健康扶贫政策提升农村贫困老人主观幸福感了吗？

随着我国脱贫攻坚结束进入过渡期，健康扶贫政策对巩固脱贫攻坚提高农村贫困人口健康水平具有重要的意义。基于2015年和2018年中国健康与养老追踪调查（CHARLS）数据，运用倾向得分匹配和双重差分模型（PSM-DID），分析健康扶贫政策对农村贫困老人幸福感的影响及作用机制。研究结果表明，健康扶贫政策在5%的显著水平下提升了农村贫困老人的积极情感，并在1%的显著水平下降低了其消极情感；机制检验发现，健康扶贫政策通过提升农村贫困老人实际健康状况、降低医疗费用支出的路径提升了农村贫困老人主观幸福感；通过异质性分析发现，健康扶贫政策在5%的显著性水平下提升了健康状况较差的农村贫困老人积极情绪。最后提出逐步完善医疗保障体系、拓宽健康帮扶边界、提升医疗服务水平、树立大健康理念等建议。     

China's human capital investment

This paper discusses human capital investment in China. China's current policies favor physical capital investment over schooling and urban human capital investment over rural human capital investment. Current migration policies discriminate against children of migrants. A more balanced investment strategy across rural and urban regions and types of capital is appropriate. Private funding for education through tuition and fees should be encouraged and can supplement government funding and make schools more financially self-sufficient. However, if this policy is enacted, capital markets for financing education need to be developed to avoid discouraging students from poor families from attending school.     

Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis: Policy Responses to External Shocks in Uruguay

The 2008 global economic crisis affected the Uruguayan economy through two main channels: collapse in global trade and drop in capital flows. In response to the crisis, the Uruguayan government increased public consumption and investment and expanded social benefits to unemployed workers. We apply a computable general equilibrium model linked to microsimulations to analyze the distributional impacts of these policies and assess their effectiveness. We find that an increase in public investment was the only policy effective in mitigating the negative impact of the crisis on extreme poverty. The other policies reinforced the negative impact of the crisis on the poor. All three policies are costly and have an important impact on macroeconomic variables and the structure of production and export, while they have only slight or negative results on poverty and household income. More focalized policies, such as direct cash transfers, might have better results in terms of cost‐benefit.     

新疆扶贫资金投入及使用的绩效分析

本文概括了新疆农村的贫困现状、扶贫资金的投入情况及其变化,通过对新疆扶贫资金及其具体投向对农业总产值、农村贫困人口和农民人均纯收入的回归分析,来考察新疆扶贫资金使用的绩效,并提出相应的政策建议。     

对构建重庆区域性金融中心的思考

区域性金融中心是区域金融竞争的载体和平台,能聚集金融资金和其它生产要素,推动区域及周边地区的经济发展。从20世纪90年代以来,我国许多城市纷纷提出建立区域性金融中心,重庆也于2007年提出要在2015年建成"长江上游金融中心"。本文在分析评价的基础上,给出重庆区域性金融中心发展的建议。     

China＇s Pattern of Growth： Moving to Sustainability and Reducing Inequality

I. Introduction China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has averaged 9.4 percent per annum since1978. As a result of this impressive growth, millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Economic reforms implemented over the last 25 years have certainly been instrumental in the remarkable growth performance, leading to higher productivity growth than in the pre- reform period. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that China’s growth during this period has been resource intensive, drawing…     

基于经济增长的新疆减贫效果趋势分析

经济增长和减贫一直是发展中国家和地区制定发展战略所考虑的重点。改革开放初期,新疆通过经济增长极大地降低了农村贫困,经济增长的减贫效果显著;20世纪80年代中后期至2010年,由于经济增长的质量下降和收入不平等程度增加,减贫趋势变缓;2011年以后,随着援疆工作和民生工程的不断推进,高速的经济增长和对贫困人口有利的收入分配对减贫起到了良好的效果,经济增长出现了益贫性特征。纵观改革开放至今,新疆减贫成就的主要原因是经济持续的高速增长、人力资本的明显改善和政府采取的反贫困行动;而其减贫趋势放缓的原因是农村经济增长质量的下降和农村收入分配的不断恶化。为此,本文认为新时期扶贫工作中,新疆应实施益贫式增长战略。从生产领域着手,在增加就业的同时通过增加穷人的资产基础以提高穷人的自我发展能力,而政府在打造民生工程时应注重市场机制,以保持减贫的可持续性。     

Poverty and Inequality in The Soeharto Era: An Assessment

This paper surveys the evidence on trends in poverty and inequality during the years of Soeharto's presidency. That Indonesia saw a decline in the incidence of poverty, and improvements in other welfare indicators such as infant mortality rates and literacy rates over these years, seems indisputable. Comparative studies show that by the latter part of the 1980s, the headcount measure of poverty in Indonesia was below that in the Philippines although above that in Malaysia and Thailand. But relative poverty has declined more slowly, and indeed increased in some urban areas between 1987 and 1996. The paper also examines evidence on the determinants of rural poverty in Indonesia in 1993, and suggests that rural development programs targeted to the specific needs of poor people in poor areas will be essential if rural poverty is to be further reduced in future years.     

