Do the Chinese “Keep up with the Jones”?: Implications of peer effects,growing economic disparities and relative deprivation on health outcomes among older adults in China

What are the health effects of unequal economic growth? What are the health consequences of ‘keeping up with the Jones’? Many developed countries (e.g., US and Japan) have experienced significant income growth between 1950s and 2000s but population survey shows that on average the population is not growing more satisfied with life. Theories that attempt to respond to these findings hypothesize that as income grows, people may spend more on conspicuous consumption because they compare themselves with others in their peer groups and care about their position in socio-economic distributions relative to others. Indeed, public health studies have found a relationship between income inequality and adult health outcomes in developed countries. Specifically, there seems to be a correlation between social hierarchy and mortality, as well as a correlation between social hierarchy and morbidity.China is a prime study site due to its growing spatial inequalities in the past decade. Though China has been committed to economic reform, different regions and cities have encountered very disparate rates of development and growth. In this paper, we utilize a set of panel data collected in China (China Health and Nutrition Survey 1989–2004) to examine the effects of peer groups, relative deprivation, and income disparities on individual health outcomes such as the probability of high waist circumference, body mass index categories, probability of hypertension, nutritional intake as well as health behavior such as smoking. We use a combination of multi-level mixed effects modeling as well as factor analysis to examine these effects and find significant and differential effects of income quartiles, peer groups, relative deprivation, and Gini coefficient on health.     

Remittances and relative concerns in rural China

The paper investigates the impact of remittances on the relative concerns of households in rural China. Using the Rural to Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) dataset we estimate a series of subjective well-being functions to simultaneously explore relative concerns with respect to income and remittances. Our results show that although rural households experience substantial welfare loss due to income comparisons, they gain well-being by comparing their remittances with those received by their reference group. In other words, we find evidence of a “status effect” with respect to income and of a “signal effect” of similar magnitude with respect to remittances. This finding is robust to various specifications, alternative reference group definitions, controls for the endogeneity of remittances and selective migration, as well as the use of migrants' net contribution to household income.     

Does health insurance promote people's consumption? New evidence from China

In order to change the situation that reimbursement rate of the new rural cooperative medical care system (NCMS) was too low to alleviate farmers medical burden, in August 2012, China began to expand the coverage of the NCMS to include the treatment of critical illnesses. Could more effective health insurance promote the consumption of rural residents? We studied the impact of the critical illness insurance (CII) on rural household consumption, and find that the CII increases per capita household daily consumption by >15%. But healthcare and medical expenditures have not been affected. Our comparison of outcomes for households with different levels of consumption and income shows the CII mainly promote the consumption of rural affluent family, but no incentive for poor family, resulting in deterioration of consumption inequality of rural households. The finding is robust to various alternative hypotheses and specifications.     

相对贫困对农村劳动力迁移决策的影响研究——来自江西的经验分析

相对贫困假说认为影响农民外出务工的因素不仅仅在于城乡两地的绝对收入差距．也在于农民在农村参照系内感受到的相对贫困程度。本文基于作者2006年对江西两村54户家庭、183位个体劳动力的问卷访谈数据，验证了相对贫困对农民迁移决策的显著影响；研究同时发现可耕地数量与农民迁移决策的非线性关系，“种田可以解决温饱问题，却不能解决收入问题”；教育支出已成为影响农户经济决策的重要因素之一，大量农民因孩子的教育费用而离家务工。     

Non‐farm Income Diversification in Rural Ghana: Patterns and Determinants

Abstract: Evidence abounds in the rural livelihoods literature that rural households do not only receive a significant proportion of their incomes from non‐farm sources, but also it is a significant source of employment for rural folks. This paper examines the pattern and determinants of non‐farm income diversification in rural Ghana. Results show that off‐farm income constituted 43 percent of rural household income in 2005/6. Female‐headed households tend to have larger off‐farm income shares compared to male‐headed households. Non‐farm income shares followed the same gender pattern albeit less pronounced. Unlike in Latin America and Asia, in rural Ghana, non‐farm self‐employment income is more important than non‐farm wage‐employment income. Regression results show that the gender composition of households, age, education, and access to credit, electricity and markets are important determinants of multiple non‐farm activities and non‐farm income. The findings call for strategies that can help rural households maximize the benefits from income diversification.     

