Program interventions,intrahousehold distribution and the welfare of individuals: Modelling household behavior

In this essay, the implications for the intrahousehold distribution of resources derived from economic models of household behavior that treat the household as maximizing a single welfare function are reviewed. Particular attention is paid to the within-family allocation of time and food and to the effects of these resources on the schooling, earnings, and health status of individuals as they are affected by direct food-intervention and female-employment schemes and price-altering policies. Empirical applications are provided from data sets from India, Indonesia and the Philippines to illustrate the power and limitations of such models for illuminating household interventions and for placing restrictions on data.     

Endogenous,Intra‐household Decision‐making and its Impact on the Labor Supply of Couples in Rural India*

Using data for rural India, this paper analyzes households' labor supply decision‐making, taking into consideration non‐participation, endogenous intrahousehold bargaining and nutritional status. Analyses of unitary and collective models suggest that bargaining between household members forms the basis of households' decisions, and these decisions alter households' internal power balance. Analysis of households' internal bargaining process suggests that women's bargaining power increases when their wages are higher and they are better educated. The results indicate that it is crucial to account for the mechanics of decision‐making within households when studying the effects of changing labor market conditions or designing development policies to improve individual well‐being or to empower women.     

Intrahousehold and Interhousehold Child Nutrition Inequality in Malawi

This paper investigates whether child nutrition inequalities are attributable to differences between households or differences within households in Malawi. Child nutrition is measured using height‐for‐age z‐scores. The empirical analysis uses the 2006 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data. We find evidence of within household nutritional differences along gender, age and birth order lines in Malawi. The results for rural and urban areas as well as religious groups show that nutrition inequalities largely stem from differences within households. Both intrahousehold and interhousehold nutrition inequalities are unexplained by observable factors.     

Literacy and Intrahousehold Externalities

The size of the intrahousehold externality created when a literate household member provides literacy services to illiterate members is estimated in this paper, using a model of children's height-for-age in Papua New Guinea. This externality appears to be large. These results support the use of a new measure of literacy, developed by Basu and Foster (1998) to take account of the gains when illiterates live in households where at least one person is literate. Regional rankings change when the new measure of literacy is used, suggesting that policies guided by the usual measure of adult literacy may overlook an important pathway for human development.     

学校教育投资、家庭内知识外部性与农户收入回报：来自苏北农村的证据

本文运用苏北农村农户层面的微观数据,并结合农业生产和农户家庭特征,来估计农民的教育回报率。农户以家庭为单位进行联合劳动的特征导致农户收入贡献的不可分性以及家庭内教育投资具有正的外部性,使得个人教育投资回报小于家庭回报。然而,由于家庭内部更多成员的教育投资的外部性具有递减的特征以及婚姻市场存在的匹配现象,可能会出现由知识拥挤带来的教育投资过度问题。本文的实证分析表明：农户家庭内成员的教育投资的确存在外部性;教育投资回报会随着受教育人数的增加而减少;农村婚姻中存在教育匹配效应;户主配偶的教育投资存在动态不足。     

Parental Education and child Nutrition in Indonesia

This study uses 1989 Susenas household data to examine the impact of parental education on pre-school children's nutritional status, as measured by weight-for-age Z-scores. Reduced form regressions are estimated separately for boys and girls in rural and urban areas; explanatory variables include mother's and household head's education; per capita household expenditure; and aspects of the household sanitary environment. The analysis controls for influence of unobserved heterogeneity at village level, e.g. differences in prices and medical service provision. The estimates show a significant effect of parental schooling on child health status, varying between urban and rural areas, and by child gender and age. Mothers with secondary education typically have healthier boys than those with less schooling, while this effect is seen for girls only if the mother has more than secondary education. Maternal schooling significantly affects 2–5 year olds' health, but has little direct effect on that of younger children.     

ON THE MOTHER AND CHILD LABOR NEXUS UNDER CREDIT CONSTRAINTS: FINDINGS FROM RURAL INDIA

There is an emerging consensus that lack of credit is a major cause of child labor and inequality in the intrahousehold distribution of resources. At the same time, patterns in how children spend their time appear to be strongly influenced by maternal employment decisions. This paper includes an assessment of the effect of credit constraints on maternal employment and that of maternal employment on the intrahousehold allocation of labor, a nexus which has been left unexplored by existing studies. Three findings emerge: (1) a mother is more likely to work outside when a household lacks resources, and her domestic labor can be easily replaced by other members, (2) credit market accessibility is one of the major determinants of maternal labor, and (3) elder daughters assume a large part of the burden of maternal employment by providing domestic labor. Under binding credit constraints, results of this study support the collective as opposed to the unitary model of households.     

