Energy demand and population changes

During the post World War 2 years energy consumption has grown 136% while population grew about 51%; per capita consumption of energy expanded, therefore, about 60%. For a given population size, demographic changes mean an increase in energy needs; for instance the larger the group of retirement age people, the smaller their energy needs than are those for a younger group. Estimates indicate that by the year 2000 the energy impact will be toward higher per capita consumption with 60% of the population in the 19-61 age group of workers. Rising female labor force participation will increase the working group even more; it has also been found that income and energy grow at a proportional rate. The authors predict that gasoline consumption within the US will continue to rise with availability considering the larger number of female drivers and higher per capita incomes. The flow of illegal aliens (750,000/year) will have a major impact on income and will use greater amounts of energy than can be expected. A demographic change which will lower energy demands will be the slowdown of the rate of household formation caused by the falling number of young adults. The response of energy demand to price changes is small and slow but incomes play a larger role as does the number of personal automobiles and social changes affecting household formation. Households, commercial space, transportation, and industry are part of every demand analysis and population projections play a major role in determining these factors.     

Estimating flexible consumption functions for urban and rural households in China

There are few comprehensive studies of household consumption in China that covers all commodities due to data restrictions. This prevents the calculation of inequality indices based on consumption. This lack of coverage also makes analysis of policies that affect consumption difficult; economy-wide models used for analysis often have to employ simple consumption forms with unit income elasticities. We estimate a translog demand system distinguished by demographic characteristics, giving price and income elasticities that should be useful for policy analysis. We estimate separate functions for urban and rural households using household expenditure data and detailed commodity prices (1995–2006). This allows future analysis of social welfare and inequality based on consumption to supplement existing studies based on income. To illustrate an application of the model, we project consumption composition based on projected prices, incomes and demographic changes – aging, education improvement and urbanization.     

The role of off-farm employment in the rural energy consumption transition — A village-level analysis in Jiangxi Province, China

Energy consumption in rural areas in China is characterized by high consumption of fuelwood, straw and other biomass. Off-farm employment can play an important role in the transition towards more sustainable sources of energy by increasing rural household incomes and reducing the amount of labor available for biomass collection. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of off-farm employment on rural household energy consumption choices, and to disentangle the various causal relationships that play a role in this respect. To this end, a hybrid farm household/village computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used that has been calibrated for a remote village in Northeast Jiangxi Province where fuelwood is the main source of energy. The model takes into account nonseparability of farm household production and consumption decisions as well as linkages within the village between households involved in off-farm employment and households with no members working off-farm. Contrary to previous research for a richer region in rural China, we find that fuelwood is not an inferior good. The positive impact of more food consumption on fuelwood collection more than compensates the higher leisure demand associated with higher incomes. Shifts in production activities and in prices on village factor markets caused by increased labour scarcity (the lost-labour effect of off-farm employment), on the other hand, cause a reduction in fuelwood collection and consumption. This lost-labour effect is much stronger for migration than for local off-farm employment, because the latter can more easily be combined with on-farm work and fuelwood collection. For local off-farm employment the income effect dominates the lost-labour effect, resulting in a positive overall impact of higher off-farm participation on fuelwood consumption. For migration, on the other hand, the income effect and the lost-labour effect are almost equal in size. Hence, the amount of fuelwood collected and consumed does not change much when households participate in migration. The final conclusion is therefore that increased off-farm employment opportunities do not promote the transition of rural energy use in the poorer regions of rural China.     

人口老龄化的长期经济影响：上海的挑战与对策

在全球人口老龄化趋势日益显著的背景下,生育率的迅速下降和预期寿命的延长使得上海人口正在经历快速的老龄化,这一人口年龄结构的转变也对上海经济发展产生着长期的影响。作为目前我国老龄化程度最高的城市,如何在经济迅速发展的同时迎接和应对老龄化挑战,这是上海当前需要高度重视的问题,关系到社会和谐稳定与经济可持续发展。本文将从上海...     

