Children's Migration Decisions and Elderly Support in China: Evidences from CHARLS Pilot Data

The purpose of this paper is to explain the determinants of migration in China with special concern for elderly support based on evidences from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) pilot data. We find parents’ needs for care significantly affect adult children’s participation in migrant labor market. Joint family decisions have also been made among adult siblings as far as elderly support is concerned. Different patterns of migrant labor force participation in Zhejiang and Gansu provinces largely reflect the differences between their respective migrant labor markets. Understanding of these new patterns of China’s internal migration helps policy makers in China and other developing counties formulate effective social policies, and consequently, a more appropriate urbanization path.     

Innovative performance with interactions between technological proximity and geographic proximity: evidence from China electronics patents

A lot of researches have shown that geographic proximity and technological proximity influence firms’ innovative performance. Little work has been done to explore how technological proximity interacts with geographic proximity. Using the theories of recombinant innovation and economic geography, this study develops and tests a theory of how firms’ abilities to reap local benefits and generate innovation are influenced by technological features. Data on technological and geographic proximity of the top 100 firms in China’s electronics industry from 1985 to 2012 are used to test the hypotheses. This study shows that, for a firm with high geographic proximity or located in a dense area of R&D, a low technological proximity in the industry facilitates the process of recombinant innovation.     

中国城镇老年人的居住意愿对空巢居住的影响

实证研究发现,超过半数的中国城镇老年人在居住意愿上选择空巢居住,而近十年来,中国城镇老年人空巢的比例也呈现明显的增长趋势,且越来越倾向于与子女分开居住,中低龄老年人愿意空巢居住的比例更高。就2000年至2010年中国城镇老年人的居住意愿对实际居住方式的影响进行了研究。老年人的居住意愿对其居住方式有重要影响,不愿意与子女同住、经济状况好、有配偶、没有儿子、生活能完全自理的老年人更倾向于空巢居住。与十年前相比,生活自理能力对居住方式的影响增强。未来不愿意与子女同住的老人将越来越多,老年空巢家庭的比例将会继续增加。为了更好地适应老年人空巢居住的变化趋势,应尽快完善社会养老服务体系。     

Losing children and mental well-being: evidence from China

This article explores the impact of losing a child, especially losing all children (including losing the only child), on the mental health, happiness and loneliness of parents. The Chinese government has implemented strict restrictions on the number of births for each family since the 1970s, resulting in the creation of millions of only-child families. Using the 2011 baseline data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we find that the bereavement of a child is associated with lower levels of mental health and happiness and higher levels of loneliness for the parents, even after we adjust for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The effects are significantly stronger for losing all the children. Results have strong implications for the population-control, elderly-care and mental-care policies especially in China and developing countries, where the social security system is not yet sound.     

中国老年人生活成本和标准消费系数测算

采用直接支出法和2006年中国城乡老年人口状况追踪调查数据,对老年人的生活成本进行测算,得到不同地区、不同收入水平和不同年龄的老年人生活成本。该成本是一个年度的静态的成本,为了能够对年度的成本进行更新,提出老年人生活成本标准消费系数的概念,目的在于利用这个标准消费系数和每年国家统计局公布的家庭人均消费支出年度调查数据,对老年人的生活成本进行年度更新。据老年人生活成本标准消费系数,老年人的生活成本是家庭人均成本的1.9倍左右。需要尽快完善城乡老年人社会保障制度,加大养老保险的筹资力度,弥补其生活支出的不足,并在减贫和最低生活保障政策中考虑老年人的额外支出,以期有效改善我国老年人的生活质量。     

居住模式对老人福利的影响：基于代际关系的视角--来自我国老人膳食质量的证据

在我国老龄化程度不断加深的过程中,老人的居住模式选择及其福利问题变得越来越重要。我国传统的与子女合住的居住模式真的能改善老人福利吗？文章以我国老人的膳食质量为例,基于我国独特的“双向反馈”代际关系,从“亲代需求”和“子代需求”两个方面来讨论亲子合住居住模式对老人福利的影响,并利用2009年与2011年中国居民健康与营养调查(CH NS )的数据加以实证检验。研究表明：(1)与子女合住的居住模式非但没有改善反而降低了老人的平衡膳食得分,尤其在低龄老人、农村老人和女性老人中更为明显。(2)从影响渠道来看,亲子合住居住模式家庭中老人为满足子女的抚幼需求而无私地投入时间和精力,但老人的照料需求却没有得到很好的满足,代际关系重心向下偏移是造成老人膳食质量下降的主要原因。文章为不同居住模式下老人福利干预政策的制定和社会养老服务体系的建设提供了实证依据。     