China＇s New Rural Income Support Policy： Impacts on Grain Production and Rural Income Inequality

I. Introduction Since the beginning of 2004, the Chinese Government has replaced its centuries-old policy of taxing agriculture by a new policy aimed at subsidizing agriculture and stimulating rural incomes. To this end, agricultural taxes – standing at around 8 percent of agricultural incomes – were drastically reduced. By now they are abolished in most provinces. Inaddition, farmers growing grain receive a direct income subsidy, new seed varieties and mechanization are subsidized, and la…     

西部地区农村居民不同来源的收入对其消费的影响

本文基于我国西部11个省2000～2009年的面板数据,利用凯恩斯消费函数模型,分析不同来源的收入对农村居民消费的影响。研究发现西部地区农村居民家庭经营收入的消费效应最大,工资收入对消费的影响在逐渐提高;转移性收入对消费的影响并不显著;财产性收入则没有通过显著性检验。最后本文提出了有利于提高西部地区农村居民消费率的政策建议。     

提高重庆农村居民收入对策分析

1997年重庆直辖以来，相对于快速增长的城镇居民收入和地区生产总值，农村居民不但收入水平低，而且增长缓慢，严重影响了农村居民生活的改善和农村经济的发展，对经济发展的贡献逐渐下降，成为制约产业结构调整和保持经济稳定发展的重要问题。文章通过对农村居民收入结构变动状况分析及其对重庆经济发展的影响，找出阻碍农民收入快速提高的因素，并进一步提出加快农村经济发展、增加农民收入的相关建议。     

The impact of financial development on the income and consumption levels of China’s rural residents

In this paper, we investigate the impact of financial development on rural residents’ income and consumption levels in China. We discover that the development of traditional financial services has little impact on the income and consumption levels of rural residents. In contrast, the development of emerging financial services has a significant positive impact on the income and consumption levels of rural residents. Traditional financial services, as is well known, require collateral and high expected future cash flows from customers, making financial inclusion difficult. Emerging financial services in China are special financial services promoted by financial regulators to support technological innovation, cultural development, environmental protection, and rural development. Our findings suggest that these emerging financial services are effective in increasing the income and consumption levels of rural residents. Interestingly, while emerging financial services that directly target rural development have no significant impact on rural residents' income and consumption, financial support for technological advancement and cultural development appears to be more effective in increasing rural residents' income and consumption.     

Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China

This paper investigates how private transfers from internal migration in China affect the expenditure behavior of families left behind in rural areas. Using data from the Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) survey, we assess the impact of remittances sent to rural households on consumption-type and investment-type expenditures. We apply propensity score matching to account for the selection of households into receiving remittances, and estimate average treatment effects on the treated. We find that remittances supplement income in rural China and lead to increased consumption rather than increased investment. Moreover, we find evidence of a strong negative impact on education expenditures, which could be detrimental to sustaining investment in human capital in poor rural areas in China.     

Rural centralized residences and the health of the acting heads of rural households: The case of China

The rural centralized residence (RCenR) has been adopting to promote rural development in 24 provinces in China. Acting heads of rural households are older and their health is worse than average rural residents. However, their health has greater externalities since they play a central role in families and in daily village operations. It is therefore important to investigate the causal effect of RCenR on the health of the acting heads, which remains econometrically underexplored. This study controls for cross-prefecture contiguous-villages group fixed effects and uses the expected once-off government housing subsidy as the instrumental variable to estimate the causal effect of RCenR on the health of acting heads. It is found that RCenR significantly improves acting heads' health through increased income, reduced strenuous agricultural activities, greater use of clean energy and clean water, as well as easier access to local medical services. These findings are important because they can guide developing countries to improve their rural development policies.     

Household Income Determination and Regional Income Differential in Rural China

Income inequality in China at the household level is assessed by taking into account differences in needs between households and by using individuals as the unit of analysis. Inequality in China as a whole is not particularly low, largely for locational reasons. The urban — rural gap in average income is very important and very little of it can be attributed to household characteristics. Inequality is also due to differences in mean income between coastal China, central China and western China. A considerable number of characteristics measured at the household level are found to affect income. There are, however, some segments of Chinese society in which income is quite equally distributed.     

城乡居民消费水平的影响因素分析

本文在对影响我国城乡居民消费水平主要因素进行分析的基础上,借助凯恩斯的消费函数表达式,采用1985～2009年我国城乡居民人均收入与消费的时间序列数据和2009年我国城乡居民人均收入与消费的省级面板数据,实证分析了我国居民收入水平对其消费的影响。实证分析结果表明,城乡居民的边际消费倾向都比较接近1,表明城乡居民收入水平对其消费水平有显著的正向影响。实证分析结果也显示,城镇居民自生消费水平明显高于农村居民,表明城乡居民存在明显的收入差距。因此,增加城乡居民收入,特别是增加农村居民收入,缩小城乡居民收入差距对提高我国居民整体消费水平有重要现实意义。     

土地经营权流转、耕地配置与农民收入增长

文章基于全国8省农户微观调查数据,探讨了中国农村土地流转市场发育在优化耕地资源配置和提高农民收入方面的作用。实证结论表明,现行土地流转起到了改进耕地配置效率的作用,有助于那些具有较高农业生产能力水平但初始土地禀赋有限的农户获得更多的土地。对农户参与土地流转所可能获得收益大小的进一步估计显示,土地流转同时显著提高了农户家庭的收入水平,在平均意义下土地流转能使任意样本农户家庭和已流转土地农户家庭的总收入分别增加19%和26%左右。此外,文章分别从土地转入和土地转出,检验了土地流转增收效应的非对称性特征,发现在土地流转过程中,转入土地农户家庭的收入增长幅度要显著高于转出土地的农户家庭。     

Rural–urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi

Using Malawian data, this paper answers two interrelated questions: are there rural–urban differences in the factors that influence the probability that a household spends or does not spend on own children's education; and are there rural–urban differences in the factors that affect educational expenditure if a household decides to spend? Computed elasticities indicate that spending on education by rural households is more sensitive to changes in income compared with urban households, suggesting that spending on education in rural areas is a luxury good. In both areas, a mother's employment and education has a larger impact on spending compared with those of a father. Urban households compared with their rural counterparts are more sensitive to the quality of access to primary schools. We find no evidence of gender bias in school spending in urban areas, but rural households exhibit bias in favour of boys.     

