nep-cna New Economics Papers
on China
Issue of 2009‒12‒19
five papers chosen by
Zheng Fang
Ohio State University

  1. Do Migrants Really Save More? Understanding the Impact of Remittances on Savings in Rural China By Yu Zhu; Zhongmin Wu; Meiyan Wang; Yang Du; Fang Cai
  2. Employers’ Preferences for Gender, Age, Height and Beauty: Direct Evidence By Peter Kuhn; Kailing Shen
  3. Brain Drain, Brain Gain, and Economic Growth in China By Ha, Wei; Yi, Junjian; Zhang, Junsen
  4. Migration and Labor Mobility in China By Fang, Cai; Yang, Du; Meiyan, Wang
  5. Managing the interface between public sector applied research and technological development in the Chinese enterprise sector By Kroll, Henning; Schiller, Daniel

  1. By: Yu Zhu; Zhongmin Wu; Meiyan Wang; Yang Du; Fang Cai
    Abstract: This paper studies the impact of remittances on the savings behaviour of rural households in China, using a cross-sectional survey. Allowing for endogeneity and left-censoring of remittances, we find that the marginal propensity to save out of remittances is well below half of that out of other sources of incomes. Moreover, we find no evidence of any direct effect of remittances on either capital input or gross output of farm production. These findings are in line with recent studies which conclude that remittances are largely used for consumption purposes by rural Chinese households and there is no link between migration and productive investment.
    Keywords: Growth and cycles; recessions; technical efficiency; technical progress.
    JEL: D12 O15 R23
    Date: 2009–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0923&r=cna
  2. By: Peter Kuhn; Kailing Shen
    Abstract: We study firms’ advertised preferences for gender, age, height and beauty in a sample of ads from a Chinese internet job board, and interpret these patterns using a simple employer search model. We find that these characteristics are widely and highly valued by Chinese employers, though employers’ valuations are highly specific to detailed jobs and occupations. Consistent with our model, advertised preferences for gender, age, height and beauty all become less prevalent as job skill requirements rise. Cross-sectional patterns suggest some role for customer discrimination, product market competition, and corporate culture. Using the recent collapse of China’s labor market as a natural experiment, we find that firms’ advertised education and experience requirements respond to changing labor market conditions in the direction predicted by our model, while firms’ advertised preferences for age, gender, height and beauty do not.
    JEL: J6 J7
    Date: 2009–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15564&r=cna
  3. By: Ha, Wei; Yi, Junjian; Zhang, Junsen
    Abstract: This paper examines the effects of both permanent and temporary emigration on human capital formation and economic growth of the source regions. To achieve this end, this paper explores the Chinese provincial panel data from 1980 to 2005. First, the fixed effects model is employed to estimate the effect of emigration on school enrollment rates in the source regions. Relative to this aspect, we find that the magnitude (scale) of permanent emigrants (measured by the permanent emigration ratio) is conducive to the improvement of both middle and high schools enrollments. In contrast, the magnitude of temporary emigrants has a significantly positive effect on middle school enrollment but does not have a significant effect on high school enrollment. More interestingly, different educational attainments of temporary emigrants have different effects on school enrollment. Specifically, the share of temporary emigrants with high school education positively affects middle school enrollment, while the share of temporary emigrants with middle school education negatively affects high school enrollment. Second, the instrumental variable method is applied to estimate the effect of emigration on economic growth within the framework of system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The estimation results suggest that both permanent and temporary emigrations have a detrimental effect on the economic growth of the source regions. Our empirical tests provide some new evidence to the "brain drain" debate, which has recently received increasing attention.
    Keywords: Brain drain; human capital; emigration; economic growth
    JEL: O15 J22 J24 O12
    Date: 2009–08–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:19221&r=cna
  4. By: Fang, Cai; Yang, Du; Meiyan, Wang
    Abstract: China has witnessed the largest labor migration since the reform and opening up policies were implemented. According to the most recent statistics, the total number of rural to urban migrant workers reached 136 million. Migrants are defined as persons who have left out of township for more than 6 months. The migration flow has propelled the economic and societal transition in China through labor productivity enhancement and social restructuring. Accordingly, the Chinese government has improved the migration policies with increasing migration flow and the changes of labor market situations. This report is organized as follows. Section one briefly introduces when and how the migration started by reviewing the history, size and trend, impacts of migration in China and the vulnerability of migrants. Section two reviews the main migration policy changes in the past three decades. Section three illuminates the Lewisian turning point that marks economic development and transitioning in China. Section four discusses the relevance of China’s experiences to other developing economies in terms of economic development and migration policy changes.
    Keywords: Migration in China; Labor mobility; Impact of crisis
    JEL: O15 J0
    Date: 2009–04–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:19187&r=cna
  5. By: Kroll, Henning; Schiller, Daniel
    Abstract: China's technological capabilities are emerging rapidly and the country will become a major challenger to established nations in terms of R&D and innovation in the near future. For the moment, however, contradictory signals emerge from the Chinese economy leaving experts pondering about the country's true potential for technological upgrading on a broad scale. The integration of the domestic research system, international technology transfer, and technological development remains limited to a few high-tech companies, while large segments of the domestic private sector have limited access to knowledge and technologies to upgrade their activities. --
    Keywords: China,Guangdong,interface,knowledge supply,knowledge demand,regional innovation system,science-industry relations
    Date: 2009
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fisidp:17&r=cna

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