民族院校学生非正式群体问题的研究

民族院校学生中存在着大量的非正式群体。它产生于人的团体归属感。非正式群体内部成员之间具有需求和兴趣的互补、利益和观念的相同性。根据其活动内容，可以进行不同的分类。非正式群体是正式群体各项工作及活动的重要补充，对于正式组织有积极的作用，也有负面作用。对于非正式群体，要具体分析，区别对待，做好教育引导工作。     

Effort and Performance: What Distinguishes Interacting and Noninteracting Groups from Individuals?

We study how group membership affects behavior both when group members can and cannot interact with each other. Our goal is to isolate the contrasting forces that spring from group membership: a free‐riding incentive leading to reduced effort and a sense of social responsibility that increases effort. In an environment with varying task difficulty and individual decision making as the benchmark, we show that the free‐riding effect is stronger. Group members significantly reduce their effort in situations where they share the outcome but are unable to communicate. When group members share outcomes and can interact, they outperform groups without communication and individuals. We show that these groups do as well as the best constituent member would have done on his or her own.     

For the Motion

The interest rate is one of the most important factors in farmers’ decision-making of borrowing and lending in the informal financial market in China. This paper explores the determinants of the interest rate with microfinance data. Results show that the income disparity, the relationship between borrowers and lenders, the usage of borrowing, and formal credit constraints are important factors affecting interest rates. More importantly, to borrow from those in the higher income hierarchy, farmers have to bear higher interest rates. We attribute this to different social capitals across income groups and higher default risks for the poor. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the informal financial market in rural China and sheds light on the mechanism of higher informal interest rate formation.     

Does the Group Leader Matter? The Impact of Monitoring Activities and Social Ties of Group Leaders on the Repayment Performance of Group‐based Lending in Eritrea

Abstract: This paper analyses whether the effects of monitoring and social ties of the group leader and other group members on repayment performance of groups differ, using data from an extensive questionnaire held in Eritrea among participants of 102 groups. We hypothesize that the monitoring activities and social ties of the group leader have a stronger positive impact on the repayment performance of groups. The results show that social ties of the group leader do have a positive effect on repayment performance of groups, whereas this is not true for social ties of other group members. We do not find evidence for the hypothesis that monitoring activities of the group leader have a stronger positive impact on group repayment performance. All variables measuring monitoring activities, either of the group leader or the other group members, are found to be statistically insignificant.     

流动人口非正规就业空间竞争:基于上海若干样点的调查

流动人口占有市场空间是个体或利益集团相互竞争、实现市场空间均衡的结果。本文以上海流动人口为研究对象,以非正规就业空间为研究视角,通过分析四类不同性质的非正规就业群体,阐明了流动人口就业空间竞争的基本原理与基本过程,并得出流动人口空间竞争的原动力来源于获利的可能性,空间竞争的过程是空间占有的过程,也是利益均衡的过程。     

Formal and informal rural credit in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam: Interaction and accessibility

This paper examines the factors influencing rural households’ access to credit in the Vietnamese market. Analysis confirms an interaction effect between informal and formal credit sectors in which informal credit positively influences accessibility to microcredit programs. Ignoring this interaction effect may lead to microcredit providers making loan decisions that are less than optimal. In the formal credit sector, the lowest income group faces more credit rationing than other groups, despite the fact that microcredit programs are designed to target households at the bottom of the income pyramid. Results demonstrate that land holding status, informal interest, and informal loan duration are important factors influencing access to informal credit. Factors influencing microcredit accessibility include local government employee status, credit group membership, a “poor” certificate, educational attainment, working skills and village road access. To reduce reliance on informal credit and improve microcredit accessibility, rural households should actively participate in a microcredit group.     

Evaluation of the impact of Village Savings and Loan Associations using a novel survey instrument

Formal microfinance institutions have been an important tool in the fight against poverty in developing countries, but their reach is necessarily limited. Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) are an alternative, informal mechanism for saving and borrowing that do not require external capital or ongoing financial or administrative support from a founding organisation. This article evaluates the impact of VSLAs on their members and finds that long-term members fare better along multiple economic, nutritional, and health dimensions compared with a control group of recent joiners.     

An Empirical Analysis of Health Shocks and Informal Risk Sharing Networks

Using panel household survey data from rural Ethiopia, we investigate informal risk sharing against health shocks in the presence of multiple risk sharing networks. We find that neither short‐term nor long‐term health shocks are insured through transfers from networks such as friends, neighbors, and members of informal associations. However, networks related along bloodline such as extended family members provide assistance when health shocks are long‐term such as disabilities. The results show that these networks strategically complement planned component of their transfers which are made on a regular basis such as remittance, entitlement, or chop money (small cash sums for household expenses). Moreover, we find significant history dependence in transfers from not only genetically distant networks but also extended family members as well as formal institutions, which seems to discourage dependency. Finally, the findings suggest significant heterogeneity in transfers.     

Does the Group Leader Affect Repayment Performance Differently?

