The effect on forestation of the collective forest tenure reform in China

The Chinese government has allowed collective village forest land to pass into individualized ownership. The purpose was to alleviate rural poverty and stimulate investment in forests. Using data collected from 288 villages, in eight provinces, over three years, this paper measures the effect of the individualization on one aspect of forest investment, forestation. Because villages voted on the reform, we identify the causal effect of the reform by an instrumental variable estimator based on the countywide decision to offer the reform package. We find an increase in forestation of 7.68% of forest land in the year of the reform.     

Land tenure reform and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia,China

Since the start of the land tenure reform in the pastoral areas of China in the 1980s, grassland use rights have increasingly been assigned to individual households. However, this period has also been accompanied by extensive grassland degradation in China, which has raised the question of whether a tragedy of privatisation has occurred. This paper investigates the impact of land tenure reform on the changes in grassland condition, using data from 60 counties in Inner Mongolia between 1985 and 2008. A fixed effects model is employed to control for time-invariant factors. Two alternative model specifications in terms of land tenure reform and time-variant factors are conducted to verify the robustness of the estimation results. The results show that land tenure reform did not affect the grassland condition significantly, and the major drivers of grassland degradation include the land use change and the increase in market demand (meat prices). Thereby, we provide empirical evidence that the privatisation of grasslands did not cause grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China.     

Uncertainty and housing tenure choice by household types: Evidence from China

In this paper, we propose an uncertainty-preference-housing choice model and empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on the probability of homeownership using microdata from Chinese cities. Introducing several measures of uncertainty, we observe that after the reform of the housing distribution system, unemployment uncertainty negatively affects the housing tenure choices of high-income families, whereas educational expenditure uncertainty has a negative effect on the homeownership rates of low-income families. We also find that unemployment uncertainty negatively affects the housing choices of local families and that medical expenditure uncertainty has a negative effect on housing choice for migrant families. Finally, an increase in unemployment uncertainty decreases the homeownership rate among families in which the head of household did not experience the change in enterprise ownership.     

Poverty and firewood consumption: A case study of rural households in northern China

This paper discusses the determinants of firewood consumption in a poor township in rural northern China, with a special focus on the relationship between households' economic wealth and firewood consumption. We find strong support for the poverty–environment hypothesis since household economic wealth is a significant and negative determinant of firewood consumption. Firewood can therefore be considered as an inferior good for the whole population in the rural area under study, although further evidence shows that at the top of the wealth distribution, there might be a floor effect in the decreasing firewood consumption. Besides economic wealth, our analysis also shows that the own-price effect is important in explaining firewood consumption behavior, the price effect gaining importance with rising incomes. Finally, increasing education is also found to be a key factor in energy consumption behavior, especially when dealing with energy source switching behavior.     

中国政府消费与城乡居民消费状况比较研究:1978-2010

消费需求是国民经济运行管理中一个很重要的环节,也是当下宏观经济调控的重点所在;而政府消费与居民消费的关系及其对宏观经济的影响则是其中一个较重要的问题。采用对比分析和计量估计方法,以统计资料为依据,分别从消费倾向、消费支出、国际比较和模型计量四个方面,全面分析和研究了1978年改革开放以来我国政府消费与城乡居民消费状况,并得出了一些有意义的观点和结论。     

Planning for housing in the post-Barker era: affordability, household formation, and tenure choice

The Barker Review of Housing Supply recommended the greateruse of market indicators as the basis for providing sufficientland for future housing requirements. Worsening affordabilitywould be a sign that more land is required. However, the traditionalapproach to land release used by planners is based on trendhousehold projections. The paper shows that this will typicallylead to worsening affordability over time. The paper, therefore,develops an alternative economic model more suitable to thepost-Barker era, covering both household formation and tenurechoice. The model is used to analyse a range of policy issues,including raising home-ownership rates and home-ownership sustainability.     

Convergence in food consumption in Rural China: Evidence from household survey data

The aims of this paper are to propose an econometric model for studying consumption convergence, to apply the model to a set of panel data from China, and to discuss various implications of research results. Major findings of the paper include (a) conditional convergence is confirmed for total grain, fine grain, edible oil, poultry, aquatic product, and sugar; (b) animal fat and red meat exhibit consumption divergence; (c) rising income inequality and underdevelopment of market are identified to be obstacles to consumption convergence; and (d) for commodities that converge, the speed of convergence is slow.     

Income volatility,household leverage,and consumption in Korea

Using the micro household data in Korea, we examine the effects of income volatility changes on households’ leverage and consumption. We found that households who faced increased income volatility lowered their leverage ratio. A one standard deviation increase in income volatility was associated with 1.3 ∼ 1.5 percentage point decrease in the leverage ratio. The effects of income volatility changes on households’ leverage choices varied with households’ borrowing constraints and other socioeconomic backgrounds. We also found that when faced with enlarged income uncertainty, households’ income coefficients on consumption were lowered. The income coefficient of average households was estimated to be around 0.16, while households with increased income volatility were around 0.12. In particular, similar to the relations in leverage ratio changes, consumptions among potentially borrowing-constrained households and those with ‘net-short’ position in real estate assets were more affected by increases in income volatility. This can be understood that households smoothed their consumption during the periods of increased income volatility, and this was shown in the smaller consumption elasticity on income. This can be attributed to the fact that faced with increased income volatility, households lower the risk exposure of their financial net wealth by lowering their leverage ratio.     

