The long-term and intergenerational effects of early-life hunger experience on human capital and labor market outcomes

Using individual-level retrospective data on early-life hunger experience from China, we investigate the long-term effects of early nutritional deprivation on one's own and adult children's human capital and labor market outcomes. With an instrumental variable approach, we find that hunger experience lowers educational attainment and job quality of the first generation. But this negative impact on human capital does not transmit to the second generation, possibly due to parents' compensatory behavior of human capital investment and extra attention given to children. Our findings imply that the negative impact of non-extreme nutritional adversities on human capital and labor market outcomes are likely to decrease over generations.     

Housing wealth changes and entrepreneurship: Evidence from urban China

This paper studies the impact of household-level housing wealth changes on entrepreneurship in urban China. Exploiting the 2011–2015 China Household Finance Survey, we control for lagged proxies for wealth, city-by-year fixed effects, and other household attributes and directly estimate the magnitude of homeowner's response to housing capital gains net of home maintenance and upgrading expenditures. We also instrument for housing wealth changes with structural breaks in city housing price trend. We find that a 10,000 RMB increase in housing wealth increases the propensity of a household becoming a business owner by about 0.7 percentage points in IV estimation. In addition, we provide new evidence for underlying channels that housing capital gains alleviate household credit constraints, reduce risk aversion and increase awareness of financial information.     

The impact of child labor on children's educational performance: Evidence from rural Vietnam

In 1998, nearly one-third of Vietnamese children engaged in non-housework labor supply, 95% of these working children residing in rural areas. This paper investigates the impact of child labor on children's educational outcomes in rural Vietnam using the 1998-Vietnam Living Standard Survey. The paper finds that child labor lowers children's academic performance and the negative impact is bigger for girls.     

中国刘易斯拐点的异象、人口红利与经济增长

中国经济由二元模式向一元模式转变过程中必然会面临刘易斯拐点问题.文章对中国的刘易斯拐点异象给出了一个理论说明,解释了“民工荒”与农村大量剩余劳动力并存现象的一个重要原因是劳动生产率的人力资本差异.本文还指出中国三十多年来之所以能通过高投资驱动经济增长主要是得益于充裕的人口红利,近几年,“民工荒”使得从表面上看人口红利行将消失,但是实际上农村大量剩余劳动力是潜在的巨额人口红利,应最大限度地加以利用,本文提出了一系列有利于将潜在人口红利转化为现实人口红利的措施,并指出短期内在无法实现经济增长方式根本性转变的条件下,充分利用人口红利的重要意义.     

How does housing wealth affect household consumption? Evidence from macro-data with special implications for China

Thanks to four-decade spectacular economic growth, China's households have been accumulating a stockpile of wealth. In such a context, further concerns have been raised about the relationship between wealth accumulation and improvement of economic well-being, mainly through consumption. The issue becomes even more important when considering the challenges facing China in recent years, which can be characterized by a mix of increasingly leveraged households, escalating housing price, sluggish consumption, slowing economic expansion, trade frictions with the United States, and the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic difficulties. With that background in mind, this paper first provides international evidence on the relationship between household consumption and wealth, especially in the form of houses. Drawing on a panel of aggregate data for fourteen countries including China, we find that household consumption positively responds to changes in housing wealth, and this link is further affected by different levels of government spending and financial development. We next relate the international evidence to the case of China, with the focus on some recent policy issues over housing regulations and consumption promotion. Importantly, as the evidence and underlying theories suggest, housing wealth-consumption association does not follow a simplistic pattern, and thus, multiple policy measures could and should be undertaken rather than merely curbing speculative activities in real estate exchanges and associated financial business.     

Informal settlement upgrading,assets and poverty alleviation: Evidence from longitudinal research in South Africa

This paper investigates the relationship between housing as an asset and the accumulation of other assets. Using data from a longitudinal research project stretching over nearly 25 years, we have found that besides actual income, there have also been improvements in self-perceived wealth ranking, asset holding, housing size, infrastructure access and human capital. Not all households have however benefited or been found to be better off. We have found that those households who had settled in Freedom Square after 1994 were indeed better off than the earlier settlers. Asset building is a slow process, one driven by stability (accessing urban land and secure tenure), finding an address, accessing education and finding work or remaining employed (though not necessarily in this particular sequence). Contrary to what the Department of Human Settlements suggests, we have found little evidence that informal settlement dwellers build assets by means of the secondary housing market.     

Human Capital and Hours Worked of Children in Cambodia: Empirical Evidence for Policy Implications*

This study uses data from the Cambodian Child Labor Survey 2001/02 (CCLS‐2001/02) to investigate the trade‐off between child labor and their human capital formation. It also investigates the determinants of child schooling and that of the income earned from child labor. This study finds that children's education is a significant determinant of their wage rate, which implicitly explains the logic behind the household's decision to allow a child to both work and study, and thus explains why parents keep investing in their children's education. We also find that non‐poor households and fathers’ and mothers’ education have statistically significant effects on child schooling. Finally, this study has found that if children's average working hours are below the threshold level of 22 h per week, then education is not affected. These research findings have policy implications for the human capital development of children, as well as for broader social policy in Cambodia.     