Theoretical models of group lending assume that all group members are identical in terms of their effect on repayment performance. In practice, however, this may not be true. We use a unique data set obtained from a survey of 160 borrowing groups in Jordan to investigate the impact of joint liability, screening and monitoring activities, and social ties of the group leader and other group members on repayment performance as measured by the intensity of default using a negative binomial II model. Our results suggest that the joint liability and screening activities of the leader are more strongly related to repayment performance than the same variables for the rest of the group members. Social ties of all members have a significant effect on repayment, while monitoring activities have no effect.     

Inter-vivos Transfers and Exchange

Most parents divide their bequests equally among their children, whereas inter-vivos transfers are usually unequal. We propose that exchange is better for inducing inter-vivos transfers than bequests. Inter-vivos transfers can be adjusted quickly to the amount of care, are less costly than writing a will, and can be kept secret from other family members and the public. The results from national longitudinal data show that, as expected, if a parent gives any inter-vivos transfers, she is more likely to give to children who provide informal care. Informal care has no effect on the equality of intended bequests.     

INFRASTRUCTURE AND TIME POVERTY IN LESOTHO

This paper uses a combination of nationally representative individual level time use, household and community data to further our understanding of time poverty. With a common, and growing, perception in the empirical literature being that Sub Saharan African females are typically disadvantaged in market‐based activities because of the large time burden of having to undertake both formal work and domestic duties, it is important to understand some of the key processes and issues that underpin, and link with, poverty reduction. Using nationally representative data from Lesotho we are able to provide unique insights into gender‐related, formal and informal, work allocations and specifically obtain insights regarding the main determinants of those who are “time poor”, and how key infrastructural elements impact on this.     

Individual well-being in urban China: The role of income expectations

Using household survey data, we study the determinants of individual well-being in urban China, emphasizing particularly the role of income expectations. First, we find that individual well-being increases contemporaneously with own income and decreases with community's average income, consistent with findings reported in previous studies. This result holds when we replace income with consumption and when we consider employment and health status of other family members. Second and more important, we find that income expectations have a positive and significant effect on individual well-being. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and to controls for optimistic personality. Instrumental variable estimates and endogeneity tests suggest that the positive relationship between well-being and income expectations is genuine. Our finding has the potential to explain why reported well-being has declined in China despite the spectacular economic growth in the past decades.     

Human Resource Underutilization in an Era of Poverty Reduction: An Analysis of Unemployment and Underemployment in Ghana

Abstract: Unemployment is more prevalent in urban than rural Ghana, while underemployment is pervasive in rural Ghana. The paper analyses trends in these two forms of human resource underutilization and examines their major determinants. It is found that a positive association exists between the underemployment rate and the incidence of poverty in specific industries. The data supports the importance of demographics, education and firm sizes as major determinants of unemployment. Furthermore, these factors together with type of employment are the factors influencing underemployment. To reduce the level of unemployment and underemployment, the government should provide support for: (1) growth of private sector firms and informal sector activities; and (2) rural alternatives to agricultural activities. These implications are also relevant to other African countries trying to combat the twin problems of unemployment and underemployment.     

Mobile Payment and Informal Business: Evidence from China's Household Panel Data

This paper uses household panel data to explore the impact of mobile payments on China's household business activity. Using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effect specification, I find that mobile payment users are more likely to operate small‐scale and self‐employed informal businesses. The impact of using mobile payment primarily derives from the transition of agricultural families to business owners and the development of informal businesses. The paper illustrates an associated increase in employment and income for family members, with more pronounced effects on low‐income and rural households. It also provides prima facie evidence of the increase in fund transfers, which is important for risk sharing that informal businesses may encounter.     

Women's Participation in Local Organizations: Conditions and Constraints

Civic organizations have a capacity to contribute to economic growth and an equitable distribution of welfare by reducing information asymmetries and transaction costs. While donors increasingly recognize that group-based projects are a means to advocate organizational capacities of target groups, it is not clear whether group-based organizations always increase efficiency and equity. This article analyses the determinants of participation in local development groups (LDGs) using data from two projects funded by UNDP in Kashmir and GTZ in Chad. A major result of the empirical analysis is the identification of a “middle-class effect” of participation. The exclusion of the majority of the poor can be explained by high opportunity costs to join the group, especially for income-earning women. In addition, it can be shown that an existing social network is a pre-condition for participation. Finally, the assumption has been confirmed that bargaining power of the members is important for their decision to participate in groups.     

