Childhood malnutrition and schooling in the Terai region of Nepal

Data on 350 primary school age children from subsistence farm households in the Terai (southern plains) region of Nepal are analyzed to assess the relationship between nutritional status and school participation. Only fifteen percent reported attending school; nutritional status, particularlyas measured by percent of median height-for-age, was found to be a significant determinant of both enrollment in school and age-adjusted grade attainment. It is concluded that local interventions or national policies designed to improved child nutritional status could have important educational as well as health benefits.     

中国省会城市职能结构特征的比较研究

从城市职能结构类型、发展阶段和效益三方面比较分析了我国省会城市职能结构的特征,结论如下:①在省会城市中,制造业和建筑业职能仍然占据重要地位,科教文卫、行政、金融保险业、房地产业等职能地位亟待提升.②84.62%的省会城市第三产业比重相对于第二产业比重比率稳步上升.③省会城市职能结构效益整体状况得到提高,高效益城市所占比例增加,低效益城市所占比例减少.从变化趋势类型来看,效益上升型城市所占比例居于第二位,效益下降型城市所占比例最低,这也验汪了省会城市职能结构效益趋于提升的态势.     

Timing and duration of paternal migration and the educational attainment of left‐behind children: Evidence from rural China

This paper examines the relationship between the migration of men from rural China and the educational attainment of their left‐behind children. The importance of migratory timing and duration are addressed. Using survey data, the study found that compared with rural children of nonmigrant parents, rural children of migrant fathers have a lower probability of being enrolled in school. In addition, the relationship between migratory timing, duration, and school enrollment shows an interesting pattern; children whose fathers migrated when they were infants are more likely to be enrolled in school, but children whose fathers migrated before their birth or after they reached school age are less likely to be enrolled in school. Possible explanations for this pattern are provided.     

中国省会城市生态创新绩效评价与时空差异——创新驱动发展战略实施以来的实证分析

省会城市在引领现代化创新型生态城市建设以及实现区域生态创新战略中发挥着重要作用,但当前缺乏对省会城市生态创新绩效评价的相关研究。基于创新驱动发展战略实施背景,选取中国内地29个省会城市2013-2018年的面板数据,运用DEA-SBM模型对中国省会城市生态创新绩效及其时空差异进行深入分析。结果发现：①在时间维度下,全国及三大地区省会城市生态创新绩效水平整体较低,且不规律波动性较强,东部地区大多数城市生态创新绩效始终处于“高产出、高效率”水平,而中西部地区大多数城市持续处于“低产出、低效率”水平;②在空间维度下,全国及三大地区省会城市生态创新绩效水平差异显著,呈两极分化态势,各省会城市生态创新绩效水平空间集聚性显著。综上可知,当前中国各省会城市生态创新发展不均衡,据此从区域和国家两个层面提出相关政策建议。     

留守群体留守学术——兼评叶敬忠等著《阡陌独舞》、《静寞夕阳》、《别样童年》

本文以叶敬忠等对当代中国农村留守妇女、老人、儿童的研究为基础．阐述了中国现代化进程中农村家庭结构残缺化,家庭功能失调和弱化的变迁困境,认为“留守”问题的本质在于中国现代化的结构性困局,即中国被纳入以美国为主导、以资本、商品及其生产模式自由流动的全球体制所导致的中国城乡发展困境、乡村总体性社会衰败等问题。最后,作者呼唤以农村留守群体为本位的留守学术的出现,其使命是顺应后工业时代,关注中国农村及其群体的困境与出路;形成乡村研究、中国研究的时代问题意识和研究系列;积极进行相关社会科学实验,为形成当代中国学术话语体系做出贡献。     

省会城市中心性研究

城市中心性的研究内容分为两部分,一是中心性指数,另一为中心性程度。省会城市中心性的影响因素包括省区形状、省会位置、省会综合实力、省内地级市实力以及省内交通结构等。文章提出了更为简易的省区形状和省会位置的计量公式,计算了我国各省的形状指数和省会城市位置指数。利用GIS软件,计算出我国各省区经济重心、人口重心、几何重心,并根据这些重心与省会城市位置间的关系,对我国各省最高级中心城市的组合类型进行了探讨。提出中心性程度的概念并探讨了计算方法。文章将影响因素及中心性程度综合考察,对我国部分省会城市的中心性作用不强的原因进行了剖析。其结论对全国省级城市经济区的组织和行政区划调整有一定的借鉴意义。     

Why is education performance so different across Latvian schools?

This paper aims to identify the school characteristics consistently associated with better performance of pupils in state exams in Latvia and understand the reasons behind substantial exam score gap between urban and rural schools. We find that exam scores are positively related to school size and teacher salaries, but negatively related to teacher age. Oaxaca–Ransom decomposition shows that the whole urban–rural exam score gap can be attributed to a few observable characteristics of schools, teachers and pupils.     

