The Foreign Experience Of The Development Of Recycling Economy: An Analysis Of Institutional Economics

Entering the industrial society, especially after 20th century, human society has witnessed the contradiction between the rapid economic growth and the resource scarcity, environmental pollution and ecological deterioration worldwide, which reflected the antinomy of the great advances in human civilization and the severe crisis for human survival. Under this situation, developing recycling economy has become the new choice for human society to develop economy. This indicates, on the one hand, the necessity of practically transferring economic development model and using other countries'experience as reference to develop recycling economy, on the other hand, the impendence of theoretically interpreting the development path and institutional construction of recycling economic development.Recycling economy is an economic operation mode, which requires certain institutional arrangements to correct market mechanism, and then effectively regulate and direct the path of economic operation. Therefore, this paper, from the perspective of institution, comprehensively and systematically analyzes the development experience of recycling economy in major developed foreign countries. There are nine chapters in this paper, which, except the introduction and conclusion, can be divided into four parts: the theoretical analysis of recycling economy (Chapter 2 and 3), the empirical analysis of foreign experience (Chapter 4, 5, and 6), the quantitative and comparative analysis among different countries (Chapter 7), and the policy implications for the development of recycling economy in China (Chapter 8).Chapter two and three provides the theoretical framework and institutional economic analysis of recycling economy. Chapter two gives an introduction of recycling economy, and constructs the economic growth model within the framework of recycling economy. Besides, it analyses the relation between recycling economy and economic development, as well as the importance of recycling economy to social economic development. Chapter three gives an institutional interpretation of the presence of recycling economy, explains the relation between institutional transfer and the development of recycling economy, and then illustrates the essentiality of institutional arrangements and innovation to securing the development of recycling economy. In addition, it expounds the importance of the collaboration of market mechanism and government behavior to the development of recycling economy, which means to let the government who provides and innovates the institutions to play the leading and directing role in recycling economic development, and utilize the market mechanism including price mechanism, interest-oriented mechanism, and competition mechanism to realize effective resource allocation.Chapter four, five and six respectively analyze the development of recycling economy and the institutional arrangements in Germany, Japan and U S. In this part of empirical analysis, the paper discusses the recycling economic development background and course in these countries which are the factors driving the development of recycling economy, and the development strategies and models which are the major characteristics of recycling economic development, and then discusses the institutional construction and innovation during the recycling economic development, thus, exploring the fundamental feature of institutional arrangements in different counters, which is the effective institutional supply. It mainly includes the formal institution, informal institution and enforcement mechanism, as well as the driving mechanism of institutional operation, which is the collaboration of government behavior, market mechanism and public participation. Regarding the formal institution, these countries have all constructed relatively well-rounded legal system, providing the development of recycling economy with strong legal security and mandatory institutional support. In addition, these countries have all made full use of fiscal and financial policies to establish and perfect a policy framework of recycling economic development, which serves as strong incentive and restraint mechanism. Regarding the informal institution, these countries have all brought into full play the important function of governments, nongovernment organizations and the public, which helped increasing the consciousness of the whole society and public to environmental protection. Regarding the enforcement mechanism, these three countries have established effective supervision and enforcement mechanism to effectively regulate the behavior of governments, enterprises and the public. Of course, due to the difference in their political system, economic system, development background and culture and tradition and etc., these three counties also see many differences in their institutional arrangements.Chapter seven is the evaluation and international comparison of recycling economic development. A scientific and reasonable evaluation index system is established, in which"institution"is included and used as an important indicator. Then the recycling economic development of Germany, Japan, US and China is evaluated and analyzed. The empirical result indicates the obvious difference in the recycling economic development level between China and the other countries, as well as the reason for this difference. In fact, the economic development level determines a country's attention to and ability of the development of recycling economy, but"institution"is the fundamental reason explaining the performance disparity in recycling economic development.In the end, chapter eight, the Development and Institutional Construction of China's Recycling Economy, analyzes the institutional barriers hindering the development of recycling economy in China, and the insufficient institutional supply and effective market mechanism, indicating how China should construct and perfect related institutional systems in order to develop recycling economy, and only the rational, well-founded and effective institution arrangements will promote the development of recycling economy.