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     

空巢余悲与生活困境:失独家庭生活福利弱势性研究

中国目前独生子女数量超过1.5亿,每年由于独生子女死亡新增7.6万失独家庭。独生子女的去世使得独生子女家庭结构断裂而成为特殊的空巢家庭,失独父母的生活福利受到了严重影响。利用2013年陕西省专项调查数据,分析了失独家庭在生理福利、心理福利、经济福利、社会支持和养老状况等方面的弱势性和差异性。失独家庭生活福利的各个方面都显著脆弱于一般家庭;失独家庭虽然由于丧子具有一定的共性,但其群体内部由于失独父母特征和去世子女特征差异而显示出部分生活福利的差异性。应改进和细化现有的失独家庭扶助政策,充分考虑政策目标群体差异性,有针对性地进行扶助。     

Institutional arrangements and price rebalancing: empirical evidence from the United States and Europe

This paper explores the rebalancing of prices for voice service in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) from conceptual and empirical perspectives. We determine the overall cost and structure of a standardized basket of residential and business services. Our data indicate that during the 1994–2000 period the degree of rate rebalancing was significantly higher in the EU than in the US. While the developments at the level of EU Member States are more heterogeneous and the process of rate rebalancing is not completed, these findings correspond to the predictions derived from our comparative institutional analysis.     

Learning from processing trade: Firm evidence from China

Processing export plays a significant role in international trade. In this paper, focusing on firm-level dynamics, we show that firms learn from their processing export experience to improve their subsequent ordinary export outcomes. Using transaction-level trade data and firm-level production data, we show that firms’ ordinary export performance, at both extensive and intensive margins, is enhanced by their own processing experience. Firms also export products with improved quality after engaging in processing exports of similar products. Furthermore, we investigate potential channels through which firms learn from processing experience. We find that firms potentially learn from processing experience to enhance production efficiency, to better understand how to improve product appeal to cater to specific markets, and to gain better and easier access to inputs. Moreover, we find that exporters benefit more from processing experience for larger markets with fiercer competition. Similarly, stronger learning effects are also observed when processing experience is associated with products that embody less diffused knowledge and are more differentiated. Also, firms learn more from processing experience when they are more actively engaged in processing imports. Lastly, we verify the economic significance and quantify the importance of these potential channels.     

Loan guarantees and the cost of debt: evidence from China

In this article, we examine the potential influence of loan guarantees and the nature of ownership on a company’s cost of debt. Using data on Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2014, we find that guaranteeing another entity’s debt significantly increases the guarantor’s cost of its own debt. Regarding the nature of ownership, our results indicate that the cost of debt for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is lower than that for non-SOEs. Among SOEs, firms controlled by the central government have lower cost of debt than firms controlled by local governments. We also find some evidence that local government ownership mitigates the effects of loan guarantees on the cost of a guarantor’s own debt.     

北京市人户分离人口状况分析及户籍制度改革的设想

利用北京市2005年1%人口抽样调查数据,分析北京市以及以北京市区县为单位的人户分离人口的状况,从中找出北京市外来人口的分布规律,寻求北京市人户分离人口的分布规律,找出存在的问题,并从户籍改革的角度提出解决北京市人户分离问题的建议。讨论的人户分离人口包括:户口在外地而调查登记时在本地(即本乡镇街道)的人,以及户口在本地,调查登记时在外地的人。     

新疆城乡最低生活保障制度运行分析

贫困是制约发展、影响稳定的重大社会问题,也是在短时间内无法改变的社会现实。低保制度的实行在新疆的经济建设发展过程中显得尤为重要,在很大程度上使一些困难群体减轻了贫困,促进了新疆的社会稳定和各民族间的团结。对新疆城乡低保制度运行现状进行分析,指出了其存在低保资金缺乏、管理体制不健全、缺乏与其他社会保障制度及福利项目的衔接等问题。在此基础上提出了拓宽资金来源渠道、不断完善低保管理制度、低保制度和相关的社会保障和社会福利制度相配合、扶持和发展慈善事业以及加快慈善事业的立法等对策建议。     

