新农村建设中的人力资源开发障碍与突破

新农村建设是一个旨在繁荣农村经济，实现农村社会和谐发展的系统工程。推进新农村建设的关键就是要培养、造就一大批有文化、懂技术、会经营的新型农民。整体而言，目前我国农村劳动力的文化知识水平和操作技能离现代农业的要求还有一定距离，不能满足新农村建设对高素质农民的需求。新农村建设既是机遇，又是挑战，全面提高广大农民的科学文化知识，大力开发农村人力资源，增加农村人力资本存量是建设社会主义新农村的迫切要求。     

Colonial immigrant literacy: An economic analysis of Pennsylvania-German evidence, 1727–1775

The literacy of over 23,000 immigrants is compared to the literacy of established American and European populations to assess the contribution of immigrants to the general superiority of colonial literacy vis-à-vis the rest of Europe. The nature of the positive self-selection of literate individuals into the transatlantic migration stream is explored using regression techniques and generation-specific controls. The estimated changes in the propensity of literates to migrate over the life cycle are explained by the changing nature of investment in general versus specific human capital over the life cycle.     

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。     

Is Financial Literacy Dangerous? Financial Literacy,Behavioral Factors,and Financial Choices of Households

Using original purpose-built 2018 Japanese survey data, we estimate the financial behaviors and attitudes of households. We find that financial literacy plays an important and consistent role in financial decision-making. However, the actual behaviors are counter-intuitive: people with high levels of financial literacy tend to take too many risks, overborrow, and hold naive financial attitudes. That is, financial literacy tends to cause people to become daring and reckless toward some financial aspects. By contrast, financially literate people are better at retirement planning and are indifferent to gambling. Preferences such as risk and loss aversions and discount factors, also play a role in financial choices.     

Urban neighborhood demographics associated with environmentally suspect,tax-delinquent properties: Equity and redevelopment implications

This article focuses on how environmental contamination of urban property, or the perception thereof, acts as a new force in widening inequalities between central cities and the rest of the nation. Environmental contamination, one form of negative neighborhood externality, when linked with a second form, that of tax-delinquent property, become the ultimate neighborhood negative externality, creating a redevelopment impasse under present governmental rules and practice. This problem is explored with a case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, examining the incidence of environmentally suspect, tax-delinquent properties by census tracts and associated socioeconomic characteristics of population within these tracts. The article concludes with a discussion of how the market, reinforced by evolving public policy, will begin to eliminate the redevelopment impasse posed by environmentally suspect, tax-delinquent property.     

汽车产业的外部性与激励性规制

汽车产业外部性的存在,不仅关系到汽车产业的可持续发展,而且也对宏观经济产生了深刻的影响。汽车产业与经济、社会、环境协调发展的问题,已经远远超出了汽车投资和生产层面,客观上要求政府采取适当的政策措施来妥善解决汽车产业发展带来的外部环境问题。文章运用外部性理论和     

Does Gender Inequality Reduce Growth in Sub‐Saharan African and Arab Countries?*

Abstract: This paper uses 1974 to 2001 panel data for 31 sub‐Saharan African and 10 Arab countries and Arellano–Bond estimations to empirically assess the impact on growth of an important indicator associated with MDG 3; namely the ratio of 15–24‐year‐old literate females to males. Our findings indicate that gender inequalities in literacy have a statistically significant negative effect that is robust to changes in the specification. In addition, it seems that gender inequality has a stronger effect on growth in Arab countries. Interestingly, we find that the interaction between openness to trade and gender inequality has a positive impact. This result suggests that trade‐induced growth may be accompanied by greater gender inequalities.     

Social capital as correlate,antecedent, and consequence of health service demand in China

Amid increasing interest in how social relationships play an important role in health and health behavior, it remains unclear whether social activities and social capital in general benefit individuals' health literacy and in turn affect their health care consumption. More specifically, this article proposes a research hypothesis to address the question: Do individuals who are strongly tied to other individuals within the social networks become more health conscious or literate and hence use more health services? This paper extends prior research on social support, health literacy and health care utilization to investigate the association between social interaction and health service demand. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey, the paper provides cross-sectional evidence that people who are socially active and connected with their friends made more visits to health care providers. It also finds that people of male gender, being single, having more years of education, and no health insurance coverage tend to avoid seeking health services. The quasi-experimental study, which examines the events that exogenously intensified social interactions in some but not all Chinese provinces, indicates that social capital is more an antecedent than a consequence of health service needs.     

