The European Community Household Panel: A review

The European Community Household Panel (ECHP) is a standardized multi-purpose annual longitudinal survey carried out at the level of the European Union. It is centrally designed and coordinated by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), and covers demographics, labor force behavior, income, health, education and training, housing, migration, etc. After reviewing the organization of the survey, this paper discusses some of the issues that an applied economist potentially interested in the ECHP may face when trying to deal with these data. In particular, the paper focuses on survey attrition and nonresponse, the weighting procedures with which Eurostat tries to compensate for differential nonresponse and attrition rates, and the imputation methods adopted by Eurostat in order to deal with item nonresponse. First version received: July 2000/Final version received: October 2000     

城乡贫困动态演化的实证研究——基于家庭微观面板数据的解读

改革开放以来,城乡绝对贫困问题得到了很大程度的缓解,而相对贫困问题则日益突出;同时,城乡贫困还表现出明显的动态演化特征。本文借助CHNS数据库,对城乡贫困动态演化进行实证研究。其结果显示:经济增长、人力资本以及家庭区位特征、家庭人口特征和劳动就业状况等变量是城乡贫困跨期变动的重要因素,但其影响大小和作用机制在城乡之间存在较大的差异。基于此,本文提出反贫困政策的制定和实施要注意政策受众的差异以及政策工具作用机制的不同。     

Environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

A well-known hypothesis providing support for a policy that emphasizes economic growth at the expense of environmental protection is the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Although this relation has been mainly explored at the macro-economic level, there are few researches examining micro-economic level. This study looks for empirical evidence between air pollution and income using social data from the British Household Panel Survey during the period 1991–2009. The first approach refers to a fixed effects model, the second to dynamic panel data and Arellano–Bond GMM, while the third approach concerns a binary Logit model with fixed effects. The current study's fixed effects results show that there is no evidence of EKC hypothesis for the air pollutants examined. On the contrary, there is a strong evidence of EKC hypothesis for the air pollutants examined based on Arellano–Bond GMM and logit model's results with fixed effects and all the types of household income indicating that EKC hypothesis holds. Furthermore, regarding personal income, using the Arellano–Bond GMM methodology, the EKC hypothesis does not hold. This indicates that air pollution and income might be based on communitarian arrangements instead of on individualistic actions.     

Multiple job holding in the United Kingdom: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

This article examines the determinants of multiple job holding in the UK. We address these issues using data from the first 11 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which covered the period from 1991 to 2001. Evidence from the BHPS does not support the hypotheses of main job hours constrained and main job insecurity. We argue that the incentive for moonlighting in the UK is due to financial pressures and the desire for heterogeneous jobs. The empirical work is carried out separately for men and women.     

Improving Estimates of Inequality and Poverty from Urban China's Household Income and Expenditure Survey

In urban China the Household Income and Expenditure Survey requires respondents to keep a daily expenditure diary for a full 12-month period. This onerous reporting task makes it difficult to recruit respondents, compromising the sample. This article uses monthly expenditure data from two urban areas of China to see if data collection short-cuts, such as extrapolating to annual totals from expenditure reports in only some months of the year, would harm the accuracy of annual expenditure, inequality and poverty estimates. Replacing 12-month diaries with simple extrapolations from either one, two, four or six months would cause a sharp increase in estimates of annual inequality and poverty. This undermines international comparisons of inequality statistics because no country other than China uses such comprehensive 12-month expenditure records. But a corrected form of extrapolation, based on correlations between the same household's expenditures in different months of the year, gives much smaller errors in estimates of inequality and poverty.     