Income and consumption inequality in China: A comparative approach with India

We analyse income and expenditure distribution in China in a comparative perspective with India. These countries represent extreme cases in the relationship of inequality to both wellbeing indicators. Income is more highly concentrated than expenditure in India, especially at the top of the distribution. Both types of inequality are similar in China, although expenditure is more unequally distributed than income in urban areas. China has a much stronger correlation in individual ranks and levels between the two wellbeing distributions. As a result, expenditure inequality is higher in China than in India, but income inequality much lower. This results partially from differences in population composition, such as China being more urbanized and having smaller households, but mostly from differences in conditional income distributions, especially by attained education of the household head. We show that hybrid measures of wellbeing combining income and expenditure can be useful for such cross-country comparison.     

Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province,China

The recent Collective Forest Tenure Reform in China has started the process of devolving forest management rights from village collectives to households since 2003. In this paper, we study the impact of the reform on rural energy consumption. Devolving forest tenure improves farmers' access to forest products on their newly acquired forestland, and is therefore expected to increase farmers' fuelwood consumption. The reform also allows farmers to adopt some revenue-enhancing forest technologies which may lead to energy switching in farmer households. Our empirical study finds that the devolution significantly increases household fuelwood consumption for both lower and higher income households; the lower income households benefit more. This is welfare-improving in places where alternative fuels are still too costly. We find limited evidence that higher income households in Yunnan begin to substitute alternative commercial fuels for fuelwood when those are available. Our findings suggest further devolution of forest rights, especially in the poor, forest-rich regions.     

贫困是否影响农村中老年人的精神健康——基于CHARLS数据的实证研究

农村老年人在经济上是最为弱势的群体,他们的贫困发生率远远高于城市老人。贫困不仅体现为物质上的剥夺,更会引起认知退化和抑郁等精神健康上的问题。文章使用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,实证考察经济状况对农村中老年人精神健康的影响。多层线性模型估计结果表明：家庭人均年收入每提高一千元,反映认知状况的情景记忆显著提高0.132分、精神状态显著提高0.121分,而反映抑郁程度的CES-D则显著下降0.293分。进一步分析表明,收入对精神健康的促进作用对高收入者更大。考虑到农村更加严重的老龄化程度,通过减贫实现农村中老年人精神健康状况的改善将具有重要的现实意义。     

分手快乐?——离婚对个体幸福感的影响

中国离婚率连年快速攀升引发了广泛关注，但鲜有文献定量评估离婚对个体主观福利的影响。文章首次采用追踪数据（CFPS）定量评估了离婚对个体主观福利的冲击及其动态演变，为理解中国居高不下的离婚率提供了一个新观察视角。控制个体固定效应和时间固定效应后，离婚对个体幸福感产生了显著短暂的负向冲击。按自评收入分为5个阶层，离婚当年人们遭受的幸福感损失，相当于从中等阶层下滑到最低阶层。离婚对幸福感不存在长期影响，离婚者与从未离婚者之间的幸福感落差在离婚3年后即基本消失；是否再婚在其中扮演着重要角色。尽管男女、城乡、不同教育水平、有无子女等不同群组幸福感受离婚影响的程度存在差异，但均呈现出共同动态演变趋势。考虑到离婚个体在离婚前夕的幸福感水平，应该已经低于其他已婚者，那么离婚应该提升了他们的幸福感。离异者幸福感恢复迅速表明在遭受巨大打击后，其心理上表现出惊人的自我修复能力。中国离婚主观成本相对较低，或是离婚率高企的重要原因。应该审慎地看待离婚对幸福感没有长期影响的结论，该结论不应被视为支持乃至鼓励中国居民离婚的经验证据。本研究仅显示：一个离过婚的人，也可以像常人一样幸福快乐。     

Non-Agricultural Activities and Income Distribution in Rural Java∗

This paper addresses two problems relating to non-agricultural employment in rural Java, First, four possible determinants of non-agricultural income at the village level are examined: agricultural income, agricultural density, land distribution and location. Of these, the first two appear most significant. Second, the relationship between non-agricultural activities and rural income distribution is evaluated. In relative terms, income from non-agricultural activities is most important for landless and small farm households, although in absolute terms, large farmers derive sizeable income from this source. The evidence is that non-agricultural income serves to moderate income differences within villages.