Traditional vocations and modern professions among Tamil Brahmans in colonial and post-colonial south India

Since the nineteenth century, Tamil Brahmans have been very well represented in the educated professions, especially law and administration, medicine, engineering and nowadays, information technology. This is partly a continuation of the Brahmans' role as literate service people, owing to their traditions of education, learning and literacy, but the range of professions shows that any direct continuity is more apparent than real. Genealogical data are particularly used as evidence about changing patterns of employment, education and migration. Caste traditionalism was not a determining constraint, for Tamil Brahmans were predominant in medicine and engineering as well as law and administration in the colonial period, even though medicine is ritually polluting and engineering resembles low-status artisans' work. Crucially though, as modern, English-language, credential-based professions that are wellpaid and prestigious, law, medicine and engineering were and are all deemed eminently suitable for Tamil Brahmans, who typically regard their professional success as a sign of their caste superiority in the modern world. In reality, though, it is mainly a product of how their old social and cultural capital and their economic capital in land were transformed as they seized new educational and employment opportunities by flexibly deploying their traditional, inherited skills and advantages.     

Financial literacy,financial inclusion,and savings behavior in Laos

This study examines the effects of financial literacy on financial inclusion and savings behavior in Laos. Compared to previous literature, we use a broader definition of financial literacy which covers not only financial knowledge but also financial behavior and financial attitudes. We also use a new definition of financial inclusion which goes beyond the supply-side perspective to consider the consumer’s perspective. To do so, we use the survey instrument designed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development International Network on Financial Education. We also used more reliable instrumental variables to investigate the effects of financial literacy on financial inclusion (and its components) and savings behavior. We find that financial literacy has statistically positive effects on both financial inclusion and savings. Moreover, the effects of financial literacy on different measures of financial inclusion vary. Our results further show that individuals with higher financial literacy scores are more likely to hold savings in both formal and informal forms than those who have lower financial literacy scores, even when we control for income and education.     

Literacy Skills and Earnings: Race and Gender Differences

This study examines differences in returns to literacy skills on earnings of black and white men and women. Literacy skill is a composite measure of three scales: reading comprehension, document literacy (the ability to locate and use information in, say, tables and graphs), and mathematics proficiency. Using data from the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), we estimate earnings determination models separately for each racial/gender group. Our findings show that the effect of literacy on earnings varies by race and gender. Literacy skills favorably rewarded black men relative to black women and white men and women, net of education and other relevant variables. More importantly, literacy completely explained the effect of a high school diploma and some college on earnings of black men. We conclude that the economic importance of literacy skills is particularly salient for less-educated black men.     

Intra-industry adjustment and the correction of an externality

Conclusion The purpose of this paper is to apply some of the existing microeconomic theory literature on intra-industry adjustment resulting from factor price changes to the use of corrective taxes on externalities. The optimal tax to correct the effects of an externality is one placed directly on the external damage. Such a tax is sometimes not practically feasible, in which case either the inputs or output of firms in the externality-producing industry must be taxed as a proxy for the external damage.When the tax is placed on the input associated with the externality, the tax will only produce the optimal result if all firms produce an equal external damage which is proportional to the amount of the input which is used. If the amount of the externality produced by different firms is different, then an input tax will not satisfy the marginal conditions for optimality; and in some cases, the external damage may actually increase as a result of the input tax. An output tax, on the other hand, will never cause the external damage to increase, but will not in general satisfy the marginal conditions for optimality.When the amount of external damage caused by each firm in an industry is difficult to monitor, input or output taxes are two possible policy alternatives for controlling the externality. This paper has demonstrated that there are a number of problems associated with calculating the optimal input or output tax, and that a tax that is correct under restricted assumptions may actually aggravate the problem when examined in a more general environment. This analysis may explain why policy makers favor direct controls to reduce externalities, rather than taking the economist's frequent advice of using corrective taxes to price the externality.We are indebted to Charles Maurice for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Migrants’ self‐selection in the early stages of modern economic growth,Spain (1880–1930)

Drawing on a large database from the register of inhabitants of Madrid, this article confirms that the literacy levels of internal migrants moving to the Spanish capital city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were higher than that of those who remained in their provinces of origin. This article also explores the different factors influencing the nature and intensity of the selection process. The empirical exercise stresses that the stock of previous migration was a fundamental factor in allowing less literate individuals to join the migration process as well. Interestingly, distance to Madrid hardly affected the profile of male migrants, but it was a strong influence on female migration, although its importance diminished over time. Lastly, the results presented here show that other internal destinations were attracting different types of migrants, often resulting in negative self‐selection.     