INTRODUCTION TO A STUDY OF INTRAHOUSEHOLD RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN RURAL ANDHRA PRADESH,INDIA

In this special issue, we use unique household data which was collected exclusively for our study in Andhra Pradesh, India, with the help of an NGO. We estimate and test the intrahousehold resource allocation rules, incidence of child labor, and the effects of credit constraints on time allocation among household members. Three empirical papers of this issue indicate the overall support for the collective model against the unitary model of households, clarified the role of household structure, and show the nature of mother‐child labor substitution under a binding credit constraint. In addition, a survey paper discussing the recent trends on educational attainment and the empirical strategies in identifyng the policy effects are included.     

Inequality and the Urban-rural Divide in China： Effects of Regressive Taxation

Using three comparable national representative household surveys for China in 1988, 1995 and 2002, the present paper reveals the regressivity and urban bias of China＇s direct tax and welfare system in this period It shows that a regressive taxation system and skewed allocation of subsidies increases the urban-rural income gap and enhances overall inequality. Modeling these relationships indicates that the relatively poorer rural population has a net tax liability, whereas those in the richer urban areas receive net subsidies. This pattern is common in China, although the extent of the bias varies. This skewed system of tax and welfare payments is a major cause of the persisting urban-rural income gap and contributes to the overall income inequality in China. The abolishment of the agriculture tax in 2006 has had a positive impact on rural people ＇s livelihoods.     

Nonparametric Testable Restrictions of Household Behavior

This paper uses semialgebraic theory to derive nonparametric testable restrictions of Pareto-efficient bargaining behavior within a household. These tests are analogous in form to Samuelson's Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference (WARP) and are defined over data on household-level consumption and individual labor supplies. Thus, without observing intrahousehold division of consumption, we can nonparametrically test whether there exist nonsatiated utility functions such that household behavior is Pareto efficient. I apply these tests to data from the National Longitudinal Surveys on U.S. households and find that preferences exist that are consistent with Pareto efficiency for each household in the data set.     

Household Grain Consumption in China: Effects of Income,Price and Urbanization

The objectives of this study of household grain consumption in China are to update previous estimates of consumption parameters, to look at the effect of urbanization on grain consumption and to compare household demand patterns across the region. Household grain consumption is divided into two categories: direct and indirect grain consumption. Demand systems are estimated for four consumer groups, rural, town, city and large city, respectively, using data from the 1991 rural and urban household surveys undertaken by China's State Statistical Bureau. The impact on grain consumption of income, price and urbanization is particularly elaborated.     

Household Property Rights Formation in Rural China: Farmers' Preference,Transaction Cost and the Efficiency Hypothesis

This paper examines the effects of farmers' preference, transaction cost and household productivity on land reallocation in rural China. Empirical results from a sample of 2102 households show that farmers' preference has no effect on land reallocation. The transaction cost has negative effects on partial‐scale land reallocation but has no effect on full‐scale land reallocation. Interestingly, highly productive and unproductive households receive more partial‐scale land reallocation than households with a median level of productivity, supporting the efficiency hypothesis (Brandt et al., 2004).     

Conflicts Over Credit: Re-Evaluating the Empowerment Potential of Loans to Women in Rural Bangladesh

This paper explores the reasons why recent evaluations of the empowerment potential of credit programs for rural women in Bangladesh have arrived at very conflicting conclusions. Although these evaluations use somewhat different methodologies and have been carried out at different points of time, the paper argues that the primary source of the conflict lies in the very different understandings of intrahousehold power relations which these studies draw on. It supports this argument through a comparative analysis with the findings of a participatory evaluation of a rather different credit program in Bangladesh in which the impact of loans was evaluated by women loanees themselves.     

