Gains from Trade: Implications for Labour Market Adjustment and Poverty Reduction in Africa

Abstract: This paper reassesses the gains from trade for sub‐Saharan Africa, and draws their implications for labour market adjustment and poverty reduction. It reviews previous studies on multilateral liberalization, focusing on the findings from Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models with relevance to African economies. The implications of these findings for poverty reduction are discussed. Our own CGE exercise supports the hypothesis that African countries cannot expect substantial gains from further multilateral liberalization. Moreover, given the sharp contraction of import‐competing sectors in response to trade liberalization in many African economies, coupled with insufficient compensation through labour market adjustments in other sectors, this study suggests that the ultimate impact on poverty reduction is likely to be small or even negative.     

新标准下我国扶贫开发政策研究

2012年新扶贫标准的实施,标志着我国扶贫工作进入了一个新阶段,必将给我国扶贫开发工作带来新的机遇和挑战。文章指出,要进一步创新扶贫思路和机制,通过提高扶贫对象瞄准和扶贫资源利用效率、优化扶贫产业和项目选择机制、提高贫困人口素质以及推进政策协调等措施实现扶贫政策创新,开创扶贫开发工作的新局面。     

Poverty Reduction in China： The Contribution of Popularizing Primary Education

Using the instrumental variable model and the regression discontinuity approach,this paper explores how access to primary education affects the Chinese labor market and helps people to escape poverty.Several important findings are obtained.The popularization of primary education has significantly reduced poverty in China,especially in urban areas.In contrast,the Compulsory Education Law has not been well implemented for older children in rural areas.In addition,the labor market premium for completing primary education is much larger in urban areas than in rural areas.Poor rural school quality might explain this rural-urban disparity.Effort needs to be made to further reduce poverty by ensuring adequate financial resources for primary education in poor areas and improving school quality in rural China.     

Promoting pro-poor growth through infrastructure investment: Evidence from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China

This paper empirically estimates the effects of infrastructure investments on the level and distribution of impoverished households' income, utilizing the arguably exogenous investment shock from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China. We focus on the agricultural income of poor rural households. We also examine whether these infrastructure investments increase or decrease income inequality within the impoverished group. We distinguish among different types of infrastructure investment, aiming to identify the investments effective in promoting growth in agricultural income, especially for the poorest. Based on a comprehensive household-level administrative dataset and econometric analysis, we find that electricity infrastructure significantly increases poor households' agricultural income and that the income benefit is equally distributed among the poor; agricultural irrigation infrastructure raises agricultural income significantly and delivers more benefit to the poorest households. An examination of the mechanism shows that both electricity and irrigation infrastructure increase the probability of participating in agricultural work and therefore increase agricultural income. These findings imply that, through increasing the utilization of agricultural land and the labor of impoverished households, electricity and irrigation infrastructure investments in rural impoverished areas are likely to lead to pro-poor and sustainable development.     

African Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes and the Fisheries Sector: Current Situation and Opportunities*

Abstract: The formulation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) is one of the main conditions for concessional lending by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to developing countries. Nevertheless, while evidence indicates that the fisheries sector can contribute (often markedly at the local level) to improved livelihoods and the achievement of food security in Africa, the sector is often neglected in PRSPs. This article focuses on the 29 African states that have currently produced a PRSP, highlighting those nations for whom the fisheries sector has been a significant motor of economic growth or likely poverty refuge. It then analyses the extent to which the fisheries sector is incorporated into national PRSPs. Results of a mapping exercise demonstrate that while the sector is significant (in either growth or poverty terms) in 12 states, the sector was effectively mainstreamed in only three national PRSPs (Ghana, Guinea and Senegal).     

中国欠发达地区农村基础设施建设的战略调整与产业化扶贫

农村基础设施建设改革,是当前中国农村经济体制改革的根本问题,也是欠发达地区经济社会发展的重大问题。现阶段,中国欠发达地区农村基础设施建设普遍存在相关规制的缺位,严重制约了欠发迭地区农业现代化的进程。中国欠发达地区的农村基础设施建设普遍具有地域性特征。贵州、四川等欠发达地区的改革实践,已经探索建立了中国欠发达地区农村基础设施建设的多种范式。政府应注重实施产业化扶贫战略,统一规划,建立健全相关法律法规,维护农村村民的合法权益。     

扶贫项目参与、后续扶贫对企业绩效的影响——基于管理层持股与内部控制的调节作用

基于后扶贫时代的发展现状,选取2016—2019年中国A股企业为研究样本,运用统计分析法,探究扶贫项目参与和后续扶贫对企业绩效的影响,以及管理层持股比例和内部控制的调节作用.结果表明,扶贫项目参与、后续扶贫计划对企业绩效呈正向促进作用.进一步研究发现,在管理层持股比例较低、内部控制质量较高的企业中正向促进作用更加明显.可为吸引企业加入后扶贫建设,从而实现扶贫企业和脱贫人口联动互赢提供理论指导.     

Poverty Reduction and Effects of Pro-poor Policies in Rural China

The present paper describes changes in poverty reduction in recent decades and the effects of income growth and inequality on poverty reduction in rural China. The paper also examines the main poverty alleviation policies implemented in rural areas over the past l 0 years and assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of these policies from the perspective of targeting accuracy. It is found that China has achieved significant progress in rural poverty reduction in recent decades, although the speed of poverty reduction has varied from one period to another. The largest contribution to rural poverty reduction has been economic growth, which has been increasingly offset by the inequality effect on poverty reduction. In addition, poverty alIeviation policies are effective, but not efficient.     