中国消费环境对居民消费水平的影响

居民消费是消费环境的函数。文章所构建的消费环境包括了经济环境、社会环境和法律环境三个主要维度,基于1990-2008年的相关数据研究发现,经济环境中的收入和就业因素对于居民消费的即期影响效应统计显著,其中,就业对消费的影响远高于收入对消费的影响。社会环境和法律环境中的所有变量则并没有对居民的消费产生统计显著的影响。因此,中国在进入“十二五”期间之后,要稳健、全面推动中国的内需,亟需解决的问题是构建起更加健康有序的社会消费环境和法律环境,而不是仅着眼于对于居民消费有即期影响的收入和就业水平,虽然这是两个非常重要的因素。     

The Determinants of Nonfarm Activities and Incomes of Rural Households in Mexico,with Emphasis on Education

This paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education (as well as other household assets) on the choice of activities and incomes of rural Mexican households. Our study examines the various income sources, as well as the education of the household's head and its members. Implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment.     

Forecasting the dynamics of per capita meat consumption by the population of Russia under conditions of inflation

The paper describes the instruments developed by the author for imitation modeling of per capita meat and meat product consumption by the population of Russia taking into consideration the exogenously assigned trends of change in per capita cash incomes, consumer prices, and inflation rates. The results of prediction calculations for the period of 2010–2012 using the developed instruments are presented. The consequences of implementing the forecasts of the socioeconomic development of Russia until 2012 are analyzed on their basis.     

Income distribution,economic structure and employment in South Africa

This paper discusses the impact of a redistribution of current income from the White to the Black population on the distribution of sectoral output, and total employment by means of a semi‐closed input‐output model.

The results show that a redistribution of current income towards Black households — which no doubt will have positive social and political repercussions — has a non‐negative effect on GDP and a definite positive effect on the performance of sectors with a high private consumption expenditure component, as well as on total employment.     

Do the Chinese “Keep up with the Jones”?: Implications of peer effects,growing economic disparities and relative deprivation on health outcomes among older adults in China

What are the health effects of unequal economic growth? What are the health consequences of ‘keeping up with the Jones’? Many developed countries (e.g., US and Japan) have experienced significant income growth between 1950s and 2000s but population survey shows that on average the population is not growing more satisfied with life. Theories that attempt to respond to these findings hypothesize that as income grows, people may spend more on conspicuous consumption because they compare themselves with others in their peer groups and care about their position in socio-economic distributions relative to others. Indeed, public health studies have found a relationship between income inequality and adult health outcomes in developed countries. Specifically, there seems to be a correlation between social hierarchy and mortality, as well as a correlation between social hierarchy and morbidity.China is a prime study site due to its growing spatial inequalities in the past decade. Though China has been committed to economic reform, different regions and cities have encountered very disparate rates of development and growth. In this paper, we utilize a set of panel data collected in China (China Health and Nutrition Survey 1989–2004) to examine the effects of peer groups, relative deprivation, and income disparities on individual health outcomes such as the probability of high waist circumference, body mass index categories, probability of hypertension, nutritional intake as well as health behavior such as smoking. We use a combination of multi-level mixed effects modeling as well as factor analysis to examine these effects and find significant and differential effects of income quartiles, peer groups, relative deprivation, and Gini coefficient on health.     

人力资本、社会资本与流动人口就业收入 —基于流动人口正规就业与非正规就业的比较分析

文章通过建立OLS回归方程以及Oaxaca—Blinder的分解方法,实证分析了人力资本、社会资本与我国流动人口就业收入的关系,研究发现：人力资本对流动人口正规就业收入有明显影响而对非正规就业收入影响很小,社会资本是影响流动人口非正规就业收入的主要因素但对正规就业收入影响不大。 Oaxaca—Blinder 的分解表明：流动人口非正规就业者和正规就业者收入差距的50.69％归结于流动人口内部特征上的差异,受教育程度差异是造成其工资收入差异的主要原因。     

Equitable,productive employment targets for the international development strategy

Although economic growth in many developing countries has matched and even surpassed the growth targets of the UN's International Development Strategy (IDS), it often has failed to alleviate the problems of employment and income distribution. Nonetheless, preparations for an IDS for the Third Development Decade continue to focus on aggregate and sectoral growth targets.Recognizing the essential linkage between growth, employment and poverty, this paper formulates targets for employment and growth with equity and integrates them with the proposed overall IDS growth objective using a consistent macro framework. This paper examines the dynamic implications of this equitable, productive employment strategy for the sectoral distribution of labour and capital and for the income distribution and compares it with alternative scenarios.The basic results show that an equitable productive employment strategy will not only raise absolute incomes of the poor but improve the income distribution, whether measured by the relative income of the poorest 40% or, perhaps more important, of those who continue to obtain only low-productivity employment. Evidence from some countries in the 1970s indicates that the strategy is feasible, provided appropriate policies are pursued. An important element in the strategy appears to be the maintenance of a demand for goods produced by the poor; in this context the high growth of industry recommended in the IDS for low-income countries is likely to lead to increasing inequality. This paper concludes with some broad policy recommendations for achieving the equitable productive employment target.     