The Analysis of Rural Regional Disparity in China

Rural regional disparity has now become one of the most concerning problems in China. This paper attempts to show that the inequality is mainly caused by the uneven development of rural collectively owned enterprises (COEs). In the early 1990s, COEs accounted for more than 70% of rural regional inequality. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of current government policies for lessening regional disparity, we use a data envelopment analysis to measure the efficiency of COEs in the rural areas. The analysis shows that COEs in the eastern region are relatively more efficient than those in the central and western regions. To explain this, the potential sources of the COEs' production efficiency in different provinces are examined in detail. The production efficiency of Chinese COEs is found to be closely related to the employment of a shareholding cooperative system, foreign investment, skilled workers, and a bonus incentive scheme.     

Trickling Down the Rising Tide: New Estimates of the Link between Poverty and the Macroeconomy

This paper uses pooled time-series regressions of regional data to reexamine the link between poverty and the macroeconomy. The use of disaggregated data provides additional degrees of freedom and permits the inclusion of controls for demographic changes and increased income inequality. The results indicate a stronger relationship between poverty rates and the macroeconomy in the 1980s than that found in prior research and confirm that the dramatic reduction in unemployment during the late 1990s was instrumental in reducing poverty rates. The estimated results for the 1990s imply a 0.4-0.9% increase in the poverty rate for each 1% increase in the unemployment rate.     

A comparison of determinants of urban,rural and farm poverty in Costa Rica

The lack of progress on reducing poverty in Third World countries, and its growth during the 1980s, show that one of the fundamental goals of development has not been met. Addressing the renewed concern with poverty requires knowledge about the factors affecting poverty. This paper uses logistic regression analysis to estimate the effects of variables on urban, rural, farm, and nonfarm poverty among households in Costa Rica. Results show the complexity of the issue, and imply policies to expand education through the secondary level, to create more opportunities for rural off-farm employment, and to increase market opportunities and incentives for staple crop farmers.     

Impact of land tenure policy on agricultural investments in China: Evidence from a panel data study

The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of changes in China's rural land policy on agricultural investments. Dramatic changes occurred in China's rural land policies after 2000, including the extension of rural land contractual period, restriction of land reallocation among villages and villagers groups, elimination of agricultural taxes for responsibility land, and rapid development of rural land rental markets. These changes have given farmers more secure tenure on collectively controlled responsibility land and have strengthened farmers' income rights for responsibility lands, incentivizing them to increase their investments on responsibility lands. A panel data method was used to quantitatively investigate the impact of land policy changes on agricultural investment. We considered the application of organic fertilizer as an indicator for long-term agricultural investment, and compared the use of organic fertilizer between private plots and responsibility lands operated by the same household. The results showed that the difference in organic fertilizer use between private plots and responsibility land for the same household has become smaller from 2000 to 2008. Our findings suggest that recent changes in rural land policies have provided farmers incentives to increase land quality investment on their responsibility lands.     

Political institutions,entrenchments, and the sustainability of economic development – A lesson from rural finance

This paper provides insights on the sustainability of economic development from a historical and political economy perspective. We demonstrate that China's rural financial policy in the 1980s was quite liberal in employing market mechanisms, supporting entrepreneurship, and encouraging competition. These policies were abandoned in the early 1990s and replaced by ubiquitous government interferences that shifted resource and policy priorities to benefit political incumbents. A large panel of survey data confirms that rural household access to finance decreased dramatically in the 1990s and that the statistical significance of economic entrepreneurial factors in determining credit allocation also fell. Further empirical analyses show that market economic conditions are not sufficient to explain these changes and the evidence is consistent with a political entrenchment motive during the political regime after the turmoil in the year 1989. Given the connection between entrenchment and underdevelopment, our findings raise the concern that China's political institutions' insufficient limits on the government could be a challenge for China to sustain its economic success.     