The meaning of “social safety nets”

In Southeast Asia, the issue of “social safety nets” (SSNs) has emerged more prominently since the financial crisis. Despite the increased interest in social safety nets, there is still considerable confusion among scholars and national and international organizations regarding the use and meaning of the term. This article considers the different definitions of the term—particularly as it was used during the Asian Financial Crisis—and to attempt to clarify its meaning and proper use.The safety net analogy is drawn from high-wire walkers who are protected by a safety net if they fall. The safety net prevents any walker who falls—unexpectedly or not—from hitting the floor and incurring catastrophic injuries. Following this line of reasoning, it is not surprising to learn that some organizations and scholars use the term SSN such that it encompasses private and public mechanisms that assist individuals in maintaining a minimum level of consumption.The term “social safety net” (SSN) began to be used by Bretton Woods’ institutions in connection with structural adjustment programs related to their lending programs. Developing countries introduced SSNs to mitigate the social impact of structural adjustment measures on specific low-income groups. They were initially formulated to serve three objectives: poverty alleviation, to make adjustment programs more politically acceptable, and institutional reform. During the Asian Financial Crisis, there was a great deal of confusion regarding the content and consequent identification of SSN programs.Public SSN programs can be classified into formal and informal safety nets. Formal and informal safety nets are, generally, distinguished by law enforcement: formal safety nets are those which legally guarantee individuals access to economic or social support whereas informal safety nets provide likelihood of support to individuals to assure them of attaining or remaining above the designated minimum standard of living but with no legal guarantee.Informal SSNs can be divided into private and public ones. Examples of private informal SSNs include transfers from family members, friends, neighbors and community members and institutions, including NGOs, while those of public informal SSNs refer to the support which individuals can hope for from the government, through programs which generate assets or employment, transfer income, or provide basic social services, as a means of helping affected individuals from falling below the designated minimum standard of living. The difference between formal and informal public SSNs is whether there exists a formal legal support of the assistance.The article has provided more discussion on the definitions of SSN used by the World Bank, ESCAP, ILO and TDRI.In conclusion, the authors note that the tremendous variation in the use of the term invites confusion and makes it virtually useless as a technical concept. The very nature of the metaphor invokes a vision of a large net that encompass a number of different types of programs. In many cases it is not even possible to list specific programs that are included, as the particular forms of these programs could, of course, vary with place, time and circumstances. Complicating things further, the term is sometimes used in a very narrow sense. Given the low probability that usage of the term will ever be standardized, economists and national/international organizations might be well served by avoiding the term completely and instead using its component parts.     

Punishment in a Linear Public Good Game with Productivity Heterogeneity

Summary  Although it is widely recognized that sanction increases cooperation in a public good game, comparatively little attention has been paid to a scenario in which agents have heterogeneous productivities (i.e. asymmetric impact on the group account). This paper examines the extent to which sanction works in this scenario by varying marginal per capita return (MPCR) among group members. Experimental results indicate that in the absence of sanctions, productivity heterogeneity hampers cooperation. Allowing punishment in these groups significantly enhances average contributions of group members, but does not increase welfare. In groups in which cooperation is highly successful, high-productivity agents actively punish low-productivity agents in initial periods. However, conditional on individual contributions, high-productivity agents receive more punishment, and behave more responsively by raising their contributions in the next period. The results mirror the reality in which elites in a society are under higher pressure, since their choices are likely to have a deeper impact on a society.     

Trade openness and household welfare within a country: A microeconomic analysis of Vietnamese households

The positive effects of trade liberalisation on several dimensions of poverty have initiated studies of the trade–poverty relationship. Trade liberalisation accompanies institutional reforms that help to reduce institutional barriers against the poor. This study examines the impacts of trade openness and institutional reforms on rural household welfare at the provincial level through the analysis of the determinants of welfare of rural households in Vietnam. The study employs a model of micro-determinants of growth and tests it on the data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) of 2006 and 2010. What makes the study different from some other studies of the same vein is that it attempts to directly capture the institutional effect on welfare. The study finds that, in the provinces with high institutional reforms and trade openness, the welfare of rural households improved. Institutional reforms in Vietnam appeared to be sluggish in the late 2000s. In particular, both access to land and lower informal charges were the important determinants of welfare improvement over time. These findings suggest that Vietnam should maintain its development by accelerating the process of institutional reforms, thereby helping poor households to improve standards of living.     

发展中国家农村养老保障构架与我国农村养老保险模式选择

发展中国家农村养老保障由纳费型养老保险计划、非纳费型养老金计划以及其他非正规保障制度所组成。非纳费型养老金在较多的发展中国家农村占据重要地位,非正规制度的养老保障在较多发展中国家的保障力度还比较强大。我国应该改变目前农村既定的农村社会养老保险制度模式,在中等收入和低收入地区要逐步有序实施非纳费型养老金计划,同时加强商业保险保障代之个人账户养老金,在一种渐进的动态整合中,逐步实现农村社会养老保险制度与城镇社会养老保险制度的整合统一。     

A quantitative determination of the food security status of rural farming households in the Northern Province of South Africa

The majority of South Africans living in rural areas are food insecure despite high levels of national food self-sufficiency. The household food security position of two groups of rural farming households in the Venda region was evaluated quantitatively: one group produces vegetables that are sold or consumed locally, the other group produces cash crops – mangoes and other subtropical fruits. Using the collected data, food availability and energy, protein and fat requirements were calculated and balances derived. It was found that more than 80 per cent of the households had a negative balance of energy, protein and fat intake. The average energy, protein and fat coverage consumption was the same for both groups of farmers. A number of agricultural determinants were tested, but only non-agricultural determinants were found to be significant. These include household size, household (food) expenditure and proportion of the budget spent on food.