Economic Policy and social democracy; the Austrian experience

In the 1970s, Austria's social democratic government pursueda distinctive policy strategy to overcome the period of stagflationand to maintain full employment after the first oil crisis.In the Keynesian tradition, the model assigned expansionaryfiscal and monetary policy to stabilize effective demand andemployment; the exchange rate to curb inflation; while the balanceof trade was left to moderate incomes policies by the socialpartners. In the 1970s, this strategy was successful and themacroeconomic performance of the Austrian economy was outstanding.In the restrictive environment of the 1980s, the Austro-Keynesianmodel waned; while the stabilizing elements of the model, i.e.the hard currency and moderate incomes policies, were maintained,deficit spending as a discretionary strategy was given up. But,although the Austrian economy has been put under much competitivepressure owing to a continuous appreciation of the schillingalong with the Deutschmark, its macroeconomic performance hasbeen at least as good as the European or OECD average, but withlower unemployment.     

Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Latin America: Overview and Policy Implications

Rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and incomes (RNFI) are crucial to Latin American rural households. The 11 rural household income studies in this volume, reviewed in this paper, use 1990s data and show that RNFI averages 40% of rural incomes. RNFI and RNFE have grown quickly over the past three decades. The review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of Latin American rural households. In terms of shares of rural incomes: (1) nonfarm wage incomes exceed self-employment incomes; (2) RNFI far exceeds farm wage incomes; (3) local RNFI far exceeds migration incomes; (4) Service-sector RNFI far exceeds manufactures RNFI. These findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector, versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures. Moreover, poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of RNFI as compared to richer households and zones. The RNFE of the poor tend to be the low-paid nonfarm equivalent of semi-subsistence farming. Raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better-paid types of RNFE is crucial — via employment skills training, education, infrastructure, credit. Finally, RNFE has grown fastest and been most poverty-alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors, in particular in the agricultural sector, but also in tourism, links to urban areas, mining and forestry. This means that developing RNF jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development.     

Does off-farm employment contribute to agriculture-based environmental pollution? New insights from a village-level analysis in Jiangxi Province, China

This study examines the conventional wisdom that off-farm employment contributes to environmental pollution by increasing the use of agro-chemicals. In order to analyse the role of household decision making and village factor markets in more detail, we run simulations with a hybrid farm household/village computable general equilibrium model that is applied to a village in Northeast Jiangxi Province. We find that the negative lost-labour effect of off-farm employment on agricultural incomes is much stronger than the (small) positive income effect. As a result of reduced labour resources and increased leisure consumption, farm households reduce the intensity of rice cultivation as well as the production of (especially) cash crops. The shift in production activities is stronger for migration than for off-farm employment, because migrants cannot combine off-farm work with onfarm work, and because migration reduces the village market price of oxen services. The shift towards less intensive rice production means that off-farm employment (and migration in particular) reduces the levels of chemical inputs and manure used in agricultural production. The decline in fertilizer input is much larger than the decline in manure use, because manure is a nontradable commodity and is applied only once per year. We therefore conclude that migration and, to a lesser extent, local off-farm employment lead to lower incomes from agricultural production, but have benign effects on environmental quality.     

Unemployment levels of Black people in Natal census districts according to the 1985 census

The basic needs approach to development is based on the premise that all people are entitled to adequate consumption goods (nutrition, shelter, clothing) and state‐provided infrastructure (health care, education, potable water, sanitation and transport). Consumption needs are financed (in the absence of a well‐developed social welfare system) largely by income from employment. The black population in employment as a percentage of the economically active, in the 1985 census districts in Natal, black population in employment as a percentage of the economically active age cohort and the employed as a percentage of the total population were calculated in order to establish the census districts (and the urban and non urban sectors of these census districts) where employment levels are lowest. It is possible on the basis of this data to target employment creation at the census districts where it would be most beneficial.     

