Community-based development and poverty alleviation: An evaluation of China's poor village investment program

We conduct the first systematic evaluation of the world's largest community-based development program—China's flagship poverty alleviation program began in 2001 which finances public investments in designated poor villages based on participatory village planning. We use matching methods and a panel household and village data set with national coverage to compare changes from 2001 to 2004 in designated poor villages that began plan investments and in designated poor villages that had yet to begin plan investments. We find that the program significantly increased both government- and village-financed investments. While the program did not increase the income or consumption of poorer households, it did increase the income and consumption of richer households by 6.1 to 9.2%. We also find suggestive evidence that governance matters in the distribution of program benefits. Relative gains were greater for richer households in villages with more educated leaders, and higher quality village committees delivered greater benefits to both richer and poorer households.     

贫困地区农户大病风险及其处理策略研究(一)

疾病尤其是大病对农户生计往往产生重大影响.农户家庭成员一旦患大病,不仅产生巨额的医疗费用支出,而且劳动时间损失可能引起收入下降.农户是风险规避者,在疾病发生前农户可能利用各种资源形成预防和缓解疾病风险的策略.本文基于湖北两个贫困县的大样本农户调查数据,估算贫困地区农户大病风险,探讨农户回避风险的策略类型及其有效性.大病农户的经济风险大,农户预防大病风险意识不强,收入多样化和参加医疗保险起到了一定的分散和转移大病风险的作用.     

Heterogeneity in Values of Morbidity Risks from Drinking Water

This paper reports the stated preference values for reducing the morbidity risks from drinking water estimated using a nationally representative U.S. sample of 3,585 households. Based on the average annual gastrointestinal (GI) illness risk in the U.S. from drinking water of about 5 illnesses per 100 population, eliminating the GI risk has a median annual value per household of $219. The considerable heterogeneity in the values arises largely from differences in attitudes towards risk and price sensitivity. Using interval regressions, we find that valuations are greater for those who perceive a high personal risk, consume a large quantity of tap water, or are environmentalists. The paper explores several methodological issues pertaining to the iterative choice format involving a choice between two policies characterized by their cost and GI risk. The analysis adjusts for starting point effects by basing valuations on the tradeoffs that are estimated to prevail at the ??equitable tradeoff rate,?? which is the starting cost-water quality tradeoff rate that produces a 50?C50 split in the initial policy choice between policies with greater tradeoff rates and policies with lower tradeoff rates. The heterogeneity in valuations is also explored by examining quantile regression results and the determinants of the unbounded valuation amounts at the low and high extremes.     

基于农户调查的村域商业经济活动空间研究

以河南省不同收入水平和不同地形条件下的5个村庄为例,通过问卷调查,以行政等级(村、乡、县、市)为基础,总结出农村居民购物消费和销售农产晶的空间等级结构,得出墙南村两级分化型、宋圈村中间集中型、北宋村趋于低等中心地、上河村连续型和陈湾村离散型的消费结构类型;以及墙南村、宋圈村、北宋村、上河村趋于低等中心地销售型结构和陈湾村结构完整销售型结构(以邻县销售为主).试图创建以农村家庭为基点的中心地结构模式和研究方法,以使与基于商业设施的中心地理论相对比.对商业中心地结构和农村居民出行活动空间研究具有一定的理论意义.另外还对比分析5个村的商业活动空间差异,并对其进行尝试性的解释.     

HOUSING DECISION WITH DIVORCE RISK

We build a life‐cycle model of housing decisions under divorce risk that predicts that the recent increase in divorce rates leads to reduced homeownership rates. The risk of a divorce triggers a precautionary‐savings motive. However, this motive is weaker when individuals can invest in owner‐occupied homes because homeowners' higher savings partially substitute for precautionary savings. When young, the larger asset accumulation due to divorce‐risk‐induced precautionary savings enables households to buy homes earlier, whereas the presence of transaction costs leads to reduced homeownership for middle‐aged and older households when divorce risk goes up.     

