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| “EXCUSES”: A POLITICAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE HIGH CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL IN URBAN CHINA |
| BAO Ji-gang, LI Xun |
| School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China |
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Abstract Since the introduction of reform and opening up in 1980s, a phenomenon is seen in China, i.e. the high concentration of capital and a continuous growth of investmentin cities of particularly higher administrative ranks,and this often occurs together with mega-events hosted by chinese urban governments.Therefore,an excuse-driven development mode is proposed in this paper. This paper analyzes the relationship between investment, efficiency and mega-events. At first, this paper postulates two assumptions. The first one is government official's promotion. Since the 1980s, the primary promotion standard of government officials has shifted from political conduct to economic performance as the central government is devoted into economic growth. As a result, GDP growth developed into "promotion championship" targeted to political promotion by local officials. The second assumption is fiscal decentralization,namely the partial transfer of fiscal power to the local governments from the central government, which has given considerably independent fiscal power and routine power to local governments and thus has highly motivated governments at all levels to develop economy. However, there is still a 30% gap between income and expenditure in provincial and city government after the tax distribution. In an effort of getting promoted, officials have to choose to host competitive-bidden mega-events to balance income and expenditure. In this way, the mage-events should possess five conditions. According to an analytical structure of "Government Construction-Breaking out Constraints-Government Officials' Promotion", it interprets the fact that Guangzhou Municipal Government construct ssocial consensus and holds Asian Games to break out fiscal constraints and attract huge investment, eventually promoting city development and achieving political promotion.Finally, future development trend of theexcuse-driven development mode is discussed.
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Received: 28 April 2012
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2012, Vol. 27 
