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.     

Towards adequate and equitable energy provision for farmworker families

Consumption patterns of farmworker households are constrained by limited access and choice. Few households use electricity to any significant extent, most rely on fuelwood for power‐intensive energy applications, and the use of commercial hydrocarbon fuels is generally lower than in other rural communities. An evaluation of energy supply reveals opportunities for improvement, particularly for households on farms with a grid electricity supply and with the potential for fuelwood production. First, problems must be overcome, most of which result from the socio‐economic status of farmworkers and their dependence on their employers.     

The distributional impacts of removing energy subsidies in China

The distributional impact on households is an important factor for the acceptance of energy subsidy reform. Based on energy consumption features of the Chinese households at different income levels, this paper adopts an input–output price model to analyze possible impacts of removing energy subsidies on income distribution under different scenarios. Results show that: (1) The distributional impacts of removing subsidies vary by fossil fuels. From the perspectives of combined effects, transport fuel subsidy removal and coal subsidy removal have the strongest and the weakest progressive effects respectively, while the removal of electricity subsidies has a regressive effect. Moreover, the removal of petroleum product subsidies has the greatest impact on households, followed by the removal of electricity and coal subsidies, respectively. (2) Indirect impacts of energy subsidy reform are greater than direct impacts on households. (3) Government price controls can reduce the negative impact of energy subsidy reform. Policy implications are thus summarized. Energy subsidy reform can start from the energy that has the strongest progressive effect and the minimum impact on households. The Chinese government can take certain compensatory measures to mitigate the impact of reform on poor households.     

Energy consumption patterns and supply problems in underdeveloped areas in South Africa

Energy usage provides one striking example of processes and conditions of development and underdevelopment in South Africa and the concomitant inequalities in fulfilment of basic needs. Access to affordable and convenient fuels increases as households shift from underdeveloped rural and peri‐urban areas to the developed metropolitan centres. The form and quantity of fuels used by households is constrained by levels of urbanization, the availability and cost of fuels, and household income.

The energy supply problems in developing areas centre on two critical and immediate issues. Firstly, in rural areas the demand for fuelwood is exceeding supply with quite devastating social, economic and environmental consequences. A fuelwood supply and demand model has been developed which indicates the urgency for implementing afforestation programmes, although lack of sufficient suitable land implies that other energy supply strategies will also have to be considered. The second major problem is that the standard, most convenient and affordable domestic energy supply option, electricity, has still not been made available to many black townships and most peri‐urban areas. With increases in population and urbanization, the problem of adequate household energy supply is shifting to peri‐urban areas, which experience major social and economic costs as a result of dependence on costly and inconvenient fossil fuels and batteries. Electricity has been shown to be the most economical and preferred option.     

Impacts of Food and Energy Price Hikes and Proposed Coping Strategies

Based on sample survey data for the years 2006 and 2007, we find that inflation of food and energy prices in China is moving at a slower pace than in the international market; however, the livelihood of low income groups has been significantly impacted. Urban sample households in low income groups have been shifting from consumption of high value food to lower value substitutes; and all of the rural sample households are reducing their total consumption expenditure in real terms. The Engel＇ s coefficient of the rural household enlarged while their proportion of spending on clothing and energy declined. Farmers＇ households are moving toward more imbalanced diets, and the nutritional status of the poor is apparently deteriorating. The emergency-response measures that the government should implement include stopping subsidies to biofuel producers, who use foodstuffs as inputs, and providing food aid to the poor. The mid-term strategies should include anti-monopoly tactics, improving the market environment for the right competition, and eliminating price distortion. Midterm and long-term socioeconomic policy reform must be undertaken to adjust the social structure, to correct the mechanism of factor price formation, and to transform the pattern of economic growth.     

Living standards and the life cycle: reconstructing household income and consumption in the early twentieth-century Netherlands†

Conventional methods of measuring historical household living standards are often criticized because of the omission of women's and children's wages and non-wage income; the focus on urban centres; and the exclusion of life-cycle changes in household composition, income, and consumption. This article presents a method that accounts for these issues and applies it to agricultural and textile households in the early-twentieth century Netherlands. It uses total household income, as opposed to the husband's wage, as the enumerator for calculating alternative welfare ratios. The results show that welfare ratios were not only structurally higher than those based on the male-breadwinner model, but also followed a different life-cycle trajectory. Furthermore, household portfolios were diversified and depended on local labour market structures. Thus, the study concludes that analyses based on men's wages only reflect the rough outlines of how households functioned.     

