Public Policy Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2803
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Item Transition pathways of China and implications for climate change mitigation: evolution of the buildings sector(2017) Yu, Sha; Hultman, Nathan E; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)China, as the world’s largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, also has the largest construction market. Energy use in Chinese buildings (including traditional biomass) constitutes 28% of China’s total final energy consumption and 16% of global building final energy consumption in 2012. Driven by economic growth, urbanization, and lifestyle changes, energy consumption in Chinese buildings is expected to continue to grow. Buildings will therefore be an important element of efforts by the Chinese government to plan infrastructure, constrain energy growth, or meet a range of related sustainability goals. This dissertation examines the evolution of the Chinese buildings sector and focuses on three issues. First, in order to make robust projections, we investigate the historical growth of the buildings sector in China, Japan, and the United States. The growth paths of Japan and the United States provide useful historical analogs for China’s future growth. We find that the change in energy use intensity was driven by short-term events, such as introduction of new policies, and showed greater variability compared to other drivers, whereas growth in per capita floorspace and household characteristics showed consistent long-term trends and was less responsive to short-term events. Second, we examine the growth in floorspace by province and building type. We use Gompertz model to estimate future floorspace growth, as it captures dynamics between floorspace and income and the saturated demand. This study shows variation across provinces in floorspace growth and a wider range of floorspace at the aggregate level than literature. It also has strong policy implications, as housing policies, in addition to building energy policies, are critical to curbing the growth in China’s building energy use. Third, using the Global Change Assessment Model-China (GCAM-China), we assess China’s future building energy demand under different transition pathways while accounting for provincial heterogeneity. We find that distinct development paths can lead to different levels of building energy consumption in China (25-42 EJ in 2050), and most growth would happen in the next two decades. Strong, provincial-specific near-term policy actions are needed in order to avoid locking in the inefficient infrastructure.Item Interest Group Politics over Exchange Rate Valuation in Asian Countries(2014) Yuan, Wen Jin; Destler, I.M.'Mac'; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Few empirical researches have analyzed on the role of different interest groups in currency relations. Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to fill the theory gap and address the following question: how the political power of a country's manufacturing sector as well as the intensification of a country's control over its interest rate regime would influence the country's exchange rate decision making. This thesis uses a mixture of methods: two regression models followed by one case study of China. The OLS regression model analyzes the determinants of currency undervaluation through examining a panel dataset of eleven Asian countries from 1974 to 2005, and finds that the manufacturing sector of a country is more likely to favor an undervalued exchange rate if the country adopts intensified interest rate control as a policy tool. The duration model also analyzes eleven Asian countries who initially adopts a fixed exchange rate regime from 1974 to 2005, and finds that for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, when the country is actively involved in international trade, the larger the manufacturing sector, the longer the fixed exchange rate regime arrangement will endure. Moreover, for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, the more intensely a country manipulates its interest rates, and the more intensely a country controls its capital flows, the longer the fixed exchange rate regime arrangement will endure. The China case study mainly analyzes China's manufacturing sector and state-owned banks' lobbying power and practice towards exchange rate decision making from 1994 to 2010. The case study describes, in rich detail, the interest group influence over the exchange rate decision-making process in a typical non-democratic context, and proves that in non-democratic regimes, interest groups still have various ways to influence the government's exchange rate decision-making process.Item An Institutional Analysis of the Chinese Land Conversion Process(2009) Ma, Jianbo; Nelson, Robert H; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Formally, China has a highly centralized system to control the conversion of farmland to non-farming uses. Its rigidity and other problems, however, have led to a large informal and decentralized market that serves to accommodate the demand for developable land. This dissertation, based on a case study in a county on China's eastern coast, finds that the informal land market has played an essential role in promoting local economic growth, improving the financial situations of local governments and villages, and benefiting some low-income people. As far as economic efficiency is concerned, the Chinese land system functions reasonably well given the existing institutional arrangements, though at high transaction costs. However, the land conversion process, governed largely by the law of the jungle, is highly unfair because it favors the powerful, the bold and the wealthy. The recent piecemeal policies by China's national government to fix the system have produced few positive or even negative effects. The dissertation concludes that the success of future attempts to improve the land conversion system hinges on the willingness and capability of the national government to change the rules of the game in a fundamental way.Item Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age(2004-09-20) Lewis, Jeffrey; Steinbruner, John D; Public Affairs; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Among the 5 states authorized under the NPT to possess nuclear weapons, China has the most restrained pattern of deployment: The People's Republic of China (PRC) operationally deploys about 80 nuclear warheads exclusively for use with land-based ballistic missiles. Its declaratory doctrine rejects the initiation of nuclear war under any circumstance. The PRC does not maintain tactical nuclear forces of any kind, and its strategic forces are kept off alert, with warheads in storage. This posture has been sustained over time and changes in threat perception, suggesting restraint is the result of choice and not expediency. The apparent implication of the sustained pattern of Chinese restraint implies a distinctly different strategic assessment from that developed by Russia and the US to justify and direct their larger and more actively deployed forces. As articulated in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, the United States seeks credible options for the preventive use of strategic forces. Such options will presumably undermine confidence among Chinese leaders that a small strategic force provides adequate deterrence, and that vulnerability to preemption poses a less significant risk than the loss of control over alert forces. There is no evidence yet of a fundamental revision in the traditional deployment pattern of Chinese strategic forces, perhaps because China is likely to preserve a modest capability sufficient for its minimalist conception of deterrence. If China were subjected to a level of preemptive threat that Beijing judged intolerable, Chinese leaders would likely to reject, at least initially, the systematic emulation of US deployment patterns. Although the inner deliberations of China's leadership are only barely perceptible, patterns in Chinese defense investments, strategic force deployments, and arms control behavior suggest China would consider asymmetric responses that targeted the vulnerable command, control and intelligence (C2I) systems essential to preventive operations. This dissertation attempts a systematic examination of Chinese policy statements and diplomatic actions for two purposes: 1. To test the plausibility of China's apparent strategic logic against the conflicting expectations of prevailing US assessments. 2. To provide guidance for shaping both the specific security relationship with China and global security arrangements in general.