Economic liberalization and urban–rural inequality in India: a quantile regression analysis

We examine India’s urban–rural inequality in welfare in 1993–1994 and 2004, a period which coincides with the country’s economic liberalization reforms and rapid economic growth. Using real monthly per capita household consumption expenditure as our measure of welfare, we estimate quantile regressions to analyze the urban–rural welfare gap across the entire welfare distribution. While the urban–rural welfare gap was fairly convex across the welfare distribution in 1993–1994, it became more concave in 2004, with the gap narrowing for the lowest and highest quintiles and widening for the middle three quintiles. The urban–rural gap in returns to all levels of education widened substantially for the bottom four quintiles but became increasingly negative for the top quintile. Applying the Machado and Mata (J Appl Econom 20:445–465, 2005) decomposition technique to decompose the urban–rural welfare gap at each percentile, we find that for the bottom 40% of the distribution, differences in the distribution of covariates became less important while differences in the distribution of returns to covariates became more important in explaining the gap. The opposite was true for the top 40% of the distribution. Our analysis suggests that while the rural poor appear to be catching up with their urban counterparts in terms of labor market characteristics, ten years of economic reforms have intensified the urban–rural gap in returns to these characteristics. On the other hand, the rural rich lag even further behind the urban rich with respect to their labor market characteristics even though the urban–rural gap in the returns to these characteristics has diminished during the reform period. Future efforts to generate urban–rural equality may require policies that seek to equalize returns to labor market characteristics between the two sectors at the lower half of the distribution and improve rural labor market characteristics at the top half of the distribution.     

Crime during the business cycle: urban–rural differences

Despite the abundant literature on how crime evolves over the business cycle, no consensus has arisen whether crime increases or decreases during recessions. The literature provides both positive and negative associations between the crime rate and the unemployment rate, a commonly used proxy for the business cycle. This study revisits this issue and uses county-level data from 1990 to 2013. It allows for differences as to how unemployment relates to both property crime and violent crime depending on the size of the counties. We find evidence of a positive association between unemployment and property crime that strengthens with county size. The results show the same pattern for violent crime but are statistically weaker. Our findings suggest that the positive association between property crime and unemployment that others have found is largely driven by more populous areas.     

Conserving metapopulations in human-altered landscapes at the urban–rural fringe

The conversion of natural areas to human-dominated land uses results in loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitat which often lead to species endangerment and local extinction. The risk of endangerment may be particularly acute for species that exist as metapopulations in which viability of the species is contingent upon dispersal of individuals among local sub-populations. This paper uses an optimization framework to investigate the problem of conserving metapopulations residing in areas at the urban–rural fringe. We compare the optimal allocation of preservation to outcomes of four other policy alternatives including the reserve-site-selection option that fully preserves habitat patches while allowing full development of the intervening dispersal matrix. In general, the optimal allocation includes some amount of preservation in both habitat patches and dispersal matrix, with the level of protection typically greater in habitat patches. The reserve-site-selection conservation option is optimal in only a few cases. Heterogeneity in terms of land use and landscape structure adds complexity to the optimal solution such that no one policy works well across all land units and in situations where the landscape structure is skewed, full protection of some land units and full development of others becomes more common.     

The urban–rural divide,regional disaggregation and the convergence of crime

Potential regional variation in crime rates has been recognized as an issue of clear importance given its implications for the development and evaluation of theories of criminal activity, determining the appropriate level of disaggregation at which to undertake empirical analyses of crime and whether crime fighting policies should be constructed at a national or local level. Consequently, a literature has evolved examining the similarities in US regional crime rates and whether a national trend exists or is emerging. The present article extends the recent research into the emergence of a national trend by considering convergence in alternative classifications of crime using a data set subject to a higher degree of disaggregation than considered hitherto. The results obtained overturn previous findings obtained using more highly aggregated data, indicating the detection of convergence to be dependent upon the level of disaggregation considered. In addition, the extent of convergence detected is shown to vary across classifications of criminal activity and reflect anecdotally noted changes in the evolution of crime at a national level. The implications of the observed regional variation in crime for the urban–rural divide and theoretical, empirical and policy analyses are noted.     

Linkages between poverty and income inequality of urban–rural sector: a time series analysis of India’s urban-based aspirations from 1951 to 1994

This study examines the impact of urban and rural development on poverty and inequality in India before economic reform. The methodology comprises two dimensions. Modern time series methods are used to uncover the dynamic patterns of urban–rural poverty and income inequality. A machine-learning algorithm is used to determine the causal structure among the development indicators. Our results show that reductions in rural poverty appear to be a more effective in reducing both urban and rural poverty, although the costs of achieving these reductions have not been considered.     

The political economics of investment Utopia: public–private partnerships for urban infrastructure finance

This article explores the policy disconnect between the pursuit of private investment return and the public desire for enhanced social value from public–private partnership (P3) investments in urban infrastructure. Investors view infrastructure finance as an opportunity for relatively safe, high-return investing. But infrastructure-financing architecture to achieve high private returns frequently clashes with financing models that sustain long-term social benefits. The full implications of relational tensions in the structuring of P3s are analyzed. The principal policy conclusion is that, because of these tensions, the use of P3s for this purpose should be restricted.     

