Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Baoyun Qiao and Li Zhang, “The role of provincial policies in fiscal equalization outcomes in China,” International Studies Program Working Paper, 07–05, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ispwp0705.pdf.

9 For a concise and informative chronological discussion of China's fiscal reforms, see Jun Ma and John Norregaard, “China's fiscal decentralization,” paper presented at conference on Agenda for Sequencing Decentralization in Indonesia, 20–21 March 2000, Jakarta, Indonesia.

10 Tsai, Kellee S., “Off balance: the unintended consequences of fiscal federalism in China,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2004), pp. 7–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yang, Dali L., “State capacity on the rebound,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v014/14.1yang.html.

11 Brean, Donald (ed.), Taxation in Modern China (London: Routledge, 1998)Google Scholar; Wong, Christine P. W., Heady, Christopher and Woo, Wing Thye, Fiscal Management and Economic Reform in the People's Republic of China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

12 Cited in Yang, “State capacity on the rebound,” p. 44.

13 Lin, Justin Yifu, Tao, Ran and Liu, Mingxing, “Decentralization and local governance in the context of China's transition,” in Bardhan, Pranab and Mookherjee, Dilip (eds.), Decentralization to Local Governments in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

14 Dabla-Norris, “Issues in intergovernmental fiscal relations in China.”

15 Ibid.

16 The State Council, “Guanyu shixing fenshui zhi caizheng guangli tizhi de jueding” (“Decision concerning the budgetary management system for the tax sharing system”), in Budgetary Division of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury Division of the Ministry of Finance (ed.), Difang caizheng juesuan wenjian ziliao: 2002 (Documents and Information Concerning Local Final Budgetary Reporting: 2002) (Beijing: China Economic and Finance Publisher, 2003).

17 Chinese government report, 2003, http://www.gov.cn/test/2006-02/16/content_201173.htm.

18 Ministry of Finance, “Nongcun feishui gaige zhongyang dui difang zhuanyi zhifu zhanxing banfa” (“Temporary method of central transfer payments to the local governments to help rural tax-for-fees reforms”), in Documents and Information Concerning Local Final Budgetary Reporting: 2002.

19 Park, Albert, Rozelle, Scott, Wong, Christine and Ren, Changqing, “Distributional consequences of reforming local public finance in China,” The China Quarterly, No. 147 (1996), pp. 751–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahmad, Ehtisham, Keping, Li, Richardson, Thomas J. and Singh, Raju, “Recentralization in China?” IMF Working Paper 02/168 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; World Bank, China National Development and Sub-national Finance.

20 News Report, “Guojia shenjishu faxian 43 yi yuan fupin zijin bei jizhan nuoyong” (“The National Audit Office finds 4.3 billion yuan misallocated”) Sina Finance News, 16 July 2000, http://finance.sina.com.cn/news/2000-07-16/41598.html.

21 Xiwen, Chen, Chinas' County and Township Public Finance and Farmer Income Growth (Shanxi: Shanxi Economic Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

22 According to Zhao, the county and township levels together provide around 70% of public employment in China and the growth of public employment is concentrated at these two levels. For example, in Hebei province, public employment grew from 1.57 million to 2.19 million and 80% of the growth was at the county and township level. Zhao Shukai, “Xiangzhen gaige: jiantao yu zhanwang – shisheng ershi xiangzhen diaocha” (“Township reform: reflections and perspectives – survey on 20 townships across 20 provinces in China”), research report (Beijing: Development Research Centre, State Council, 2005).

23 In democracies too, decentralization does not necessarily constrain government size and bureaucracy expansion. Instead, research has found that it is the sources of revenue that matter for the size of government. According to Stein and Rodden, if decentralization creates self-financing sub-national governments, it tends to be associated with smaller governments. Stein, Ernesto, “Fiscal decentralization and government size in Latin America,” Journal of Applied Economics, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1999), pp. 357–91Google Scholar; Rodden, Jonathan, “Reviving Leviathan: fiscal federalism and the growth of government,” International Organization, Vol. 57, No. 4 (2003), pp. 695–729CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In contrast, dependence on intergovernmental fiscal transfer helps a Leviathan-type local state to expand.

24 In these localities, local cadres are often busy creating government jobs for their relatives and friends, which becomes an important source of the uncontrolled government overstaffing. Rent-seeking can also happen in hiring public employees if jobs in public sectors are attractive. Government officials can make money by selling positions to people who want to get a job in government agencies.