The effect of coffee price shock on school dropout: new evidence from the 2008 global financial crisis

This article examines the effect of coffee price shock on the school dropout status of children in rural Ethiopia. To identify the effect, I exploit the exogenous coffee price shock caused by the 2008 global financial crisis. Using a unique rural data set collected before and shortly after the crisis, I compare the school dropout status of children in coffee-producing and non–coffee-producing villages. The difference-in-difference estimate suggests that the decline in the global price of coffee during the financial crisis increased school dropout rates among children aged 15–18 in coffee-producing villages. The effect is more pronounced among female children in this age group.     

安徽省农村留守儿童健康状况的调查与分析

本文在对安徽省农村留守儿童的健康现状及可能影响其体质健康的因素进行实地调查的基础上,通过建立Ordered Logistic计量模型,定量分析了各因素对儿童体质健康的影响。研究结果表明:父亲外出务工会对留守儿童的体质健康产生不利影响,且其外出这一行为本身对儿童营养状况的负面影响显著;家庭特征层面上,父亲的体质状况会对儿童营养健康产生正面影响,且影响显著;食肉频率、锻炼频率及营养知识得分等变量对子女的体质都会产生影响,且在模型中显著;由于地区间存在差异,地区变量对儿童的体质状况也会产生影响。最后,依据分析结果,从家庭、学校和国家3个层面提出了改善我国农村留守儿童体质状况的有效途径。     

家庭子女的教育投入与亲代的养老回报——来自河北农村的调查发现

利用2008年河北农村家庭生命周期与代际关系调查数据,分析当前河北农村60岁及以上老年人子女的教育投入与老年人获取的来自子女的养老回报的影响因素。河北农村老年人子女的受教育程度多为小学、初中水平,且存在性别、年龄别和地区差异。来自子女教育投入的养老回报主要体现在经济支持方面,子女受教育程度越高,对父母的经济支持越大。父母对子女的教育投入越多得到的回报越高,体现了家庭中亲子抚养与赡养关系具有一定的互惠交换特征。     

HOW DO HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES IN JAPAN COMPETE FOR REGULAR,FULL‐TIME JOBS? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS BASED UPON AN INTERNET SURVEY OF THE YOUTH*

We use a survey of Japanese youth within 10 years after high school graduation to investigate impacts of academic and social skills on their success in the job market. We find three major factors account for the job market outcome immediately after school: school characteristics and job‐placement services, academic performance, and social skills, including negative impacts of problematic behaviors at school. Second, when we run a probit regression on whether or not the surveyed individuals hold regular, full‐time jobs, we find the persistent but declining (over age) impact of the job placement immediately after school. Moreover, we find that the impact of variables pertaining to social skills remain significant even after controlling for the job‐placement outcome after school, whereas other variables, such as grade point average or attributes of high schools, are largely irrelevant to the current employment status.     

WHAT DETERMINES RELIGIOUS SCHOOL CHOICE? THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM RURAL BANGLADESH

This paper looks at the determinants of school selection in rural Bangladesh, focusing on the choice between registered Islamic and non‐religious schools. Using a unique dataset on secondary school‐age children from rural Bangladesh, we find that madrasah enrolment falls as household income increases. At the same time, more religious households, and those that live further away from a non‐religious school are more likely to send their children to madrasahs. However, in contrast to the theory, we find that Islamic school demand does not respond to the average quality of schools in the locality.     

Exports and left‐behind children: Empirical evidence from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey

The opportunity for jobs and high wages induced by exports have attracted rural laborers in China to work in the cities temporarily, and some parents must leave behind their children in rural areas, called left‐behind children (LBC). Notably, the cause of LBC has not been investigated carefully. In this study, we combine the 2010 to 2015 Chinese trade data with the data from the 2010 to 2015 China Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS) to identify LBC based on the young children of migrants not living with their parents in the cities, and empirically test the effects of exports on LBC. The results show that under the same income level and other circumstances, the increase in export dependency significantly increases the probability of the migrants’ young children becoming LBC. We construct an instrumental variable to manage the potential endogeneity problems and conduct many other robustness checks, and all the results are consistent. We also examine the heterogeneous effects of exports on LBC and observe that migrants with low income, low education, rural hukou (area of origin) status, and in manufacturing sectors are more vulnerable to exports.Key Words: Exports; Internal Migration; Left‐behind children     

乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率与城乡收入差距——基于空间杜宾模型的实证分析

本文在两部门一般均衡模型中引入乡村公路建设,从理论上说明了乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率及城乡收入差距之间的关系。本文利用我国2002—2018年省际面板数据,构建空间计量模型和中介效应模型,实证检验了乡村公路建设对城乡收入差距的影响及内部机制。研究发现,乡村三级、四级公路建设显著缩小了区域城乡收入差距,同时乡村二级公路建设对附近地区产生了空间溢出效应,即促进了周边区域城乡收入差距缩小。机制分析发现,乡村公路建设通过提高技术效率来提升农业劳动生产率,以实现城乡收入差距缩小。此外,乡村公路建设对不同地区影响具有异质性,其显著降低了东部地区城乡收入差距,但在西部地区却产生了虹吸效应,从而扩大了当地城乡收入差距。     

省会城市旅游中心性聚类研究

城市的中心性是城市地理学研究的主要内容。采用反映旅游业发展水平的指标,定量研究了27个省会城市的旅游中心性特征及其差异;用SPSS聚类分析功能将27个省会城市分成7类,并分析各自的特征。最后对省会城市旅游中心性的发挥及在省域旅游业中的带动作用提出了建议。     

Can information and counseling help students from poor rural areas go to high school? Evidence from China

Recent studies have shown that only about two-thirds of the students from poor, rural areas in China finish junior high school and enter high school. One factor that may be behind the low rates of high school attendance is that students may be misinformed about the returns to schooling or lack career planning skills. We therefore conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) using a sample of 131 junior high schools and more than 12,000 students to test the effects of providing information on returns or career planning skills on student dropout, academic achievement and plans to go to high school. Contrary to previous studies, we find that information does not have significant effects on student outcomes. Unlike information, counseling does have an effect. However, the effect is somewhat surprising. Our findings suggest that counseling increases dropouts and seems to lower academic achievement. In our analysis of the causal chain, we conclude that financial constraints and the poor quality of education in junior high schools in poor, rural areas (the venue of the study) may be contributing to the absence of positive impacts on student outcomes from information and counseling. The negative effects of counseling on dropout may also be due to the high and growing wages for unskilled labor (high opportunity costs) in China’s transitioning economy. It is possible that when our counseling curriculum informed the students about the reality of how difficult were the requirements for entering academic high school, it may have induced them to revise their benefit-cost calculations and come to the realization that they are better off dropping out and/or working less hard in school.     

Mother's education and child development: Evidence from the compulsory school reform in China

This paper investigates the causal impact of mother's schooling on various outcomes of adolescent development by exploiting the temporal and geographical variations in the enforcement of compulsory schooling laws in China. Using data from China Family Panel Studies, we find that mother's education increases adolescents’ school enrollment, math test scores, college aspiration, and internal locus of control related to education. Mother's education also improves adolescent mental health status and reduces the incidence of underweight. We also find considerable gender heterogeneity in the effects of mother's education. The results further indicate that mother's education leads to an increase in family resources for children and an improvement in maternal mental health and parenting, which we interpret as potential mechanisms behind our findings.     

农村改革之土地问题的经济学分析

严格的经济学分析,是解决我国农村问题的基本前提。目前我国农村土地制度、农产品市场、农村金融、农村劳动力流动以及农村城镇化建设等领域,市场化建设严重滞后,成为解决我国农村问题的制度性障碍。因此,我国农村改革的方向,应该是继续深化农村要素市场的改革,建立健全农村土地市场、劳动力市场和资本市场。应切实转变观念,采取有力措施,进一步明晰土地的产权关系,大力推进农村的市场化改革。     

农村留守儿童道德教育现状调查与对策分析

当前农村留守儿童存在着道德意志薄弱、道德心理不健康等方面的问题,家庭教育、学校教育和道德教育机制是造成这一问题的原因所在。解决农村留守儿童道德教育需要完善政府在农村留守儿童道德教育中的角色,完善家庭在农村留守儿童道德教育中的责任,创造农村留守儿童道德教育的良好环境。     

中国农村金融发展的困境、成因及其破解

长期以来我国农村金融市场的发展受到不同程度上的抑制,农村金融功能难以得到有效发挥,致使金融支农绩效水平低下,影响了新农村建设的加速进程。与已有较多文献不同的是,本文将分别从金融发展规模、结构和效率三个层面对改革开放以来我国农村金融发展困境进行统计描述,结果显示我国农村金融支持的规模、结构及效率与同期全国和城镇水平相比都较为滞后。同时,本文认为导致农村金融发展滞后成因主要有长期的“二元”经济结构、“一刀切”式的金融政策、农村金融机构不良贷款率偏高以及现有农村金融供给体系不断萎缩,最后在此基础之上寻求了四点破解途径,即逐步提高农村劳动生产率水平、实行有差别的金融政策、积极发展农业保险和不断提高自身经营绩效并加强金融监管。