Does the CPI Mirror the Cost of Living? Engel's Law Suggests Not in Norway

There is considerable interest in identifying the magnitude of the difference between increases in the CPI and the cost of living. In this paper, the technique proposed by Hamilton (2001) to measure this discrepancy is used and extended for Norway in the 1990s. While Hamilton finds that the CPI in the United States overstates the cost of living for the period 1974–1991, application of his technique to Norwegian data for 1990–1999 indicates that the CPI understates the cost of living. The Norwegian CPI rose by 22 percent, but a typical household behaved as if the cost of living had increased by 35 percent. For some household types, the increase was substantially larger.     

我国旅游资源产权安排:一个新的分析框架

随着旅游产业的发展,旅游资源的外延逐渐扩大,旅游资源产权问题越发复杂.如果依然笼统地实行僵化的旅游资源管理模式,不但会使资源的利用效率降低,而且会对资源本身造成极大的危害.本文基于产权的角度,在对旅游资源重新进行分类的基础上,构建新的旅游资源产权体系,进而根据不同产权的有效性条件,提出了调整旅游资源的具体管理、运行制度的思路.     

Testing the balanced growth hypothesis: evidence from China

We investigate whether China’s experience during 1952–2004 supports the balanced growth entailment of the neoclassical growth model. Estimation of long-run relations among output, consumption and investment for the full period reject the balanced growth hypothesis for both the national and regional economies. When the economic reforms of the late 1970s are modelled as a structural break by the methods of Johansen et al. (Economet J 3(2):216–249, 2000) and Perron (Econometrica 57(6):1361–1401, 1989), we find some evidence of balanced growth in the pre-break period but in the post-break period the ‘great ratios’ are trend-stationary, precluding fully balanced growth, though permitting a common (stochastic) productivity trend.      

城市社区老年人生活照料网的构成及影响因素分析

以武汉城区为个案,运用调查数据描述了老年人生活照料网的构成,分析讨论了老年人自身经济特征对其生活照料网的影响。提出了加强老年人生活照料网建设的建议。     

Brothers and Breadwinners: Legislating Living Wages in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

Attention to the implicit and explicit wage theories articulated by economic actors and embedded in public policy reveals the underlying social norms and values in specific historical and industrial contexts. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), the first federal minimum wage legislation in the United States, legitimated and institutionalized the idea that living standards and workers' needs matter in setting wages. They matter not simply in generating labor supply, but as the basis for government intervention in market mechanisms. Rather than viewing market mechanisms and government regulations dichotomously, economic actors debating the FLSA treated both market mechanisms and socially defined living standards as legitimate elements of wage-setting. Wage regulations also, by necessity, must grapple with issues of identity, that is, which workers (especially as defined by class, gender, and race?–?ethnicity) are deserving of particular living standards. Debates over the language in the FLSA reveal the contested nature of masculinity during the period of economic crisis in the 1930s. Advocates responded by defining a multiplicity of living wages corresponding with different living standards, as well as a multiplicity of strategies for achieving them.     

The Effects of New Goods and Substitution on the Korean CPI as a Measure of Cost of Living

This paper estimates upper-level substitution and new-goods bias in the Korean Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. It has been estimated that the upper-level substitution bias in the CPI alone increased the inflation rate by 0.51 percentage points per year over the 13-year period between 1990 and 2002. The new-goods bias further increased the inflation rate by 0.17 and 0.13 percentage points per year between 1990-1995 and 1995-2000 respectively. The Chained Laspeyres index series that is based on annually-updated weights has been found to correct less than half of the upper-level substitution bias.     

主观感受对中国农村老年女性生活自理能力影响研究——基于陕西省农村的调查数据分析

利用2009年在陕西省进行的"陕西省农村老年女性生活福利状况"调查数据,分析了健康自评、心理福利自评两个个体主观感受变量对农村老年女性生活自理能力的影响。个体主观感受状态对农村老年女性生活自理能力有着显著的正相关影响,较好的健康自评和心理福利自评将显著提高老年女性的日常生活自理能力和器械支持自理能力。研究结果为增加农村老年女性主观感受,从而促进其生活自理能力的提高提供了理论依据。