Environment

FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, Environmental Social Sciences, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Denning Global Sustainability Professorship
Director of the Sustainability and Energy Transition Program, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
shanjun-li-headhsot.jpg Ph.D.

Shanjun Li is a Professor in the Environmental Social Sciences department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and holds the Denning Global Sustainability Professorship as a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research areas include environmental and energy economics, urban and transportation economics, empirical industrial organization, and Chinese economy. His recent work addresses pressing sustainability challenges and the rapid rise of clean energy industries in China, exploring their global implications to support evidence-based policymaking.

Prior to joining Stanford, he held the Kenneth L. Robinson Chair in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and served as the Director of the Cornell Institute for China Economic Research (CICER). Li is a co-editor for the International Journal of Industrial Organization and the Journal of Public Economics. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a university fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF).

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Policy experiments are crucial for fostering innovation and mitigating risks and can serve as catalysts for transformative changes. This study investigates the governance of policy experiments in China, focusing on how political factors shape their outcomes. It emphasizes the need to consider concurrent trials—related policy trials implemented simultaneously in a locality that can influence outcomes—when selecting comparable cases for analysis. Such consideration is critical, especially when the policy issue spans multiple sectors and the level of difficulty differs across sectors. By comparing five cities engaged in the same three decarbonization pilots between 2010 and 2015, Hangzhou and Xiamen are identified to have had similar initial conditions and goals but achieved divergent outcomes. This research uncovers the critical role of political leadership in achieving varying levels of decarbonization progress and identifies policy coherence with broader local priorities to be the key explanation for continued leadership attention and efforts devoted to decarbonization despite turnover. The study contributes to the literature by addressing the under-studied impact of political factors and concurrent trials, offering a replicable procedure for future research and practical policy applications.

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Policy Studies Journal
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In an era of disruptive global challenges, from climate crises to pandemics, understanding the drivers of drastic policy innovation is paramount. This study defines drastic policy innovation as a significant shift in governmental priorities through policies untried by most jurisdictions in a country. While policy entrepreneurs are often credited with initiating change, this study argues that political will is essential for enacting and implementing such innovative policies. Political will is defined as the degree of commitment among key decision makers to enact and implement specific policies. It is characterized by three key components: authority (the power to enact and enforce policy), capacity (the resources to implement it effectively), and legitimacy (the perceived rightfulness of actions by stakeholders). Through the case of low-carbon city experimentation in China, this study examines how political will drives the adoption and implementation of these policies. The findings reveal that a high level of political will is significantly linked to more drastically innovative policies being enacted and implemented and that when political will is institutionalized, implementation continues despite leadership turnover. These insights likely apply to other policy contexts and countries, regardless of regime type, albeit with some caveats.

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Policy Studies Journal
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Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2024 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Bo Li who will be speaking on The Macroeconomics of Climate Change: Key Issues, Policy Responses, and International Cooperation. Senior Research Scholar Chenggang Xu will be moderating the event.

To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.



Bo Li will be speaking on the macroeconomic impacts of climate change. He will discuss fiscal and financial policy priorities to meet Paris Agreement goals; key policy recommendations ranging from carbon taxation to scaling up climate finance; and challenges and opportunities for international cooperation on climate action.
 


About the Speaker 
 

Bo Li headhsot

Mr. Bo Li assumed the role of Deputy Managing Director at the IMF on August 23, 2021. He is responsible for the IMF’s work on about 90 countries as well as on a wide range of policy issues.

Before joining the IMF, Mr. Li worked for many years at the People’s Bank of China, most recently as Deputy Governor. He earlier headed the Monetary Policy, Monetary Policy II, and Legal and Regulation Departments, where he played an important role in the reform of state-owned banks, the drafting of China’s anti-money-laundering law, the internationalization of the renminbi, and the establishment of China’s macroprudential policy framework.

Outside of the PBoC, Mr. Li served as Vice Mayor of Chongqing—China’s largest municipality, with a population of over 30 million—where he oversaw the city’s financial-sector development, international trade, and foreign direct investment. Mr. Li was also Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. He started his career at the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was a practicing attorney for five years.

Mr. Li holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Boston University, both in economics, as well as a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He received his undergraduate education from Renmin University of China in Beijing.



The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.