25 Sun, Yan, Corruption and Market in Contemporary China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

26 Zhou, Feizhou, “Cong jiquxing zhengquan dao suanfuxing zhengquan” (“From deriving state to floating state”), Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Studies) Vol. 3 (2006), pp. 1–38Google Scholar; Zeng, Ming, “Nongyeshui quxiaohou xiangzhengzhengfu zhuanyizhifu guocheng” (“The process of township fiscal transfer application and spending after the rural tax reform”), Gonggong xingzheng pinglun (Journal of Public Administration), Vol. 5 (2008), pp. 57–80Google Scholar.

27 Shih, Victor and Qi, Zhang, “Who receives subsidies: a look at the county level in two time periods,” in Shue, Vivienne and Wong, Christine (eds.), Paying for Progress in China: Public Finance, Human Welfare and Changing Patterns of Inequality (London: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar.

28 Manion, Melanie, “Politics and policy in post-Mao cadre retirement,” The China Quarterly, No. 129 (1992), pp. 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Edin, Maria, “State capacity and local agent control China: CCP cadre management from a township perspective,” The China Quarterly, No. 173 (2003), pp. 35–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang, “Selective policy implementation in rural China,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1999), pp. 167–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Ministry of Finance, Bank of China, Document No. 4 (2002); and the provincial government document No. 58 (2000), available at http://book.hnadl.cn:8086/web/index2.html.

32 As an example of the increase in EMS funds, in K county the “rural tax-for-fee reform fiscal transfers” alone increased more than seven times in 2002 compared to 2001.

33 Interviews with officials in the finance bureau and the poverty relief office of K county government, 21 November 2005. These officials explained that the accumulated fiscal debts during the 1990s needed to be repaid in the early 2000s. In other words, the county government was under substantial pressure in debt repayment, which had contributed to very high levels of fund misappropriation in the early 2000s. See Table 3.

34 Shih and Zhang, “Who receives subsidies.”

35 Interviews with officials in the finance bureau of K county government, 21 November 2005.

36 Interview with an official in the education bureau of K county, 5 July 2006. In of fact, the education bureau did not know there was such a specific EMS until one official in the bureau participated in an education fund auditing initiated by the provincial education department. The director of county education bureau then came to the county governor asking for the fund to be allocated to the bureau.

37 Interview with an official in the education bureau of K county, 5 July 2006.

38 Chinese government official website portal, http://www.yn.xinhuanet.com/lianzheng/2006-09/04/content_7951330.htm, 4 September 2006. Local matching fund requirements may also lead to the diversion of funds from earmarked transfers. In some localities, local governments use funds designated for specific projects to serve as the “matching funds” that must be presented in order to apply for other grants. Once the funds for the new special-purpose project are in hand there is the possibility that this money will be diverted to other uses. For example, in 2002 K county received an earmarked transfer of 5 million yuan for an environment improvement project. This had been raised through national bonds that required 10% of the total project costs to be met through local matching funds, so the local government in K county diverted 500,000 yuan from other earmarked funds to this project.

39 At both the central and sub-national levels in China, civilian public sector employees consist of those who work directly for core government agencies (civil servants) and those who work for public service units such as hospitals, schools and various service units affiliated with specific government agencies (PSU employees). Together these constitute the bulk of fiscal dependents in China. World Bank, China National Development and Sub-national Finance.

40 For reference, in China, within-roster personnel (bianzhinei renyuan) refers to all positions officially created and out-of-roster personnel (chaobian renyuan) refers to the number of employees exceeding approved levels.

41 Rong, Jingben, Cui, Zhiyuan and Wang, Shuanzheng, Cong yalixing tizhi xiang minzhu hezuo tizhi de zhuanbian: xianxiang liang ji zhengzhi tizhi gaige (From a Pressure Imposing System to a Democratic Co-operation System: the Political Reform at County and Township Level) (Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 269–70Google Scholar.

42 Bernstein, Thomas and Xiaobo, Lü, Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Dabla-Norris, “The challenge of fiscal decentralisation in transition countries.”

44 Ibid.; Dabla-Norris, “Issues in intergovernmental fiscal relations.”

45 de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, Morrow, James D., Siverson, Randolph M. and Smith, Alastair, “Political institutions, policy choice and the survival of leaders,” British Journal of Political Science. Vol. 32, No. 4 (2002), pp. 559–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Policy failure and political survival: the contribution of political institutions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1999), pp. 147–61.

46 Ibid.