The impact of health on wages: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

While income is generally considered an important determinant of health, little evidence has been offered on the reverse relationship, particularly for developed economies. This paper considers the effect of self-assessed general and psychological health on hourly wages using longitudinal data from six waves of the British Household Panel Survey. We employ single equation fixed effects and random effects instrumental variable estimators suggested by Hausman and Taylor (1981), Amemiya and MaCurdy (1986), and Breusch, Mizon and Schmidt (1989). Our results show that reduced psychological health reduces the hourly wage for males, while excellent self-assessed health increases the hourly wage for females. We also find the health variables to be positively correlated with the time-invariant individual effect. Further, we confirm the findings of previous work which suggested that the majority of the efficiency gains from the use of the instrumental variables estimators fall on the time-invariant endogenous variables, in our case academic attainment, and add further support to the hypothesis of a negative correlation between educational attainment and individual characteristics which affect wages. First version received: January 2000/Final version received: October 2000     

A Consistent Poverty Approach to Assessing the Sensitivity of Income Poverty Measures and Trends

This paper examines the sensitivity of estimates of income poverty rates and trends to variations in the poverty line and to whether or not certain households are included or excluded from the sample used to estimate poverty. The approach draws on the concept of consistent poverty, which has been used to identify those with incomes below the poverty line who also experience deprivation. Our approach involves excluding households with incomes below the poverty line if they report zero or negative income or are self‐employed, have expenditure well in excess of their income, have substantial wealth holdings, or if they do not report having experienced financial stress over the past year. The combined impact of all four exclusions is to reduce the half‐median income poverty rate from 9.9 per cent to 5.4 per cent, but also suggests that poverty increased by more over the decade to 2003–04 than the original estimates indicate.     

Household Finances and Social Interaction: Bayesian Analysis of Household Panel Data

We investigate the relationship between social interaction and household finances using the British Household Panel Survey. We explore the relationship between a wide range of aspects of household finances and social interaction, rather than focusing on one particular facet of household finances, such as the holding of stocks and shares. We develop a Bayesian statistical framework to simultaneously explore both sides of the household balance sheet—liabilities and assets. Additionally, we allow the influence of social interaction on household finances to be time dependent, enabling us to model the effects of social interaction from a dynamic perspective. We also develop a two‐part model to jointly investigate the influence of social interaction on the amount of different types of debt and financial assets held conditional on holding the different types of debt and assets. Our analysis suggests that social interaction is associated with households holding larger amounts of debt and assets.     

农村非正规金融对多维资产贫困的减贫效应研究——基于CFPS微观家庭调查数据的分析

资产扶贫具有重要的主体培育和增能作用。本文在多维贫困理论和测度方法基础上构建了多维资产贫困指数,运用2012年和2014年中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,实证分析了农村家庭资产贫困的特征事实和非正规金融的多维减贫效应。研究发现:农村家庭资产缺乏现象较为普遍,无论是低收入家庭还是高收入家庭的资产积累都不理想;农村土地与住房的资产效应太弱导致高收入家庭将财富转化为住房资产时遭受了更严重的"隐性剥夺"。农村非正规金融对家庭收入与资产积累产生了显著的逆向分配作用,其更多地有利于中高收入家庭而不利于中低收入家庭多维资产贫困的减缓,由此扩大了农村中高与中低收入家庭多维资产贫困不平等程度。据此,应着手构建资产扶贫的政策体系,这对于乡村振兴及资产扶贫赋予脱贫人口持续发展能力意义重大。     

家庭贫困与增长:基于代际传递的视角

家庭贫困具有代际传递特征,影响贫困代际传递的家庭因素包括父母素质与父母受教育程度、性别与营养投资、基因遗传与疾病等,家庭外部因素包括文化背景、机会平等与政策制度等.为阻隔贫困代际传递,必须消除妇女儿童贫困.促进性别平等,实施积极的教育反贫战略,提升贫困群体的社会资本.     