The role of off-farm employment in the rural energy consumption transition — A village-level analysis in Jiangxi Province, China

Energy consumption in rural areas in China is characterized by high consumption of fuelwood, straw and other biomass. Off-farm employment can play an important role in the transition towards more sustainable sources of energy by increasing rural household incomes and reducing the amount of labor available for biomass collection. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of off-farm employment on rural household energy consumption choices, and to disentangle the various causal relationships that play a role in this respect. To this end, a hybrid farm household/village computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used that has been calibrated for a remote village in Northeast Jiangxi Province where fuelwood is the main source of energy. The model takes into account nonseparability of farm household production and consumption decisions as well as linkages within the village between households involved in off-farm employment and households with no members working off-farm. Contrary to previous research for a richer region in rural China, we find that fuelwood is not an inferior good. The positive impact of more food consumption on fuelwood collection more than compensates the higher leisure demand associated with higher incomes. Shifts in production activities and in prices on village factor markets caused by increased labour scarcity (the lost-labour effect of off-farm employment), on the other hand, cause a reduction in fuelwood collection and consumption. This lost-labour effect is much stronger for migration than for local off-farm employment, because the latter can more easily be combined with on-farm work and fuelwood collection. For local off-farm employment the income effect dominates the lost-labour effect, resulting in a positive overall impact of higher off-farm participation on fuelwood consumption. For migration, on the other hand, the income effect and the lost-labour effect are almost equal in size. Hence, the amount of fuelwood collected and consumed does not change much when households participate in migration. The final conclusion is therefore that increased off-farm employment opportunities do not promote the transition of rural energy use in the poorer regions of rural China.     

Water pricing with household surveys: A study of acceptability and willingness to pay in Chongqing,China

In determining domestic water prices, policy makers frequently need to use demand-side information rather than only rely on supply-side data as previously did, and household surveys are often conducted to collect information on the demand side. This paper presents a multiple bounded discrete choice (MBDC) survey model for collecting information about acceptability of different water prices by different types of households and estimating households' willingness to pay for water service improvement. The results obtained from MBDC surveys can be directly utilized in the development of water pricing and subsidy policies. An empirical MBDC study is conducted in Chongqing, China, where domestic water service quality was seriously inadequate, but financial resources were insufficient to improve the service quality. With a survey of 1500 households in five suburban districts in Chongqing Municipality, this study shows that a significant increase in water price is economically feasible as long as the poorest households are properly subsidized. The analysis also indicates that the order in which hypothetical prices are presented to the respondents with the MBDC method can systematically affect the answers and should be taken into account when designing such survey instruments.     

Rural energy technology assessment: A Sri Lankan case study

This paper reports and assesses the results of a comparative survey on the costs and benefits of windmills and kerosene pumpsets for irrigation of subsidiary food crops in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. Secondary objectives are to draw out lessons from the survey (i) for other renewable energy technology programs and (ii) for evaluation methods. Survey results provide a windmill user evaluation, a cost analysis and a comparison of net crop income under the two techniques (windmill and kerosene pumpset). At both financial and economic prices the renewable energy technology is found inferior to the fossil-fuel based technology. The small data set requires caution in drawing final conclusions but does suggest that there is a critical loss in flexibility over cropping patterns by adoption of the windmill.     

Impact of the new health care reform on hospital expenditure in China: A case study from a pilot city

This study evaluates the preliminary effects of the new healthcare reform plan for hospital expenditures in China. Cross-sectional patient-level data are used for the analysis. We employ an endogenous switching regression model to account for heterogeneity and sample selection. The results show that the reform plan can significantly reduce total hospitalization expenses and medication fees for patients who select the pilot hospital. It may exert inadequate control over inspection fees, but as the advance of the reform, the control is likely to improve gradually. Our findings underscore the importance of realigning incentives for healthcare providers in China.     

Land tenure,logging rights,and tree planting: Empirical evidence from smallholders in China

To encourage afforestation and promote rural livelihood, China launched a new round of forest tenure reforms (CFTR) for its collective forestland in 2003. Using data spanning a long time period for rural smallholders in China, this study analyzes the causal effects of land tenure security and logging rights on tree planting investments. We address potential selection biases into tree planting and treatments using alternative estimation methods including matching methods and Heckman models. We conclude that complete logging rights over standing timber had a significantly positive effect on investments in tree planting, while the effect of secure land tenure was insignificant. Smallholders with confidence in obtaining a harvest permit invested on average 52% more in total and 36% more in seedling.     