地下水灌溉系统产权制度的创新与理论解释——小型水利工程的实证研究

水资源管理制度和政策越来越被认为是解决日益严重的水资源短缺问题的重要手段。本项研究的主要目的是分析我国地下水灌溉系统产权制度的创新过程和诱导因素 ,为国家引导和制定合理的水资源管理政策提供理论和实证依据。本项研究采用了定量研究的方法 ,建立了地下水灌溉系统产权制度创新模型 ,分析数据来源于作者对河北省 3县 3 0个村的实地调查。研究结果表明 ,80年代以来 ,以河北省为代表的地下水灌溉系统的产权制度逐渐从集体产权向非集体产权演变。影响地下水灌溉系统产权制度创新的主要因素是水资源开发利用程度、生存环境、社区经济条件、社区人力资本、市场发育程度、水利财政政策和水利信贷政策等因素。本项研究还对如何引导产权制度创新更快更有效的发展提出了一些政策建议。     

The effect of rural labor migration on poverty alleviation: a village-level study in China

The construction of the new socialist countryside is being carried out in China nowadays. Although lots of successful experience has been gotten, different problems occur in various regions yet. To analyze the relationships among rural labor migration, poverty alleviation and characteristics of migrants is important in considering the effect of rural labor migration on the construction of the new socialist countryside. Available sampling and typical case study are adopted and 236 questionnaires are collected from[bur villages in northwest GuangxL China, Daxin Lixin, Longhe and Yongchang. We analyze the rural labor migration status, characteristics of migrants, remittance situation and income, household income and the ratio of remittance income to total household income. A bout 2/3 of the households have migrants in surveyed villages. And nearly half of the migration households have only one fam- ily member as migrants in the four villages. The migrants mainly comprise male and the younger, with the education level of junior middte school and higher More than half of the migrants are employed in Guangdong Province. But the characteristics of migrants in Yongchang are more diverse. The rural labor migration in the village is extremely active and extensive. And over 60% of the household with family members as migrants have remittance income. The rate in Yongchang is extremely high (80%). And the income of households with migrants getting remittance income significantly higher than their counterparts. More than half of their income comes from remittance as far as the former kind of household is concerned And in Yongchang, the rate is nearly 80%. The conclusion is that rural labor migration is popular and extensive in lots of villages. And the migration and remittance play an important role in rural household income, especially in some poor villages. For this kind of village, the rural labor migration may be some "compulsory course" in rural development. And the rural labor emigration is an essential way in poverty al-leviation. This is the first step in the construction of the new socialist countryside.     

宗族网络、村干部经商经历与农地经营权流转*

本文综合讨论了村干部和宗族组织对农地经营权流转的影响和作用机制，并且运用中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据对理论分析假设进行了验证。研究结果表明：在农地产权配置和流转交易市场现实约束条件下，村干部和宗族组织作为村庄权威，均对农地流转具有显著影响。其中，以经商能人为代表的村干部对农户家庭农地有偿流转行为有显著的正向影响。宗族组织为维持组织网络结构稳定，对农地无偿流转有显著的正向影响，但是对有偿流转有显著的负向影响。此外，村干部和宗族组织显著抑制了农地撂荒现象的发生。本文的发现对理解村干部和宗族组织在农地流转市场化进程中的行为特点具有一定的意义。     

Risk Sharing and Information in Village Economies

Arrangements for achieving efficient risk-sharing vary depending on the information available to agents in the economy. The usual Euler equation restricts efficient allocations in an economy which obeys the permanent income hypothesis, while efficient allocations in an economy with private information and long-term contracts satisfy a symmetric restriction, but not the Euler equation. Full insurance arrangements are unique in that they satisfy both restrictions.
We look at an environment in which it seems likely that long-term contracts play a role in mitigating the effects of private information: three village economies in South India. The evidence that consumption allocations satisfy the private information restriction is quite strong for households in two of the three villages; the evidence for the third village suggests that while consumption for some households satisfies the private information restrictions, other households' consumption obey the permanent income hypothesis.     