社会保险缓解了农村老人的多维贫困吗？——兼论“贫困恶性循环”效应

老年人贫困是中国人口老龄化背景下亟需解决的问题,社会保险则在国家反贫与脱贫方面发挥着不可或缺的作用。采用具有代表性的中国老年健康影响因素（CLHLS2011）大样本微观跟踪调查数据,构建Logit计量回归模型,将农村老人贫困分为经济贫困、健康贫困与精神贫困三个维度,从实证的角度,探讨了社会保险与农村老人贫困的关系。研究发现,养老保险与医疗保险在不同程度上缓解了农村老人多个维度的贫困。文章进一步指出农村老人贫困存在“恶性循环”,经济贫困、健康贫困与精神贫困三个维度之间存在显著的相互正向影响,但社会保险对农村老人陷入“贫困恶性循环”起到了的调节效应,即社会保险弱化了不同贫困之间相互的正向作用。这些经验发现可以为政府改善农村老龄人群的贫困状况提供可靠的政策依据。     

Does Allocation of Public Spending Matter in Poverty Reduction? Evidence from Thailand*

The present paper uses a panel dataset to estimate the marginal returns to different types of government expenditure on agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction in Thailand. The study finds that additional government spending on agricultural research provides the largest return in terms of agricultural productivity and has the second largest impact on rural poverty reduction. Increased investment in rural electrification has the largest poverty reduction impact, mainly through improved nonfarm employment. Rural education has the third largest impact on both productivity and poverty reduction. Irrigation has a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but regional variation is considerable. Government spending on rural roads has no significant impact on agricultural productivity and its poverty reduction impact ranks last among all investment alternatives considered. Additional investment in the Northeast Region has a greater impact on poverty reduction than in other regions.     

Utilising a Demand-led Approach in a Local Labour Market

Traditional labour market activation policies have tended to be focused on labour supply and improving the opportunities for new entrants or re-entrants to obtain appropriate paid employment. This emphasis was encouraged in the 1980s and 1990s by shifts in the location and nature of employment (deindustrialisation), growing and persistent levels of unemployment and policy concerns with labour market disadvantage. More recently, the need to ensure international competitiveness, often by minimising local labour costs and enhancing labour flexibility, has been accompanied by a concern amongst employers at the impact of skill shortages. One response has been to shift the policy focus from supply to demand, essentially by seeking to understand the changing nature of local labour demand and by developing appropriate labour market initiatives. This paper analyses the case study provided by a labour market initiative in a regional labour market in New Zealand to assess the utility of such an approach. The Waitakere Employment and Skills Project (WESP) is a collaborative approach to labour demand, involving a number of economic development and local/national government agencies, as well as a university research team (including the author).     

Stock Market Development, Liquidity Constraint and Investment: A Case of Korean Jaebol and Non-Jaebol Manufacturing Firms in the 1980s

The Korean stock market experienced sudden growth in mid-1986. Since then, Korean firms have begun to rely on the stock market as a reliable source of funds. This paper analyses the change in financing behaviour after the 1986 Korean stock market development. Many researchers argue that in developed countries, the liquidity constraint binds a firm's investment decisions. What then is the effect of liquidity on firms in developing countries? These issues will be examined by using a Tobin’s Q model of investment. A total of 171 Korean manufacturing firms, both Jaebol and Non-Jaebol, are investigated for the 1980s. Most empirical studies have not shown an economically large and significant Q effect when cash flow is used in the model. However, empirical results here show that with a strong liquidity effect, Q is large and statistically significant, implying a moderate adjustment cost.     

减少农村贫困,缩小贫富差距

社会和谐是中国特色社会主义的本质属性。农村贫困人口的存在,既遏制了贫困地区经济社会的发展,也拉大了贫富差距和城乡差距,对构建和谐社会是一个极大的障碍。现阶段,我国农村贫困出现了一些新的特征。根据新情况,反贫困措施主要有:一是通过教育和培训,提高贫困人口的质量、增强他们自我发展的能力;二是实现开发式扶贫和救助式扶贫并重;三充分发挥经济政策对消除贫困的作用;四是改变国家扶贫资金的瞄准机制,改革扶贫资金管理体制。     

克服农村文化贫困——社会主义和谐社会视角下的反贫困道路

文章通过对实践背景、理论背景和政策背景的分析揭示目前克服农村文化贫困的必要性，从文化理性的缺乏和对优秀传统文化的忽视两方面阐述了农村文化贫困的主要现状，强调文化因素对地区经济和社会发展的巨大反作用，主张文化贫困是造成经济贫困的重要原因，旨在通过对非经济贫困问题的深入探讨，找到和谐社会视角下农村反文化贫困的新途径。