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Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director at the IMF
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As part of its effort to balance economic development with environmental objectives, China has established a new national park system, with the first five locations formally established in 2021. However, as the new parks all host or are proximate to human populations, aligning the socioeconomic needs and aspirations of local communities with conservation aims is critical for the long-term success of the parks. In this narrative review, the authors identify the ecological priorities and socioeconomic stakeholders of each of the five national parks; explore the tensions and synergies between these priorities and stakeholders; and synthesize the policy recommendations most frequently cited in the literature. A total of 119 studies were reviewed. Aligning traditional livelihoods with conservation, limiting road construction, promoting education and environmental awareness, and supporting the development of a sustainable tourism industry are identified as important steps to balance conservation with economic development in the new national parks.

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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
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Scott Rozelle
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Bing Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Biology
Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
gretchen_daily-resized.jpeg PhD

Gretchen C. Daily (she/her) is co-founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project. Founded in 2005, the Natural Capital Project (NatCap) is a global partnership whose goal is to integrate the values of nature into planning, policy, finance, and management. Its tools and approaches are now applied in 185 nations through NatCap’s free, open-source InVEST Software Platform.

Daily is the Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, the Director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Daily’s work is focused on understanding human dependence and impacts on nature and the deep societal transformations needed to secure people and nature. Her work spans fundamental research and policy-oriented initiatives to open inclusive and green development pathways.  She co-develops pragmatic approaches, engaging with governments, multilateral development banks, investors, businesses, farmers and ranchers, communities, and NGOs. 

Together with many colleagues, Daily has published about four hundred scientific and popular articles, and thirteen books, including Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems (1997), The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable (2002), Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services (2011), The Power of Trees (2012), One Tree (2018), Green Growth that Works: Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms Around the World (2019), and Rural Livelihood and Environmental Sustainability in China (2020 in English).

Daily is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts, and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

She has received numerous international honors including the 2020 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 2017 Blue Planet Prize, 2019 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award, 2012 Volvo Environment Prize, 2010 Midori Prize for Biodiversity, and the 2009 International Cosmos Prize.

Co-Founder and Faculty Director, Natural Capital Project
Director, Center for Conservation Biology
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Prof. Yang discusses two current research projects:


AI-tocracy 
Can frontier innovation be sustained under autocracy? We argue that innovation and autocracy can be mutually reinforcing when: (i) the new technology bolsters the autocrat’s power; and (ii) the autocrat’s demand for the technology stimulates further innovation in applications beyond those benefiting it directly. We test for such a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China during the last decade. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial recognition AI, and increased AI procurement suppresses subsequent unrest. We then show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.

Exporting the Surveillance State via Trade in AI 
What are the international ramifications of China’s emergent leadership in facial recog- nition AI? We collect global data on facial recognition AI trade deals and document two facts. First, we show that China has a comparative advantage in this technology. It exports substantially more facial recognition AI than other countries, and particularly so as compared to other frontier technologies. This comparative advantage may stem in part from the Chinese government’s larger demand for the technology for do- mestic surveillance and political control — a form of “home-market” effect — as well as Chinese firms’ access to large government datasets. Second, we find that there is a political bias in China’s facial recognition AI exports. It is more likely to export this technology to autocracies and weak democracies relative to other frontier technologies, in particular to those lacking domestic AI innovation or experiencing political unrest. No such bias is observed for the United States. To the extent that China may be exporting its surveillance state via trade in AI, this can enhance and beget more autocracies abroad. Policymakers should thus frame AI trade regulations around regulations on products with global externalities.


Watch the Recording:


About the Speaker

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David Yang

David Y. Yang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER and a Global Scholar at CIFAR. David’s research focuses on political economy, behavioral and experimental economics, economic history, and cultural economics. In particular, David studies the forces of stability and forces of changes in authoritarian regimes, drawing lessons from historical and contemporary China. David received a B.A. in Statistics and B.S. in Business Administration from University of California at Berkeley, and PhD in Economics from Stanford.


This event will be held in-person at Stanford University, however, the lecture will be recorded. If you are interested in viewing the recording, please contact Debbie Aube.

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu


 

Encina Hall, Stanford University

David Y. Yang
Seminars
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SCCEI Spring Seminar Series 


Wednesday, May 25, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Philippines Room, C330, 3rd Floor, Encina Hall Central, 616 Jane Stanford Way | Zoom Meeting 


Economic Inequality and Social and Demographic Outcomes in China

In this talk, Professor Yu Xie will first document a sharp rise in economic inequality in contemporary China. He then will present results from his research program on the impact of rising economic inequality on a variety of social and demographic outcomes in China: intergenerational mobility, marriage age, marriage partner choice, fertility, and mortality. 


About the Speaker

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Yu Xie photo

Yu Xie is Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Sociology and has a faculty appointment at the Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies, Princeton University. He is also a Visiting Chair Professor of the Center for Social Research, Peking University. His main areas of interest are social stratification, demography, statistical methods, Chinese studies, and sociology of science.

