How and why was China able to accomplish all these in a relatively short window of a quarter century that would conventionally have taken much longer, in a smoother fashion? Were there new mechanisms and instruments invented and used in revenue raising and allocation? What about the efficacy and effectiveness (or efficiency) of such intensive investments in terms of asset formation and public service provision? What are the implications of such fast pace for fiscal sustainability in the short or long term? The list of important questions is extensive.

Therefore, the quarter-century case of China’s massive urbanization and fast investment is very worthy of careful examination for intellectual curiosity and policy feedback. This special issue is designed for this purpose. Any theoretical and empirical finding out of these analytical exercises can generate insights that will be highly illuminating.        

With this overall theme, Public Budgeting & Finance invites scholars worldwide in any related academic discipline, who conduct innovative work, theoretical and empirical, China specific or comparative, on multiple aspects of the case for public finance focused lessons. We are especially interested in original research manuscripts that explore and provide an analytical treatment of one or more of the following topics:

1. Financing of urban and infrastructure construction
2. Land and housing markets (real estate sector); their impact on households and local government revenues
3. Debt instruments and their use by various levels of government
4. Taxes underlying the above and used
5. Fiscal sustainability of the public sector in aggregate or by level of government
6. Roles of the several levels of government, especially intergovernmental relations and transfers
7. Demographics: rapidly aging population and shrinking working-age group
8. Household income and consumption of urban and rural residents related to mass urbanization
9. Social insurance programs, and their financing and operation, during or underlying the urbanization process

The submission-to-publish process is divided into three stages, detailed as follows:

Stage 1: submit a proposal of up to 1,000 words to pbaf@iu.edu by April 30, 2026. The proposal is expected to include research questions, theory or framework, data and their sources, and methods to be used. We will conduct an expedited review of all proposals; acceptance of proposals will be sent to authors by May 20.

Stage 2: upon acceptance of proposals, authors are recommended (not required, only voluntary) to have a (rough) draft of the paper by late September; at that time, we will organize panels at the 2026 conference of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (September 24-26, George Washington University in Washington, D.C.). These panels are a platform for authors who are interested to meet fellow authors of the special issue and collect early-stage insightful feedback on their preliminary drafts from invited discussants and fellow authors.

Stage 3: after the ABFM conference, authors will respectively revise and finalize their papers. The full papers are to be submitted at the PB&F online portal by November 30. Manuscripts will be reviewed on an expedited basis, and the special issue may be published online as early as December 2026, with the print to follow in 2027.

Best Paper Prize

A monetary prize totaling $3,000 will be awarded to the author(s) of the best original research paper, as judged by the Public Budgeting & Finance editorial board.

For questions, please contact the editorial team that includes Special Issue Editor: Yilin Hou (yihou@syr.edu), and PB&F Co-Editors Craig Johnson (crljohns@iu.edu) and Justin Ross (justross@iu.edu).

Public Budgeting & Finance is a scholarly forum for the communication of research and experiences on all facets of government finance. The journal provides understandable, reliable, and thoughtful analysis of prominent issues to researchers, practitioners, and teachers of applied government finance. Crossing disciplines and approaches, the journal spans the spectrum of budget process, policy and financial management across governments and countries.

The journal is the flagship journal of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM), American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis (AABPA) and is published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

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