Efficiency or equity? The effect of an exogenous agricultural commercial shock: Evidence from Manchuria in the 1930s

The adoption of high-value cash crops (HVCs) is considered an efficient way to improve farmers' productivity and welfare, although the systematic empirical evidence is limited. By exploiting an exogenous commercial shock for soybeans and microlevel rural survey data from Manchuria of China in the 1930s, where factor markets were relatively well functioning, this study investigates the influence of HVC cultivation on farmers' agricultural performance, welfare, and inequality both theoretically and empirically. We find that (i) larger farms devote a larger proportion of land to HVCs and that (ii) farmers who cultivate a larger proportion of HVCs have higher agricultural productivity, profit, net income, and expenditure. Furthermore, the adoption of HVCs lowers profit, income, and expenditure inequality by enhancing income from wages relative to land rents, which benefits households with less land.     

北京市农民增收途径与典型案例分析

以北京市为研究对象,结合数据分析北京市农民收入现状。结果表明：2015—2021年,北京市乡村常住人口收入逐渐可观,但是乡村空心化、乡村居民家庭恩格尔系数不稳定、乡村居民收入增幅不明显等问题仍然存在。为实现农民增收,应发展都市型现代农业、完善农村劳动力就业体系、提升社会保障水平、推进教育城乡一体化、促进科技成果转化落地、发展完善农民培训、优化农产品流通体系、打造特色产业。     

农民专业合作社对农户生产效益的影响——基于湖南葡萄种植行业的调研分析

以湖南长沙、岳阳、娄底、怀化、常德70家葡萄园农户的生产资料作为研究样本,对农民专业合作社与农户生产效益的关系进行研究,结果显示：农民专业合作社社员与非社员农户之间存在生产效益的差异,非社员在葡萄销售价格、每亩资金成本、每亩收入、每亩净收入这四个生产效益指标上都低于社员,体现出加入专业合作社的优越性。为鼓励更多农户入社,建议增加农民专业合作社示范点,并且增加对农民专业合作社特色农产品的扶持,使农业增产、农民增收,推动我国农业现代化进程。     

Energy use in eight rural communities in India

A study of eight rural communities in India indicates that levels of energy consumption vary widely among the communities and that consumption depends on socioeconomic and agroclimatic factors. Irrigation is the most significant factor influencing energy consumption and demand. Fuelwood is not used mainly by the low-income households but by the higher-income households. There is a progressive trend towards monetizationof fuelwood, animal wastes and agricultural residues. Energy planning for rural communities should be location and household-specific, and disaggregated information should be generated for this purpose using baseline surveys.     

The effects of fuelwood on children’s schooling in rural Vietnam

Gathering fuelwood for cooking and heating represents a considerable time burden for households in rural Vietnam. In this paper we examine the effects of fuelwood use on children’s school attendance using a panel of households from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey. We match individual households to satellite imagery measuring leaf coverage at the time and location of each survey, providing a robust instrument to examine the impacts of resource collection on schooling. We find that using fuelwood as the primary energy source is associated with an 84 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of school enrollment. We also find mixed evidence that girls may be affected more severely than boys, but we are unable to rule out equal impacts across genders. Our results suggest that household energy choices and diminishing resource availability can have a lasting impact on childhood schooling and long-run poverty.     

From Linear Fuel Switching to Multiple Cooking Strategies: A Critique and Alternative to the Energy Ladder Model

Promoting sustainable development requires evaluating the technical and policy options that will facilitate the adoption and use of energy efficient and less polluting cooking stoves and practices. The transition from traditional to modern fuels and devices has been explained by the “energy ladder” model that suggests that with increasing affluence, a progression is expected from traditional biomass fuels to more advanced and less polluting fuels. In this paper we evaluate the energy ladder model utilizing data from a four-year (1992–96) case study of a village in Mexico and from a large-scale survey from four states of Mexico. We show that an alternate “multiple fuel” model of stove and fuel management based on the observed pattern of household accumulation of energy options, rather than the simple progression depicted in the traditional energy ladder scenario, more accurately depicts cooking fuel use patterns in rural households. The “multiple fuel” model integrates four factors demonstrated to be essential in household decision making under conditions of resource scarcity or uncertainty: (a) economics of fuel and stove type and access conditions to fuels, (b) technical characteristics of cookstoves and cooking practices; (c) cultural preferences; and (d) health impacts. This model also allows better estimates of the expected fuelwood demand and indoor air pollution in rural households.     