医疗保险与消费:来自新型农村合作医疗的证据

本文利用农村引入新型农村合作医疗这一政策变化来研究医疗保险的获得对农村居民消费的影响。结果表明,新农合使得非医疗支出类的家庭消费增加了约5.6个百分点。这一正向作用随医疗保险保障水平的提高而增强,而且在没有医疗支出的家庭中仍然存在。同时,新农合对消费的正向影响在收入较低或健康状况较差的家庭中更强。这些结果都与医疗保险减少了预防性储蓄的假说相一致。另外本文发现,新农合的效果随农户在这个项目中的经历而变化。实际上只有在那些有村民获得保险补偿的村子,保险对消费的正向影响才显著,而且在这些村子中,新农合对新加入农户的消费的影响明显小于对参合一年以上农户的消费的影响。     

农村公共服务满意度及其影响因素分析——基于陕西省32个乡镇67个自然村的调研数据

本研究选取陕西省关中和陕北地区的32个乡(镇)67个自然村作为样本,基于实地调研数据,采用因子分析法和二元离散选择模型,对农村公共服务满意度及其影响因素进行了实证研究,研究结果表明,农民满意度的影响主要来自道路、基础教育、医疗、农田水利设施、饮水设施、政府信用度、生活垃圾处理、年龄、村务收支状况等;农民人均年收入、文化娱乐对农民满意度有一定影响,但影响不大;农业科技推广与培训、农村清洁能源对农民满意度影响较小;农民满意度基本上不受被调查者性别、文化程度、家庭成员数等变量的影响;农民对农村公共服务的需求具有一定的层次性和阶段性,而农民满意度根据其需求状况具有一定的次序性。     

Local elections and consumption insurance

During our sample period from 1987 to 2002, Chinese villages completed the transition from government‐appointed village leaders to elected ones. This article examines if and how much democratic elections of the village leaders affected consumption insurance by Chinese village residents. Exploring a panel dataset of 1,400 households from this period, we find that consumption insurance is around 20 percent more complete with elected village leaders. Furthermore, local elections improve consumption insurance only for the poor and middle‐income farmers, but not for the rich. The results are robust when we allow for pretrending, potential endogeneity of elections, and higher measurement errors for rich residents. We also find that the effects on consumption insurance are stronger when closer to the upcoming election year and when the village committees consist largely of non‐Communist Party members. These findings suggest that the election effects on consumption insurance partly come from increasing accountability to local constituents.     

The impact of rural roads and irrigation on household welfare: evidence from Vietnam

We measure the impact of road and irrigation projects on the livelihoods of households in the poorest and most remote areas of Vietnam using difference-in-difference estimators. We find that both rural road and irrigation projects help local households improve the access to safe water and welfare measured by a wealth index. The impact of irrigation projects is found to be larger than the impact of road projects. We also find heterogeneous impacts of road and irrigation projects. Households with higher levels of education tend to benefit more from road projects, while households with lower levels of education are likely to benefit more from irrigation projects.     

Minimum cost spanning tree problems with groups

We study minimum cost spanning tree problems with groups. We assume that agents are located in different villages, cities, etc. The groups are the agents of the same village. We introduce a rule for dividing the cost of connecting all agents to the source among the agents taking into account the group structure. We characterize this rule with several desirable properties. We prove that this rule coincides with the Owen value of the TU game associated with the irreducible matrix.     

Risk insurance in a transition economy

The hypothesis of Pareto‐optimal risk‐sharing is tested in a transition economy using a new dataset of a representative sample of 364 rural households from Romania. Income shocks are identified as instances of adverse weather, crop failure, animal diseases, illness, and unemployment spells. Despite limited participation of Romanian rural households in formal insurance and credit markets, we fail to reject the hypothesis of full insurance of total non‐durable consumption and its components. Survey responses indicate that the main channels of consumption smoothing are self‐insurance (for adverse weather, crop failure and animal diseases), public transfers (for unemployment spells, maternity and childcare), and to a lesser extent, family ties. We find that adverse weather is associated with higher growth rates of non‐food expenditures. Furthermore, richer households are better able to cope with crop failure than poorer households. An alternative explanation to our not rejecting the hypothesis of full insurance is that some shocks to consumption (such as illness) play the role of preference shifters of the utility function.     

