China’s tough battles to achieve the centenary goals

Abstract

The so-called Two Centenary Goals underwrite all China’s long-term economic planning programs and contemporary macroeconomic policy agendas. In recent years, the Party-State has made great efforts to achieve the first Centenary Goal, i.e. ‘building a moderately prosperous society in all respects’ by 2021. These efforts include endeavors to win the ‘three tough battles’: to forestall and defuse major (financial) risks, to carry out targeted poverty alleviation, and to prevent and control pollution. In this backdrop, the 2019 Annual Conference of China Economic Association (UK/Europe) was held in China in July 2019 under the theme ‘China’s Tough Battles: Reform, Stability and Development.’ Inspired by that theme, this special issue comprises four papers, covering topics including the role of local government debts in regional growth, relative importance of institutional quality and human capital in economic development, values of environmental amenities to personal happiness, and understanding of what account for China’s sustainable fast growth.