人口红利贡献被高估了吗?——基于人力资本积累视角的研究

人口红利下降被认为是新常态下中国面临的重大挑战,然而劳动投入不仅包含劳动数量,还包含劳动质量,分别对应于人口红利与人力资本。由于在测量上忽视了高速城市化对人力资本积累的积极影响,在机制上忽视了人口红利和人力资本分布趋同的叠加影响,容易造成人口红利贡献高估且人口资本贡献低估。文章从人口迁移视角出发,参考拉姆齐无限期界模型建立人力资本积累方程,将城市化对人力资本积累的积极作用纳入分析,得出转换效应、迁移效应和共振效应,阐明人口红利和人力资本空间分布趋同的微观机制,得到检验人口红利和人力资本对经济增长贡献的一致性框架。以2013-2016年272个样本城市进行计量检验：固定效应回归分析和内生性检验表明人口红利和人力资本的增长弹性排序不确定,中介效应检验表明人力资本的增长贡献超过人口红利,分组检验进一步证实人力资本贡献超过人口红利,且存在相互叠加共同影响城市经济增长的共振效应。结论表明,若充分考虑城市化对人力资本的积极影响,则人口红利的贡献确实被高估,而人力资本的贡献被低估。由此得出政策建议,应持续推进城市化高质量发展,加速人力资本积累,构筑劳动质量替代劳动数量的机制,以更好地应对新常态下人口红利下降的负面冲击。     

Consumption,financial wealth and labor income in Korea

By examining the relationship between consumption, financial wealth and labor income in Korea, this paper presents three key findings. First, we find evidence that Korean households hold a larger proportion of their wealth in human capital instead of financial wealth, compared to households in other countries. Potentially, this finding appears consistent with Koreans’ enthusiasm for human development through education despite low government funding. Another important finding is that only financial wealth fluctuations contain a large portion of temporary components. Hence, financial wealth is mainly responsible for adjustments to restore the long-run relationship between consumption, financial wealth and labor income during the examined period. Third, and perhaps most interestingly, this paper finds that before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, households in Korea had difficulty smoothing their consumption over time. This finding may be at least partly attributable to households’ limited access to bank loans and their low level of financial wealth accumulation prior to the crisis. In contrast, we find little evidence that households’ consumption behavior has changed during the recent global financial crisis.     

城市最低生活保障兼有消费改善与劳动供给激励效应吗?

最低生活保障制度是我国社会保障体系中兜底性、基础性的制度安排,是保障民生、促进分配公平、维护经济安全和社会稳定的重要机制.本文通过对城市低保制度消费改善与劳动供给效应的综合评估发现,我国城市低保从整体上改善了受助家庭的消费状况,影响了受助家庭的消费结构,起到了提升经济福利的效果,但是对受助家庭的劳动供给激励效应还比较小...     

The impact of housing reform on durables consumption in China

The privatization of public housing in the 1990s in China had a considerable impact on the wealth of urban households. This paper analyzes the effects of the wealth change on household consumption of nine durable goods in urban China, including air conditioner, computer, color TV, washing machine, refrigerator, camera, microwave, telephone, and VCD/DVD. Our results show that households affected by the housing reform had a significantly higher level of durables consumption than those unaffected by the program. In the short term, their probabilities of purchasing air conditioners and computers increase by 2%–10% and 2%–7% respectively. In the long term, the effect on air conditioner consumption increases over time during our study period but effect on computer does not increase monotonically. Further, the effects of the housing reform on the consumptions of more commonly owned durables, such as color TV, washing machine, refrigerator, and telephone have diminished over time.     

Understanding the role of homeownership in wealth inequality: Evidence from urban China (1995–2018)

Many scholars have evaluated the wealth creation effects of homeownership over different time periods and have agreed on the positive role of homeownership. However, there are no consistent mechanisms to measure the impact of homeownership on wealth inequality. Based on data from 1995 to 2018, this paper finds that the expansion of the homeownership rate in urban China was an equalizing force in the distribution of wealth from 1995 to 2008, driven by the increased homeownership and housing acquisition of low- and moderate-income households (LMIs) during the era of housing reform in the 1990s. The forces were exogenous and dominated by a redistributive logic. In the post-reform era after 2008, the decline in the homeownership rate led to a concentration of wealth distribution that was driven by the widening wealth gap between owners and non-owners, which represented an endogenous market force. The results indicate that there was an apparent discontinuity of the trends of homeownership and wealth inequality because new immigrants could not afford the price of housing in the cities. The wealth position of the middle and lower classes (mainly new immigrant non-owners) was crippled, not only by the inaccessibility of homeownership, but also by the reinforcing effect of the increase in housing prices. This study reveals the different mechanisms of homeownership on wealth inequality and the policy implications for the redistributive effects of the allocation of housing resources.     

