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2007-2008 Faculty Research Grants

USCI funded nine faculty projects from seven USC schools.

August 25, 2011
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USCI awarded nine grants ranging from $3000 to $7500 to nine faculty or faculty teams from seven USC schools. These funds are intended to fund research examining the U.S. – China relationship or significant trends and issues affecting that relationship. The application guidelines are available here.

Faculty Research Abstracts

Iris Chi (School of Social Work),  Robert Mrytle (School of Policy, Planning, and Development)
"Aging Policy Laboratory in China: Teaching and research initiative"

中国老年问题政策实验室之教学与研究倡议

The project expands graduate training and research activities on China's policies toward the aging. The aims of the award are to (1) expand on-going teaching and research collaborations on social policy for aging population in China, (2) widen collaborative efforts with Chinese colleagues in the field of aging, (3) provide graduate students with an intellectual and training infrastructure within which they can better develop their policy analytical skills and research on aging in China, (4) sponsor two Chinese colleagues to present papers on our joint project in American gerontology conferences, and (5) collaboratively prepare papers in both Chinese and English to address issues pertaining to population aging in China. 

Robert Dekle (Department of Economics, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)
"The Determinants of U.S. Import Prices from China: An Analysis of Chinese Firms"

透析美国从中国的商品进口价格决定因素——对中国企业的分析

The decline of import prices from China has played an important role in keeping inflation rates low in the U.S. The low inflation rates has kept the Federal Reserve from increasing interest rates, thereby, maintaining low borrowing rates, for U.S. home and consumption purchases, and for business investment. This robust spending has kept U.S. economic growth strong.

Prof. Dekle will analyze rare Chinese firm level and price data for three large Chinese export industries, to examine the determinants of the fall in Chinese prices. His dataset includes 16,000 medium- and large Chinese firms in the Textile, Transportation, and Electronics industries, accounting for about 50% of total U.S. imports from China.

Prices are determined by wages, materials costs, markups from costs, and the growth in productivity. If productivity growth is the reason why Chinese prices are declining, then since China has a lot to go before productivity levels catch up to those in the West, Chinese prices—and export prices to the U.S.—should continue to decline. Thus, by analyzing our detailed firm level data, the investigators should be able to determine what caused the recent decline in Chinese export prices to the U.S., and to forecast whether these declines are likely to continue.

Joshua Goldstein (History, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)
"Planning Workshop on China’s Great Western Development Project"
关于中国西部大开发的会议规划研讨会

This grant underwrites a workshop for an international conference (to be hosted at Northwest University in Xian, Fall 2008) evaluating the impact of the PRCs Great Western Development Project (西部大开发 Xibu Da Kaifa). China‘s Great Western Development Project is aimed to improve conditions in China‘s vastly underdeveloped Western provinces through a focus on developing energy resource, foreign investment, and Central Asian diplomacy. The implications the GWDP for U.S. policies in Central Asia are volatile, wide-ranging, and grossly understudied, as are the implications that the growing economic and environmental crisis facing China's Western region will have on China's future development and the future of US-China economic and political relations. Presenters will include Scott Rozelle (Stanford U), Shi Yaojiang (China Northwest University) John Kennedy (University of Kansas) and others.

Mingyi Hung (Leventhal School of Accounting)
"Causes and consequences of cross-listing: Evidence from China

透析中国跨境上市的原因与结果

This project investigates the impact of political and economic factors on the causes and consequences of Chinese firms' worldwide stock exchange listings. The topic is important because China is an influential economic force with significant capital raising activities in global financial markets. For example, by 2005 there were 135 Chinese state-owned enterprises listed overseas, raising more than US$100 billion with a combined total market value above US$600 billion. In recent years China has dominated worldwide initial public offerings (IPO), notably for the world's biggest IPO so far -- Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC)'s $19 billion share issuance. This, of course, has generated fierce competition among global stock exchanges to seek new listings from Chinese companies.  This project will not only provide insight on Chinese companies' overseas listing decisions but will also address how securities regulation affects the competitive advantage of U.S. stock exchanges to attract foreign listings.

In addition to the topical interest, the study will contribute to the cross-listing literature in the following ways: First, it will document the relation between political connections and cross-listing choices for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Second, it is the first study exploring how local government wealth extraction incentives and central government political capital building incentives affect disclosure practice and firm valuation subsequent to SOEs' cross-listing.  Finally, the project will aid understanding of the causes and consequences of cross-listing for Chinese firms, a topic not addressed in prior studies.