Local irrigation response to ethanol expansion in the High Plains Aquifer

Global ethanol production has grown rapidly due to national renewable fuel programs. Concern has grown over impacts that land conversion and crop displacement driven by ethanol feedstock production might have on water resources. In this paper, we examine irrigation decisions of agricultural producers in the Kansas portion of the High Plains Aquifer in response to local ethanol market expansion. To identify the effects of ethanol expansion on irrigation decisions, we examine field-level data on irrigation water use, irrigated acreage, and crop decisions for the years 2003–2017 for nearly 23,000 fields in Kansas. We measure the response of three irrigation decisions, (i) irrigated acreage, (ii) irrigation per acre, and (iii) total water use to the introduction and capacity expansion of an ethanol plant. We find that ethanol market expansion did lead to increases in irrigation water use. Specifically, a 10 % increase in ethanol capacity within 50KM increases annual water use by 0.22 % per field (4.8 acre-inches/field). We predict that ethanol markets accounted for about 4% of total irrigated water use in 2017.     

村庄信任与标会

本文在对温州一个村庄的标会情况进行了比较详尽调查的基础上 ,将村庄共同体理论和信任理论与该村的非正式金融发展现实相结合 ,初步地建立了“村庄信任”这样一个全新的理论概念与分析框架。借助这一分析框架 ,文章认为 :(1 )标会将自由竞标过程与程序、竞争性利率决定、自愿性合作、大众参与、信任等因素实现了有机结合 ,是一种很有效率、活力与竞争力的非正式金融制度安排。 (2 )因为村庄共同体与区域性文化等因素对标会行为的嵌入 (embeddedness) ,小规模、社区性标会在现实运作过程中的风险很小。 (3 )政府在有针对性地加强监管的同时 ,应该允许各种非正式金融的存在与发展。     

中国西部地区农村内部不平等状况研究-基于贵州住户调查数据的分析

与以往使用抽样调查数据的研究不同,本文利用在贵州省普定县随机抽取三个村庄的全户调查数据,运用三种针对不平等指数的分解方法,旨在分析西部地区农村内部不平等状况、主要影响因素及其原因,以便为瞄准住户的扶贫战略提供新的实证依据。研究发现,即使在村级层面,贫困地区农户收入和支出的不平等状况仍然很严重,收入的基尼系数高达0.44,GE指数为0.34;通过对运用组内组间收入和支出GE指数分解方法发现,村内的不平等程度(贡献率为90%左右)比村间(贡献率为10%左右)的更为严重;通过运用收入来源和支出构成GE指数分解方法发现,农业和非农收入都是西部地区农村人口的主要收入来源(分别占总收入的41.1%和42.3%),但是非农收入却是造成收入不平等的最主要因素(贡献率为68.8%);通过运用基于回归分析的Shapley值分解方法发现,家庭资产、特别是土地的拥有情况,是造成收入不平等的主要因素。文章最后根据研究结果,针对西部农村地区土地政策、社会保障体系、扶贫政策等提出了相应的建议。     

Climate change impacts on irrigation water requirements: Effects of mitigation, 1990–2080

Potential changes in global and regional agricultural water demand for irrigation were investigated within a new socio-economic scenario, A2r, developed at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) with and without climate change, with and without mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Water deficits of crops were developed with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)–IIASA Agro-ecological Zone model, based on daily water balances at 0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude and then aggregated to regions and the globe. Future regional and global irrigation water requirements were computed as a function of both projected irrigated land and climate change and simulations were performed from 1990 to 2080. Future trends for extents of irrigated land, irrigation water use, and withdrawals were computed, with specific attention given to the implications of climate change mitigation. Renewable water-resource availability was estimated under current and future climate conditions. Results suggest that mitigation of climate change may have significant positive effects compared with unmitigated climate change. Specifically, mitigation reduced the impacts of climate change on agricultural water requirements by about 40%, or 125–160 billion m³ (Gm³) compared with unmitigated climate. Simple estimates of future changes in irrigation efficiency and water costs suggest that by 2080 mitigation may translate into annual cost reductions of about 10 billion US$.     

Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies

Recent work on consumption allocations in village economies finds that idiosyncratic variation in consumption is systematically related to idiosyncratic variation in income, thus rejecting the hypothesis of full risk-pooling. We attempt to explain these observations by adding limited commitment as an impediment to risk-pooling. We provide a general dynamic model and completely characterise efficient informal insurance arrangements constrained by limited commitment, and test the model using data from three Indian villages. We find that the model can fully explain the dynamic response of consumption to income, but that it fails to explain the distribution of consumption across households.