Retesting the Separability of China＇s Rural Households

This article retests the separability of China’s rural households in light of growing doubt about the sustainability of high economic growth in China.If a household’s production decisions are "separable "from the household’s consumption decisions,generally this suggests there is no surplus labor.Many scholars aver that China’s surplus rural labor has spurred rapid economic growth,but concerns have arisen as to whether China still has surplus labor available.We investigate this issue using rural household panel data from 1993 to 2009.The regression results confirm that households in rural China have progressed from being non-separable to separable.The estimation results for both the entire country and regions reject the separability hypothesis before 2004 but fail to reject the hypothesis after 2004(with the exception of the central region).These results suggest that China ’s surplus labor supply is dwindling,especially in the eastern and the western regions.The sustainability of China’s high economic growth is questionable in the absence of a large reservoir of surplus rural labor.     

How Much Will China Save? Projecting China's National Savings Through 2040*

This paper projects China's national savings through 2040 based on China's national account data, demographic data, and data on rural and urban life‐cycle income and consumption. Our baseline projections show that China's national saving in 2040 will be 16 times the current national saving. The annual growth rate of wealth will decline from 16.3 percent in 2012 to 9.5 percent in 2040. Lowering the growth rate of wealth accumulation to the current rate of return to wealth increases consumption through 2040; lowering the growth rate of wealth further may increase consumption more in the short run, but less in the long run.     

中国社会保障支出与城乡居民收入差距关系的实证分析

文章首先分析了中国城乡收入差距现状,之后选取了城乡人均物质资本差距、城乡人力资本差距、城乡劳动力市场一体化程度和城乡社会保障差距四个影响城乡居民收入差距的影响因素进行实证分析。结果表明,城乡人均物质资本差距和城乡劳动力市场一体化程度对城乡居民收入差距有正向影响,城乡人力资本差距和城乡社会保障差距对城乡居民收入差距有负向影响。     

Housing tenure choice and socio-economic integration of migrants in rising cities of China

Migrants' socio-economic integration is taken as one of important forms for common prosperity. And it is a crucial factor for social harmony and stability. However, the association between housing tenure choice and migrants' socio-economic integration does not receive enough attention. Based on 2017 China Migrants Dynamics Survey (CMDS), it is found migrants' socio-economic integration mainly consists of the following three aspects: Economic integration, socio-cultural integration and psychological integration. Compared with migrant renters, the socio-economic integration of migrants with houses is rather higher, while migrants' level of socio-economic integration, who live in employee's dormitories, is comparatively low, even after controlling the endogenous by using PSM and IV method. Further study indicates that the effect of housing tenure choice on migrants' socio-economic integration partly affects their settlement intention, integration will, local capital and labor supply. Heterogeneity analysis shows that new generation have a negative effect on the role of homeownership on migrants' socio-economic integration, while living in eastern China and the development of digital economy can both strengthen the effect of housing tenure choice on migrants' socio-economic integration.     

中国双导型经济与人的生存和发展

文章认为,中国当前运行的经济是社会生产和分配由政府和资本共同主导的双导型社会主义市场经济。当前的中国双导型经济体制下,体现社会主义本质的多元资本非公有积累条件未设定、资本收益者责任的制度安排严重滞后、资本收益者的权利和义务不一致,这就必然造成政府对社会生产和分配失去控制,资本对劳动力收益的分占、非公有资本对公共资源的排他性使用和超占、强势资本对弱势资本的挤压、公有资本变异的现象不可避免。对人生存和发展保障来说,其造成的直接后果就是资本收益最大化不断给社会制造就业难、买房难、读书难、看病难、养老难等问题。中国必须做好社会主义的市场经济的制度建构工作,在体现社会主义本质的情况下实行社会主义市场经济的双导型生产和分配、在社会主义的制度安排内管理双导型生产和分配的全过程,对多元资本非公有积累条件进行社会主义改造。     

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.     

二元结构视角下我国人力资本投资差异及矫正对策

人力资本投资是经济增长的重要源泉。由于种种原因,我国人力资本投资城乡差异较大,并有逐渐扩大趋势。文章在阐述二元结构理论的基础上,分析了城乡居民家庭对人力资本投资的差异以及政府对人力资本投资的差异,提出了我国矫正人力资本投资城乡差异的对策。     

The impact of the rise and collapse of Japan's housing price bubble on households’ lifetime utility

This study estimates the impact of the dramatic changes in housing prices during Japan's bubble from the late 1980s to the 1990s on households’ asset accumulation and utility over their life cycle. We construct a life-cycle model explaining households’ consumption/saving and housing decisions under collateral and borrowing constraints. We estimate this model using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), which includes data on households’ housing wealth estimated from objective information. Using the estimated model, we then conduct a counterfactual simulation in which we assume that housing prices remained constant during the bubble period. Doing so allows us to quantify the gains/losses of lifetime utility due to the housing price boom and bust. We find that 72.2% of the households experienced an average decrease in lifetime utility equivalent to 5.7% of lifetime income. On average, Japan's housing price boom and bust caused a loss in lifetime utility equivalent to 4.7% of lifetime income. Moreover, we compare the impact of the housing price bubble across cohorts and find that the impact was greatest for those who experienced the bubble at ages 35–45.