Impacts of Food and Energy Price Hikes and Proposed Coping Strategies

Based on sample survey data for the years 2006 and 2007, we find that inflation of food and energy prices in China is moving at a slower pace than in the international market; however, the livelihood of low income groups has been significantly impacted. Urban sample households in low income groups have been shifting from consumption of high value food to lower value substitutes; and all of the rural sample households are reducing their total consumption expenditure in real terms. The Engel＇ s coefficient of the rural household enlarged while their proportion of spending on clothing and energy declined. Farmers＇ households are moving toward more imbalanced diets, and the nutritional status of the poor is apparently deteriorating. The emergency-response measures that the government should implement include stopping subsidies to biofuel producers, who use foodstuffs as inputs, and providing food aid to the poor. The mid-term strategies should include anti-monopoly tactics, improving the market environment for the right competition, and eliminating price distortion. Midterm and long-term socioeconomic policy reform must be undertaken to adjust the social structure, to correct the mechanism of factor price formation, and to transform the pattern of economic growth.     

Class structure and inequality during the industrial revolution: lessons from England's social tables, 1688–1867

This article measures the size and incomes of six major social classes across the industrial revolution using social tables for England and Wales in 1688, 1759, 1798, 1846, and 1867. Lindert and Williamson famously revised these tables, and this article extends their work in three directions. First, servants are removed from middle‐ and upper‐class households in the tables of King, Massie, and Colquhoun and tallied separately. Second, estimates are made for the same tables of the number and incomes of women and children employed in the various occupations, and, third, incomes are broken down into rents, profits, and employment income. These extensions to the tables allow variables to be computed that can be checked against independent estimates as a validation exercise. The tables are retabulated in a standardized set of six social groups to highlight the changing structure of society across the industrial revolution. Gini coefficients are computed from the social tables to measure inequality. These measures confirm that Britain traversed a ‘Kuznets curve’ in this period. Changes in overall inequality are related to the changing fortunes of the major social classes.     

社会资本、农地流转与农户消费扩张

中国农户消费转型升级引发各方关注,但鲜有从社会资本的视角探讨农地流转对农户消费的影响及其微观作用机理。文章在理论层面分析了农地流转通过影响农户生计资本变动和生计策略调整对农户消费的传导机制,并基于中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）三期面板数据,定量评估了农地流转对农户消费影响的社会资本效应。结果表明：（1）我国农户消费基尼系数总体呈缩窄趋势,但农地转出农户相比农地转入农户具有更高的人均消费支出及消费不均等程度;（2）农地流转能够影响农户关键自然资本改变和生计策略调整,从而显著提高农户消费水平,且参与农地流转农户相比未参与农地流转农户具有更高的消费动机;（3）社会资本在农户农地转入和转出过程中对农户消费存在微观中介效应,即社会资本越高的农户参与农地流转的概率越大,且能够通过提高农地转出户非农就业机会和扩大其多元化收入来源,间接提升农户消费水平。在精准扶贫和乡村振兴战略协同背景下,应积极有序推进农地适度规模经营,促进农地转出户非农就业,并强化农户社会资本建设,提高农户多元化收入,从而全面助推农村消费转型升级。     

Age structure of the population in Belgium and social security

The effects of demographic aging and of various socioeconomic factors on the social security system in Belgium are explored. "Special attention is given to the impact of the ageing of the population on the pension problem. Based on a simple formula a series of percentages of taxation have been calculated as a function of shifts in the proportion of retired vs. active population and in the proportion of the average income vs. the average amount of pension. One of the conclusions is that the progressive ageing of the population will become the most significant factor in the growth of social expenditures."     

Intersectoral Transfer,Growth, and Inequality in Rural Ecuador

In this paper we study intersectoral transfer and its impact on the distribution of income in Ecuador. We find that income shares between farm and nonfarm activities are roughly equal, on average, although the rich in rural areas typically receive a greater share of income from nonfarm sources. Thus decomposing inequality by income source reveals that a rise in nonfarm incomes increases inequality. Drawing on a new method to estimate local-level distributional outcomes, growth of the high-productivity nonfarm sector is observed to have a strong and positive association with average consumption and inequality. Growth of the low-productivity nonfarm sector is associated with little change in either average income or income inequality. Irrespective of subsector, growth of the nonfarm sector is associated with a substantial fall in poverty.