北京市森林生态补偿政策对农户公益林保护行为的影响

基于计划行为理论分析北京市森林生态补偿政策对农户公益林保护行为之间的因果关系,重点探讨影响公益林保护农户行为的路径和因素。通过实证分析发现：北京市森林生态补偿政策对农户生态公益林保护行为的影响是间接的,其影响路径是森林生态补偿政策、农户行为态度、农户生态公益林保护意愿、农户生态公益林保护行为;北京市森林生态补偿政策因素通过其对农户生态公益林保护意愿及行为的影响是偏弱的,森林生态补偿政策中对农户行为所起的经济杠杆作用还有潜力可挖。     

Chinese household saving and dependent children: Theory and evidence

This paper examines the impact of family size on household saving. We first study a theoretical life-cycle model that includes finite lifetimes and saving for retirement and in which parents care about the consumption by their dependent children. The model implies a negative relationship between the number of dependent children in the family and the household saving rate. Then, we test the model's implications using new survey data on household finances in China. We use the differential enforcement of the one-child policy across counties to address the possible endogeneity between household saving and fertility decisions in a two-stage least squares Tobit regression. We find that Chinese families with fewer dependent children have significantly higher saving rates. The data yields several additional insights on household saving patterns. Households with college-age children have lower saving rates, and households residing in urban areas have higher saving rates and a lower ratio of education expenditures to income. However, having an additional child reduces saving rates more for households in urban areas than in rural areas. Our regressions also indicate that saving rates vary with age and tend to be higher for households with more workers, higher education, better health, and more assets.     

海南城乡居民消费水平差异性分析和预测

从1985-2018年海南城乡居民收入、消费数据出发,分别建立消费关于收入、消费差距关于收入差距的自回归模型,结果表明农村居民当期消费更易受近期收入和消费水平的影响,具有不稳定性。再利用GM(1,1)模型预测城乡居民收入差距,结合自回归模型,完成未来10年海南城乡消费差距的预测：收入差距和消费差距将呈直线递增趋势,收入差距的增幅高于消费差距增幅。缩小海南城乡居民消费差距的根本途径在于缩小收入差距,应因地制宜,切实提高农民收入水平。     

秀山县林权改革与农户万元增收问题研究

集体林权制度改革,是继土地家庭承包之后我国农村经营制度的又一次重大变革。本文通过对集体林权制度改革的背景、秀山县推行林权改革及实施农户万元增收工程的特色和成效进行简要分析,透视了林权改革和农户万元增收工程的制约瓶颈,从而提出了加大宣传力度、强化技术培训、探索建立农户万元增收长效机制的对策思路,为深化林权改革、做活林下经济、助推农户万元增收提供决策参考。     

Access to credit and farmland rental market participation: Evidence from rural China

In this study, we analyze the impact of access to credit on farmland rental market participation of rural households. The study uses a nationally representative survey data of China Family Panel Studies and an endogenous switching probit model that accounts for selection bias for both observed and unobserved factors. Findings reveal that access to credit stimulates farmers' decisions to participate in farmland rental markets by increasing the likelihood of renting in and renting out farmland by about 10% and 20%, respectively. Results also reveal that the impact of access to credit on farmland rental market participation is heterogeneous when it comes to the age of the operator and and geographic locations of farmers. We show that younger credit users have a higher probability of renting in farmland, while their older counterparts have a higher probability of renting out farmland. Besides, credit users residing in central China have a higher probability of renting in farmland, while those living in eastern China have a higher likelihood of renting out farmland. Our findings highlight the importance of improving farmers' access to credit in facilitating the development of rural farmland rental markets.     

Economic policy uncertainty and household consumption: Evidence from Chinese households

We find that households reduce their consumption in response to higher economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Compared with lower income households, high income group is more severely affected which can be explained by the portfolio choice of illiquid asset and liquid asset. In addition, the uncertainty effect is more pronounced among older, wealthier, well-educated and urban households. The impact of EPU on household consumption is also persistent. Holding more liquid asset and commercial insurance represent important channels in mitigating the negative effect of EPU on household consumption.     

Effects of farm credit access on agricultural commercialization in Ghana: Empirical evidence from the northern Savannah ecological zone

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how farmers' access to credit affects agricultural commercialization in the northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana. The study uses data from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,962 farm households. The study employs endogenous switching regression for ordered outcomes to account for endogeneity and self‐selection bias in the decision to access credit. The results from the estimations revealed that education, age, nonfarm business equipment, multiple crop production, and group membership are the variables influencing farmers' access to credit. Agricultural commercialization is determined by gender, age, marital status, household size, farm size, nonfarm business equipment, means of transport, group membership, assets index, multiple crop production, and location. In terms of causal effect, the results show that credit access stimulates higher commercialization. Thus policies that enhance farmers' access to credit are more likely to be successful in getting them to commercialize.     

数字金融如何影响农户正规信贷需求？——来自CHFS的证据

基于2015—2019年中国家庭金融调查数据和北大数字普惠金融指数,构造面板数据,使用面板Probit模型、工具变量法和机制检验模型实证检验数字金融对农户正规信贷需求的影响。研究发现,数字金融显著提高了农户生产性正规信贷需求和消费性正规信贷需求的概率。进一步研究发现,数字金融主要通过促进金融知识积累进而提高家庭生产性正规信贷需求,对消费性正规信贷需求的促进作用则通过数字支付渠道实现。