The Evolution of Poverty in Nigeria 1985–92

In this note an alternative method for decomposing poverty changes over time is proposed and applied to Nigeria for the years 1985 and 1992. It is shown that the established method of decomposition which holds the poverty line constant at the reference period of the decomposition overestimates the size of the `growth component’ of any poverty change. The conclusion reached by applying the original decomposition method of Datt and Ravallion (1992) is changed completely if the proposed method is applied. Cette note propose et applique au Nigeria pour les années 1985 et 1992, une méthode différente de décomposition de l’évolution de la pauvreté dans le temps. Elle montre que la méthode de décomposition établie, qui maintient constants les seuils de pauvretéà la période de référence, surestime la taille de la “composante croissance” de l’évolution de la pauvreté. En appliquant la méthode proposée, on aboutit à une conclusion radicalement différente de celle de la méthode traditionelle de Datt et Ravallion.     

Roads to innovation: Firm-level evidence from People's Republic of China (PRC)

Although infrastructure and innovation play important roles in fostering a country's economic growth, discussion in the literature about how the two are connected is limited. This paper examines the impact of road density on firm innovation in the People's Republic of China. The analysis uses a matched patent database at the firm level and road information at the city level. Regional variation in the difficulty of constructing roads is used as an instrumental variable to address the potential endogeneity problem of the road variable. The empirical results show that a 10% improvement in road density increases the average number of approved patents per firm by 0.71%. Road development spurs innovation by enlarging market size and facilitating knowledge spillover.     

Taxation and the Environment–Health–Poverty Trap: A Policy Experiment Perspective

Under pressures related to economic growth and environmental protection, China is facing an increasingly severe “environment–health–poverty” trap risk. Fuel taxation is generally considered an effective policy to counter such a risk. Since 2009 China has raised the fuel tax rate many times to enhance tax reform. However, the effects of this policy remain unknown. Therefore, it is vitally important to estimate the impacts of China's current fuel taxation policy on environment, public health and the national economy. As the first attempt in existing literature on China, this paper builds a general equilibrium framework with the feedback effect of public health on economy. We find that that the fuel tax policy benefits the adjustment of the economic structure and improves human health; however, it is detrimental to economic growth, public welfare and price stability. In this sense, it plays a limited role in reducing the trap risk and might not be sustainable in the long term.     

The Hussain–Thirlwall Model: Extensions and Implications for Development Economics

Abstract: In the context of developing countries, Thirlwall and Hussain (1982) proposed to include capital flows and the terms of trade in a post‐Keynesian growth model based on foreign exchange constraint. Thereafter, the model has been improved to take into account the effect of debt servicing but its modification and adaptability are very broad and allow analysing multiple issues related to development economics. The model was also applied and tested in the majority of developing countries and the results generally supported the thesis according to which economic growth is led by exports because they are a source of foreign currencies and allow financing imports necessary to economic development. The objective of this article is to highlight the magnitude of the debates and the theoretical and empirical literature which followed the publication of the model and to underline its relevance in the analysis of development issues. In the case of sub‐Saharan Africa, Dr M. Nureldin Hussain worked out important development strategies (promotion of exports, effective utilization of foreign assistance, reduction of poverty) that are important to remember.     

建国后我国乡村社会公共治理回顾与前瞻

建国后,我国的乡村治理主要经历合作化阶段、人民公社化阶段和"乡政村治"三个历史时期。我国乡村治理的历程总体来看是一个在中国共产党的领导下,不断扩大民主,加强法制的历程。以史为鉴,面向未来,在中国农村社会公共治理机制的构建中,必须坚持党的领导、人民当家作主和依法治理的有机统一,充分发挥非政府组织在民主表达、协调、平衡利益的作用。     

大扶贫背景下农民组织化研究

经过多年努力,我国农村地区的脱贫攻坚进入深水区和关键期,越往后扶贫相对难度提升,投入资金成本愈高,而实际效益降低,故当前形势下的扶贫开发的理念和方式亟需进行根本性反思并转型。通过强化农民主体作用,发挥政府主导作用,从而提高农民组织化运行效率,进而破解当前贫困地区农村扶贫开发的现实困境。     

Fiscal Decentralization and Poverty Alleviation in a Transitional Economy: The Case of Viet Nam

Intergovernmental fiscal arrangements may play an important role in ameliorating poverty in many countries. Successful poverty alleviation generally requires both ‘capacity improving’ and ‘safety net’ policies, and both types of policies may, to some extent, be implemented through, or affected by, intergovernmental transfers. From this perspective, we analyse the efficacy of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements in poverty alleviation in a transitional economy, Viet Nam. We argue that both general and specific transfers are needed for this purpose: the former to enable all provinces to provide a given basket of public services at a given tax-price by offsetting their revenue and cost disabilities and the latter to ensure that minimum levels of those public services provided by lower levels of government are targeted to the poor throughout the country.     

统筹抓好“战疫”和“战贫” 全力以赴决战决胜脱贫攻坚

习近平总书记在3月6日决战决胜脱贫攻坚座谈会上强调,"到2020年现行标准下的农村贫困人口全部脱贫,是党中央向全国人民作出的郑重承诺,必须如期实现。这是一场硬仗,越到最后越要紧绷这根弦,不能停顿、不能大意、不能放松。"习近平总书记的重要讲话举旗定向,是我们打赢疫情防控人民战争和决战决胜脱贫攻坚的行动指南。农行重庆市分行坚决贯彻习近平总书记重要讲话精神,聚焦关键领域和薄弱环节,展现金融扶贫"国家队""主力军"责任担当,坚决克服新冠肺炎疫情影响,为夺取脱贫攻坚全面胜利贡献农行力量。