Xie's recently published works include: Marriage and Cohabitation (University of Chicago Press 2007) with Arland Thornton and William Axinn, Statistical Methods for Categorical Data Analysis with Daniel Powers (Emerald 2008, second edition), and Is American Science in Decline? (Harvard University Press, 2012) with Alexandra Killewald. Xie joined Princeton University in 2015, after 26 years at the University of Michigan, most recently as the Otis Dudley Duncan Distinguished University Professor of Sociology, Statistics and Public Policy and a research professor in the Population Studies Center at Michigan's Institute for Social Research. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Sinica and the National Academy of Sciences.


Seminar Series Moderators

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner.  
 

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hongbin li headshot

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

This seminar is a hybrid event. Please join us in person in the Philippines Room, C330, located within Encina Hall Central on the 3rd floor, or join remotely via Zoom.

Register once to receive the Zoom meeting link that will be used for all lectures in this series.

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu


 

Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Hybrid Event: Philippines Room, C330, 3rd Floor of Encina Hall Central | Zoom Meeting

Yu Xie
Seminars
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SCCEI Spring Seminar Series 


Wednesday, May 18, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Goldman Room E401, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way | Zoom Meeting 


Understanding the Resurgence of the SOEs in China: Evidence from the Real Estate Sector 

We advance a novel hypothesis that China’s recent anti-corruption campaign may have contributed to the resurgence of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China as an unintended consequence. We explore the nexus between the anti-corruption campaign and the SOE resurgence by presenting supporting evidence from the Chinese real estate sector, which is notorious for pervasive rent-seeking and corruption. We use a unique data set of land parcel transactions merged with firm-level registration information and a difference-in-differences empirical design to show that, relative to the industrial land parcels which serve as the control, the fraction of residential land parcels purchased by SOEs increased significantly relative to that purchased by private developers after the anti-corruption campaign. 


About the Speaker 
 

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Hanming Fang

Hanming Fang is an applied microeconomist with broad theoretical and empirical interests focusing on public economics. His research integrates rigorous modeling with careful data analysis and has focused on the economic analysis of discrimination; insurance markets, particularly life insurance and health insurance; and health care, including Medicare. In 2008, Professor Fang was awarded the 17th Kenneth Arrow Prize by the International Health Economics Association (iHEA) for his research on the sources of advantageous selection in the Medigap insurance market. 

Professor Fang received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. Before joining the Penn faculty, he held positions at Yale University and Duke University.  He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he served as the acting director of the Chinese economy working group from 2014 to 2016. He is also a research associate of the Population Studies Center and Population Aging Research Center, and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.


Seminar Series Moderators

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Headshot of Dr. Scott Rozelle

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

 

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hongbin li headshot

Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.


A NOTE ON LOCATION

This seminar is a hybrid event. Please join us in person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing, or join remotely via Zoom.

Register once to receive the Zoom meeting link that will be used for all lectures in this series.

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu


 

Scott Rozelle
Hongbin Li

Hybrid Event: Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall | Zoom Meeting

Hanming Fang
Seminars
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Urban parks improve quality of life by providing an array of cultural and natural ecosystem services, such as maintaining biodiversity, reducing air pollution, and benefiting residents' physical and mental states. Although government invests a large amount of capital into park management, parks are still underused in many cases. In this study, the association and relative importance of socio-demographic, environmental, and individual factors were investigated with regards to their impact on citizens' park visitation. Data was collected through cross-sectional door-to-door questionnaires and online databases, and was analyzed using a hierarchical regression model. Results showed that physical exercise (27.4% of collected reports) and rest and relaxation (26.7%) were the two most widespread reasons for park use. When asked about constraints of park visitation, time limitations were reported as being the most constraining factor. However, our quantitative analysis found no significant correlation. Socio-demographic, environmental, and individual variables explained 1%, 20% and 26% (adjusted R2) of the total variance in frequency of park visitation between participants, respectively. A citizen's neighborhood greenspace, housing price, and distance from the nearest park were negatively correlated with park use. Among individual factors, a participant's reported affinity for park visits, time spent in their residential greenspace, and number of children under seven were positively correlated with park visitation, with a decreasingβcoefficient. This research highlights the predominant contribution of attitude over accessibility factors when it comes to park visitation. Furthermore, the data indicates that accessibility factors function differently for frequent, infrequent, and moderate park users and provision with parks within 1000 m of their home is recommended. The findings have implications for park management and future research.

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Journal of Cleaner Production
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