Human impact of imposed technology on the Ncora irrigation scheme in Transkei

This study, which was the first attempt to evaluate the effects of the Ncora project on participating farmers, showed that the management was top‐down with decisions and most farming operations being carried out by the management agency. Consequently knowledge and management standards were considerably below optimum. Although the majority of commercial farmers were literate, this applied to only about 40 per cent of the other participants. Except for the commercial farmers, most of the participants were women, and labour shortages were experienced by two in five respondents. Scheme participants have benefited in household mobility, health, intake of proteins and vegetables, nutrition and income derived from farming. The unit sizes were acceptable to most participants and the majority still preferred traditional technology. Leadership in the project was weak and there was little empowerment of the local community or contact with sources of information. Suggestions are made for further investments in human capital through extension training, literacy and institutional development.     

风险甄别、影响因素、网络控制与农产品质量前景

农产品质量安全风险的度量多维,且不同维度的风险起因繁杂,使得安全隐患众多并且易发。加之质量安全具有隐蔽性、层次性和外部性,这些内生了风险控制难度。为有效化解各种因素引起的风险,必须有的放矢地从关键变量入手,构筑主体警觉、组织优化、技术保障、全民监管、区域合作和危机管理六网合一的风险控制网络。     

Spatial heterogeneity and transboundary pollution: A contingent valuation (CV) study on the Xijiang River drainage basin in south China

We examine how transboundary river pollution affects WTP for a river improvement project. The survey conducted in 20 cities of the Xijiang River basin demonstrates that downstream city report lower WTP when its upstream is more polluted. This negative externality decreases with distance and relative bargaining power of downstream city. The simulated gain in social benefit from an integrated river basin management, which reduces people's concerns about this externality, is significant. Such gain can also be regarded as upper bound for transfer from downstream to upstream in the “Ecological Service Payment” regime, a market-based environmental policy under pilot in China.     

经济适用房正外部性与市场供应量不足的经济学分析

本文运用福利经济学理论从经济适用房的正外部性的角度,分析了经济适用房市场供应量不足、开发商缺乏动力以及地方政府在推动和鼓励开发经济适用房的政策方面缺乏配套措施的原因。提出中国中低收入者的住房问题只能在政府的各种帮助下通过市场来解决。     

金融素养是否降低了家庭金融脆弱性?

金融素养对家庭金融脆弱性的影响具有不确定性,既可能通过增加家庭的资产和收入,降低家庭金融脆弱性;也可能通过增加家庭的负债与支出,提升家庭金融脆弱性。本文首先从金融知识、金融行为、金融态度三个维度测算金融素养,再基于"资不抵债"、"入不敷出"两个维度量化家庭金融脆弱性,最后构建实证模型,以CFPS（2014）为样本,量化分析金融素养对家庭金融脆弱性的影响。实证研究表明：金融素养的增加显著降低家庭金融脆弱性及"资不抵债"的概率;在金融素养的三个维度中,金融知识降低金融脆弱性、缓解资不抵债的作用更为显著。     

生产性服务业集聚如何提升制造业创新效率?——基于集聚外部性的理论分析与实证检验

文章基于集聚外部性的角度理论分析了生产性服务业集聚对制造业创新效率提升的影响机制,并利用2007-2016年的省级面板数据,实证检验了生产性服务业集聚的三个外部性对制造业创新效率的影响。结果表明,生产性服务业集聚的MAR外部性和Porter外部性能提升制造业创新效率,而Jacobs外部性对制造业创新效率的影响并不显著。从区域异质性来看,在东部地区,生产性服务业集聚的Porter外部性对制造业创新效率的促进效应更为显著,而在中西部地区,生产性服务业集聚的MAR外部性对制造业创新效率的提升作用更为显著。