China’s Return To Expansionary Fiscal Policy

This volume examines China’s government budgetary condition, analyses the new expansionary fiscal policy, and discusses policy options. China’s government budgetary revenue has declined dramatically since the start of economic reforms. Facing slower economic growth, China’s new fiscal policy is to increase government expenditures by issuing bonds. With a large increase in government spending, it should not be difficult to achieve 7% growth in 1999. The government should conduct serious cost-benefit analyses of every public project in order to prevent scarce funds from being wasted. In the long run, the government should focus on merging the extra-budgetary and off-budgetary revenues into budgetary revenues, instead of allocating more resources to the government sector.