About the Topic: This presentation includes a review of significant trends in the development of nuclear energy in China, from the mid1980's until the present, and related future prospects. Among the subjects covered will be: nuclear technology development based on competition/cooperation between a giant state owned enterprise and an upstart commercial utility from the south; different development goals and technology development by the two corporations; the impact of Fukushima on nuclear energy developments in China; the current status of the Chinese nuclear energy system; future growth prospects considering a range of different challenges in the industry; and nuclear technology development prospects and intellectual property issues.

About the Speaker: Chaim Braun is a consulting professor at CISAC specializing in issues related to nuclear power economics and fuel supply, and nuclear nonproliferation. Braun pioneered the concept of proliferation rings dealing with the implications of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology smuggling ring, the concept of the Energy Security Initiative (ESI), and the re-evaluation of nuclear fuel supply assurance measures, including nuclear fuel lease and take-back. Before joining CISAC, Braun worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Prior to that, Braun worked at United Engineers and Constructors (UE&C), EPRI and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

A large literature examines performance pay for managers in the private sector, but less is known about the use of performance pay for their public sector counterparts. Improving public service delivery may nonetheless depend heavily on aligning the incentives of public sector managers with social objectives. In this paper we study performance incentives for school administrators and how their responses to incentives vary with the amount of resources under their control. Our specific focus is the implementation of new, school-based programs to reduce childhood anemia in rural China. We randomly assigned 170 schools to three levels of performance pay for reductions in student anemia across which we orthogonally assign two levels of block grants. We emphasize three key findings. First, with a smaller block grant, large incentives were effective, but smaller incentives (10% of the size) were ineffective in reducing anemia. Second, absent explicit anemia-based incentives, increasing the size of block grants under the control of school administrators lead to sizeable reductions (but was nearly twice as costly as incentives alone). Third, we find that incentives crowd out the effect of additional resources (or vice-versa). Our evidence suggests that this crowding-out result is attributable, at least in part, to risk avoidance and the nature of existing ‘bureaucratic incentives’ facing school administrators.

China’s record breaking economic growth has yielded an equally startling rate of urbanization, as millions move from the countryside to the cities.  In many villages one finds only the old and the very young.  Old institutions are decaying while new ones may or may not yet exist.   We have brought together an international group of social scientists who are interested in the process and consequences of urbanization and who study a diverse set of countries.   They will discuss challenges of urbanization in different political and economic settings to examine new urban formation that will help put China’s experience in a global perspective.

Topics and Speakers:

Urbanization in Southern Africa: Jim Ferguson, Dept. of Anthropology, Stanford University

Urbanization in India: Thomas Hansen, Dept. of Anthropology, Stanford University

Urbanization in Italy: Sylvia Yanagisako, Dept. of Anthropology, Stanford University

Urbanization in Latin America: Austin Zeiderman, London School of Economics

Urbanization in China: Zhou Qiren, National School of Development, Peking University