 

 

 Daniel Lynch (School of International Relations, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)
"Envisioning the Chinese Future"
中国未来前瞻

 

 

 

How Chinese elites envision China’s future will have an important impact on what eventually transpires—including in US-China relations.  This research aims to uncover and explain how PRC political and intellectual elites who publish in neibu (internal-circulation-only) and leading academic journals are imagining China’s future in five domains: (1) domestic politics; (2) international role and status; (3) domestic culture, as articulated with global culture(s); (4) the techno-economy; and (5) the environment.  “The future” is defined as 20-30 years beyond the present—which is the general limit for how far ahead Chinese writers seem willing to project.  This research does not seek to develop its own objective assessment of what China will become.  Expectations already abound for how the country should develop, or what is likely to transpire; and too often these forecasts reflect the forecaster’s own aspirations, even when presented as science.  To the extent that current forecasters factor in the critical variable of how Chinese elites themselves envision the future, they often rely on official statements or what they think elites “should” expect assuming they are “rational.”  But what do Chinese elites actually say, and why?  How do their expectations for the future differ from the expectations of outsiders?  What is their vision of the world in 2030 and China’s place in it?  Probing questions such as these will shed new light on China’s developmental trajectory and clarify the parameters of US-China relations.

Paula H. Palmer (Institute For Prevention Research, Keck School of Medicine), C. Anderson Johnson (Institute For Prevention Research, Keck School of Medicine)
"Tobacco Control and Policy in China"
论中国烟草的控制与政策

China has 320 million smokers accounting for 1 million deaths annually, yet the country lacks widespread tobacco control efforts.  China’s ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) signals commitment towards increased governmental activity to reduce the burden of tobacco-related disease, but outside expertise is needed to develop the requisite skills.  Building upon our longstanding relationships with Chinese national and municipal public health institutions, we will conduct pilot studies in conjunction with the Chengdu, China CDC, leading to recommendations and interventions to support China’s commitment to the FCTC.  Graduate students from USC’s Master of Public Health program and the West China School of Public Health, Sichuan Medical University will participate in two pilot studies that address key issues in tobacco control: 1) Tobacco advertising. A survey and focus groups among Chinese youth to obtain detailed information about locations and types of tobacco ads and their influence on youth and 2) Reduction of environmental tobacco smoke and smoking cessation. A survey and focus groups among adults regarding their smoking habits at work and home and smoking history, including quit attempts, that address the desire and pressure to quit and available cessation resources. Findings from both pilot studies will inform the development of school and community-based smoking prevention and cessation programs in China as well as provide input to the China national CDC on issues of importance with regard to FCTC promoting activities. 

Haluk Soydan (School of Social Work), David Marsh (School of Education)
"Campbell Collaboration in China: Introducing and Developing Evidenced-Based Scientific Research Between China and the United States"
论如何增强中美循证决策,政策及专业实践

USC’s School of Social Work and Rossier School of Education, in collaboration with Peking University’s Institution of Population Research, plan an international conference and workshop series in China that will improve scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China through the introduction and development of the Campbell Collaboration (C2) in China. By expanding the International C2 to China, evidence-based scientific research in the social, behavioral and educational arenas will be greatly advanced for the mutual benefit of the U.S. and China.  By addressing the need for U.S. and Chinese researchers to more effectively collaborate using internationally recognized approaches to scientific documentation, the project will contribute to joint research that generates and constitutes high quality scientific evidence and impacts policy making and professional interventions, particularly on vital social policy issues and client work in the human services that impact the well being of citizens in both countries.

James Steele (School of Architecture), Paul Tang (School of Architecture)
"Instant Cities—Proposal to Organize a Conference in Contemporary Architecture and
Urbanism in China"
速成城市——关于组织研讨中国当代建筑及城市化的会议的提案

The grant funds the completion of a book modeled on LA NOW. Students in Architecture 415: Asian Architecture and Urbanism have focused in spring 2007 on China's built environment. This summer additional students will contribute as part of a study abroad program. Base maps for important cities will be overlaid with additional information pertaining to transportation, land use, and historically significant buildings. This data will undergird a book exploring the contemporary Chinese urbanism.

John E. Wills, Jr. (Department of History, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)
"History and China’s Foreign Relations: The Achievements and Contradictions of American Scholarship"
评析美国对于中国历史及外交关系研究的成果与矛盾

A distinguished group of American historians, political scientists, and policy analysts will be assembled for a two and one-half day conference. Key participants will have prepared papers in advance, which will be made available on line. The papers and the conference will address the achievements of American historians of Chinese foreign relations and the ways in which they have and have not been useful to American political scientists and to policy analysts in and out of government. We will end by asking how interactions among these various disciplines and perspectives can be more useful in the future. Some sessions of the conference will be open to the USC community and to the wider network of China scholars in southern California.

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