John James Kennedy is Professor of Political Science and Director of Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas. He has consistently returned to China to conduct research on rural politics since 1994, and he is also co-founder of the Northwest Socioeconomic Development Research Center (NSDRC) at Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China. His research is on local governance and social development in China; topics include local elections, tax reform, family planning, health care and the cadre management system. He has in a published in a variety of peer reviewed journals including The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Survey, The Journal of Peasant Studies and Political Studies.
Yaojiang Shi is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE) at Shaanxi Normal University, as well as Director of the Northwest Socioeconomic Development Research Center (NSDRC). He has been conducting regional survey research and village case studies in rural China since 2002. His research focuses on rural public service provision, quality of rural health care and rural education. He has published in a variety of peer reviewed journals including The China Quarterly, Journal of Comparative Economics, Health Policy and Planning, British Medical Journal, and Asia Pacific Education Review.