Hukou status,housing tenure choice and wealth accumulation in urban China

In Chinese cities, migrants with rural hukou, compared to residents with local urban hukou, face more uncertainty, have limited access to mortgage finance, and are less eligible for low-cost housing. A simple model demonstrates that for these reasons, rural-to-urban migrants are less likely to own housing units in cities and as a result accumulate less wealth. Our empirical analysis examines a nationally representative household survey from 2013 and uses mother's hukou status as an instrumental variable. We find that household heads with rural hukou are about 20 percentage points less likely to own housing units in cities than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. Consequently, the average household head with a rural hukou owns 315 thousand yuan less housing wealth and 226 thousand yuan less total wealth than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. The average household head with a rural hukou has 288 thousand yuan less in housing capital gains than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. Moreover, we find that these differences are much larger in the first- and second-tier cities, cities with more stringent hukou regulations, and among younger cohorts.     

Income growth, inequality and poverty reduction: A case study of eight provinces in China

This paper examines the growth performance and income inequality in eight Chinese provinces during the period of 1989–2004 using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It shows that income grew for all segments of the population, and as a result, poverty incidence has fallen. However, income growth has been uneven, most rapidly in coastal areas, and among the educated. A decomposition analysis based on household income determination suggests that income growth can largely be attributed to the increase in returns to education and to the shift of employment into secondary and tertiary sectors.     

Urban pollution and road infrastructure: A case study of China

Urban road infrastructure is crucial in affecting air pollution. Yet, little is known about the roles played by road width vs road length. This paper attempts to fill this gap by estimating the effects of road infrastructure on PM₁₀ using city-level data from China. Our robust modeling results show that the road density index, defined as the ratio of road surface area to city territory size, is negatively correlated with PM₁₀. More importantly, when the road width and length components of the road density variable are separately included in the regression models, the width is found to be significantly and negatively correlated with PM₁₀, whereas the correlation with the length variable is insignificant. This is expected as increases in road width can help mitigate congestion, improve fuel efficiency, and thus reduce emissions. On the contrary, extending roads to new or unconnected areas is likely to bring more vehicles onto the roads and extend average driving time. Our findings appeal for careful consideration of the trade-off between road width (lane numbers) and road length when planning and constructing urban road infrastructure.     

Land rental market, off-farm employment and agricultural production in Southeast China: A plot-level case study

This paper performs a plot-level analysis of the impact of land rental market participation and off-farm employment on land investment, input use, and rice yields for 215 plots cultivated by 52 households in three villages in Northeast Jiangxi Province. Our findings show that households that rent extra land are relatively more productive, but contradict results of earlier studies which found that tenure status of plots affects the level of land investments. We further find that off-farm employment does not significantly affect rice yields. This result contradicts those of earlier studies which found that the negative lost-labor effect of off-farm employment dominates the positive income effect. Another novel finding is that people working locally off-farm tend to switch from green manure planting towards the use of organic manure on their rice plots. We conclude that policies that will further stimulate the development of land rental markets, which is still in its infancy, can contribute significantly to higher rice production in Southeast China. Another implication of our results is that worries about the negative impact that the continuously growing off-farm employment may have on China's goal to remain self-sufficient in grain production are less relevant at the moment for the region examined in our study.     

Human capital investment in children: An empirical study of household child education expenditure in China, 2007 and 2011

Household education expenditure is an important component of human capital investment in children. In China, the rising child education expenditure and the subsequent financial burden on families have attracted much research and policy attention in the recent years. Using 2007 and 2011 data from the Urban Household Education Surveys, our empirical study provides new evidence on the education expenditure level, ratio of expenditure to household income, and inequality in this expenditure. We also elucidate changes in China's household education expenditure and explore factors associated with such changes. From the analysis, we obtain the following findings. First, education expenditure incurred outside the school significantly contributes to increasing household education expenditure. Second, compulsory education programs are effective in curbing in-school education expenditure; however, it does not prevent the rapidly increasing education investment outside school. Third, education expenditure disproportionally increases with family income. In other words, a larger share of the income earned by lower income families is spent on children's education, compared to higher income families.     

Impact of land tenure policy on agricultural investments in China: Evidence from a panel data study

The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of changes in China's rural land policy on agricultural investments. Dramatic changes occurred in China's rural land policies after 2000, including the extension of rural land contractual period, restriction of land reallocation among villages and villagers groups, elimination of agricultural taxes for responsibility land, and rapid development of rural land rental markets. These changes have given farmers more secure tenure on collectively controlled responsibility land and have strengthened farmers' income rights for responsibility lands, incentivizing them to increase their investments on responsibility lands. A panel data method was used to quantitatively investigate the impact of land policy changes on agricultural investment. We considered the application of organic fertilizer as an indicator for long-term agricultural investment, and compared the use of organic fertilizer between private plots and responsibility lands operated by the same household. The results showed that the difference in organic fertilizer use between private plots and responsibility land for the same household has become smaller from 2000 to 2008. Our findings suggest that recent changes in rural land policies have provided farmers incentives to increase land quality investment on their responsibility lands.