Household,community, and policy determinants of food insecurity in rural Malawi

This study examines how socio-economic characteristics of households, local conditions, and public programmes are associated with the probability that a farm household in rural Malawi is food insecure. The statistical analysis uses nationally representative data for 8350 randomly-selected households interviewed during 2004/05 for the second Malawi Integrated Household Survey. Regressions are estimated separately for households in the north, centre, and south of Malawi to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of a multilevel logit model reveal that households are less likely to be food insecure if they have larger cultivated land per capita, receive agricultural field assistance, reside in a community with an agricultural cooperative and relatively high annual rainfall, and are headed by an individual with a high school degree. Factors that positively correlate with household food insecurity are price of maize, price of fertiliser, number of household members, and distance to markets. Implications of these findings for policy are discussed.     

Household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh

Using empirical methods, this paper examines household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh. The results suggest the following: poverty and low parental education are associated with lower schooling and greater child labor; asset-owning households are more likely to have children combine child labor with schooling; households choose the same activity for all children within the household, regardless of gender; there is a weak association between direct costs and household decisions; finally, higher child wages encourage households to practice child labor.     

Mobile payment and Chinese rural household consumption

The problem of high savings and low consumption of Chinese rural households has long been a source of concern. The popularity of mobile payments may help alleviate this problem. This paper examines the impact of mobile payments on household consumption in rural China by using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). To overcome the potential endogeneity, we use the instrumental variable (IV) and difference-in-differences (DID) methods and find a significant positive effect of mobile payments on rural household consumption. Mechanism analysis indicates that the positive impact of mobile payments is partially explained by the reduction in transaction costs, the easing of liquidity constraints, and the decrease in mental accounting loss. Furthermore, we verify the inclusive function of mobile payments through heterogeneity analysis and find that they play a greater role in promoting rural household consumption, especially for socially vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, people on low incomes, and low education. Our findings contribute to the literature on consumer finance and inclusive finance and have important implications for other countries.     

重庆市统筹城乡的农村土地基本经营制度改革探讨

针对重庆农村改革发展面临的突出矛盾和问题,文章认为要按照统筹城乡发展的要求,深化改革农村土地基本经营制度。从重庆现实看,统筹城乡发展存在着推进土地规模经营与稳定家庭承包制的矛盾,采取有效时策正确处理好这一矛盾是从战略上保证重庆统筹城乡发展试验顺利推进的关键所在。     

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.     

健康冲击、社会资本与农户经济脆弱性——基于“CHIP2013”数据的实证分析

健康人力资本在农村经济中发挥着重要作用,农户健康受损时,会通过"劳动效应"、"挤占效应"和"情感效应"影响其经济脆弱性,而社会资本作为一种非正式机制,在血缘、地缘与业缘关系的连接下,通过及时获取信息与资源等对农户经济产生影响。文章利用"中国家庭收入调查2013"数据实证分析了健康冲击和社会资本对农户经济脆弱性的影响及作用机制。通过倾向得分匹配（PSM）和处理效应模型解决内生偏误问题、建立中介效应模型后,回归结果显示：健康冲击会通过挤占效应和情感效应两条渠道机制对农户经济产生负向影响,社会资本分项指标则通过信任渠道机制对农户经济产生正向影响;男性户主更易因遭受健康冲击而陷入经济脆弱困境,处于劳动年龄的户主在利用社会资本缓解经济脆弱性方面更具优势;而社会资本在缓解健康冲击对农户经济脆弱性中的作用并不显著,一个可能的原因是在农村社会中,社会资本等非正式机制逐渐被正式医疗保障机制所替代。在稳健性检验中,构造基于预期贫困定义的贫困脆弱性指标（VEP）进行替换变量回归,进一步证实所得结论。文章的政策涵义在于,应加强对于农户健康风险的管理,并重新挖掘社会资本在农村经济发展中的作用,从而缓解经济脆弱性,阻断贫困。     

农户信贷行为影响因素的实证分析

农户是农村经济结构中最基本的经济单位和最直接的参与者,其行为直接关系到农村金融安排支持农村经济发展的效果。文章以二元Logistic模型为基础,利用220户农户调查数据,对农户从农信社贷款可得性的影响因素进行了实证分析,研究表明,影响农户信贷可得性的因素主要包括农户内在性因素和农信社外在性因素,其中,农户家庭年收入、户主对农信社的了解和有无借贷经历等内因性因素对农户信贷可得性的影响显著为正,农信社贷款额度、贷款效率等外因性因素对农户信贷可得性的影响分别显著为负和正。