中国居民储蓄率的决定因素——基于1995-2005年省际动态面板数据的分析

文章运用1995-2005年省际动态面板数据研究了城镇与农村居民储蓄率的决定因素,并检验了凯恩斯绝对收入理论与永久收入假说(生命周期理论)对中国的适应性。计量结果表明:城镇样本较好地支持了永久收入假说(生命周期理论),农村样本则较好地支持了凯恩斯理论。长期收入增长率是居民储蓄率的基本决定因素,高增长是高储蓄的主要原因。另外,居民储蓄的行为模式、人口年龄结构、社会保障制度、不确定性、信贷约束以及地区差异都是居民储蓄率的重要决定因素,但这些因素对城镇与农村居民储蓄率的影响存在显著差异。     

Exchange rates and food in the European Community

The workings of the agri-monetary system in the European Community are not widely understood and seldom analyzed. This paper provides a simple theoretical framework that highlights the main features of the system and explains the policy options and potential costs and benefits that accrue to agricultural producers within the Community as exchange rates continue to fluctuate.     

传统农户的土地资源决策行为与贫困地区农村可持续发展——潘家村的调研分析

可持续发展是国家的基本发展战略,而贫困地区农村的可持续发展问题集中反映了可持续发展中的各种主要矛盾,是可持续发展研究的重点之一.传统农户是贫困地区农村可持续发展的首要利益相关者.通过研究传统农户的行为,可以深入探讨贫困地区农村可持续发展的内在机理.本文在对位于贫困地区的潘家村进行深入调查的基础上,通过分析传统农户的土地资源决策行为,来探讨贫困地区农村可持续发展的基本路径.     

Dilemmas of Social Reform (Poverty and Community Action in the United States)

During the last thirty years, one of the most remarkable trends in Western Europe and North America has been the increase in women’s labor force participation rates. However, there has been considerable variation among countries; rates in Southern European countries are markedly lower than in other regions. Standard welfare state regime typology is unable to explain this outcome. This paper tackles the issue by examining the institutional determinants of employment decisions in Spain. Family policies and tax policies greatly influence the labor force participation of women by either promoting or discouraging the employment of mothers. However, these policies do not affect women in the same way. Of particular importance is whether women can claim benefits on the basis of their citizenship, or whether their status as wives or mothers is the link to benefits. By pursuing this line of analysis, the paper explains the low female labor force participation in Spain, providing an important contribution to the welfare state regime literature.     

Socio-economic Determinants of Multidimensional Poverty in Rural West Bengal: A Household Level Analysis

The present study tries to estimate the incidence, depth and severity of multidimensional poverty (MDP) along with the contributions of dimensions to MDP among the rural households using multi-stage random sampling method in West Bengal. We decompose the inequality of deprivation scores between and within different socio-economic, religious and ethnic groups. The factors affecting the probability of falling in multidimensional poverty is also explored here using logistic regression, and the regression results suggest that public infrastructure plays an essential role towards explaining the variations of MDP. The present study is expected to be helpful to the development planners for better understanding of the root causes of MDP among the rural households in West Bengal.

     

金融发展与降低贫困——基于中国1994～2004年小额信贷的分析

小额信贷的反锁定模型证明了小额信贷通过产业反锁定、技术反锁定和结构反锁定等三条途径克服了农民增产不增收的窘境,实现了增产又增收,降低了农民的贫困程度.利用中国1994～2004年的时间序列和2004年的截面数据的实证分析也表明小额信贷增加了农民家庭经营收入,降低了贫困.最后,通过一些案例的调查数据进一步佐证了理论和实证的分析结果:小额信贷具有显著的降低贫困效应.     

Strikes and deindustrialization in the European Community: 1970–86

Strike activity within the European Community was markedly lower in the 1980s compared with the levels experienced in the 1970s. Over the same period, deindustrialization proceeded apace. The findings of this article suggest that up to 20% of the reduction in work stoppages may simply have been due to the shrinkage of the manufacturing sector. Moreover, a concurrent finding is that strike-proneness within the expanding service industries did not fall in line with that of other areas of activity. These results suggest the need for a careful reappraisal of the meaningfulness of conventional macroeconomic strike models.