Analysis on the disparity in economic growth and consumption between urban sector and rural sector of China: 1978–2008

This paper designs a theoretical model of excess per-capita income growth and brings forward such indices as excess per-capita income, per-capita base consumption and decreasing factor as well as the corresponding measurement methods. It studies from a brand new aspect the disparity between the economic growth in urban sector and rural sector of China in the past 30 years after the reform and opening-up, together with the disparity between the effects of such growth on consumption. The research results show that: At present the problem of the duality of urban and rural sector of China is still serious; the impaired amount of economic growth in urban sector is larger than that in rural sector while the impairing strength in rural sector is higher than that in urban sector; and it is vital to increase the excess per-capita investment in rural sector in order to effectively strengthen consumption related policies. Therefore, promoting urbanization but reasonably controlling the urbanization progress while strengthening the infrastructure construction in rural areas would be the efficient approach to reduce the impairing strength over the economic growth, to build up consumption market, to improve the duality of economy and to realize sustainable development.     

Asymmetric farm–retail price transmission and market power: a new test

A finite mixture model is used to estimate farm–retail price transmission in the US fresh strawberry market. Results suggest two distinct pricing regimes associated with off- and peak-harvesting seasons. The market power parameter is significant in the peak-harvest regime, but not in the off-peak regime. Moreover, price changes are transmitted completely throughout the marketing channel in the off-peak regime when the market power parameter is zero, but not in the peak-harvest regime when the market power parameter is positive. This suggests that produce buyers are more apt to exercise market power when farm supplies are abundant than when they are scarce, and that the exercise of such power causes the farm–retail price linkage to become asymmetric.     

Household income mobility in rural China: 1989–2006

This article analyzes household income mobility in rural China between 1989 and 2006. The results indicate that incomes in rural China are highly mobile. The high degree of rank and quantity mobility implies re-ranking and mean convergence in income distribution, but the disparity between them also enlarged with leveling-up and Gini divergence brought about by economic growth. In addition, there exists considerable transitorily poor and rich in positional mobility. Though, transitory movement provides an opportunity for both poor and rich and decreases long-term inequality, it also causes considerable income fluctuations and economic insecurity. Moreover, the equalizing effect of income mobility on income inequality is weakening.     

Caregiver priorities for endpoints to evaluate treatments for Prader-Willi syndrome: a best–worst scaling

Abstract

Objectives: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare genetic disorder associated with varying degrees of hyperphagia, obesity, intellectual disability, and anxiety across the affected individuals’ lifetimes. This study quantified caregiver priorities for potential treatment endpoints to identify unmet needs in PWS.

Methods: The authors partnered with the International Consortium to Advance Clinical Trials for PWS (PWS-CTC) and a diverse stakeholder advisory board to develop a best–worst scaling instrument. Seven relevant endpoints were assessed using a balanced incomplete block design. Caregivers were asked to determine the most and least important of a sub-set of four endpoints in each task. Caregivers were recruited nationally though patient registries, email lists, and social media. Best–worst score was calculated to determine caregiver priorities; ranging from 0 (least important) to 10 (most important). A novel kernel-smoothing approach was used to analyze caregiver endpoint priority variations with relation to age of the PWS individual.

Results: In total, 457 caregivers participated in the study. Respondents were mostly parents (97%), females (83%), and Caucasian (87%) who cared for a PWS individual ranging from 4–54 years. Caregivers value treatments addressing hyperphagia (score?=?7.08, SE?=?0.17) and anxiety (score?=?6.35, SE?=?0.16) as most important. Key variations in priorities were observed across age, including treatments targeting anxiety, temper outbursts, and intellectual functions.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that caregivers prioritize hyperphagia and, using a novel method, demonstrates that this is independent of the age of the person with PWS. This is even the case for parents of young children who have yet to experience hyperphagia, indicating that these results are not subject to a hypothetical bias.     

Urban–rural income disparities and development in a panel data set of China for the period from 1978 to 2006

We examine the relationship between urban–rural income disparities and development in a panel data set of 30 provinces and regional subsets of China during the period of 1978 to 2006. There is an inverted-U relationship between the urban–rural income gap and per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Financial development by scale widens the urban–rural income gap in all regional samples, while financial sector efficiency and rural bank loans may reduce it in some regions. Government spending raises the urban–rural income gap as well. We also examine the effects of urbanization, openness and education.     

Differentiation and restructuring – new space for development of urban center area： a case study of Shizhong District of Ji＇nan City

Taking the development tendency of current world industrial development as the background, this paper restructures the internal space of urban center area by illustrating reasons for internal space differentiation of urban center area, that is to say, according to the tertiary industry interior＇s high-end of value chain after convergence among the primary, the secondary and the tertiary industries, the space structure of urban center area will form the space development mode with characteristic modern service industry cluster districts through vertical segmentation, horizontal derivatization and block aggregation and realize perfect space renewal of urban center area in the end.     

The All-Russian National Front – for Russia: a new actor in the political and economic landscape

The All-Russian National Front (ARNF), created by Vladimir Putin in 2011, has rapidly increased its power and influence in policy-making. The Front has been used to monitor regional policies and to check both the effectiveness and loyalty of regional governors in carrying out central government policies. This article examines the main activities of the Front and its membership since its creation, and considers the implications for future economic development in Russia.     

Appraisal of the vegetation-based services for cropland ecosystems： a case study of a high-yielding county in North China

1. Introduction Ecosystem services are explicitly defined as “the natural environmental conditions and effects upon which people rely for existence that are formed and maintained by ecosystems and ecological processes” [1] . The valuation of ecosystem goods and services has become an important issue in the field of envi- ronmental protection and sustainable development, which also represents one aspect of the United Na- tions Millennium Assessment. At present, the re- search associated wit…     

Questions for Kaleckians: a response ∗

In the previous article Ian Steedman raises a range of issues in connection with the Kaleckian treatment of prices. In this article, I argue that many of the points raised are misplaced whilst others do make a positive contribution.