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on China |
| By: | Wei Ha (Policy Specialist at the Human Development Report Office, UNDP); Junjian Yi (Economics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong); Junsen Zhang (Economics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of rural-to-urban migration on income inequality and gender wage gap in source regions using a newly constructed panel dataset for around 100 villages over a ten-year period from 1997 to 2006 in China. Since income inequality is time-persisting, we use a system GMM framework to control for the lagged income inequality, in which contemporary emigration is also validly instrumented. We found a Kuznets (inverse U-shaped) pattern between migration and income inequality in the sending communities. Specifically, contemporary emigration increases income inequality, while lagged emigration has strong income inequalityreducing effect in the sending villages. A 50-percent increase in the lagged emigration rate translates into one-sixth to one-seventh standard deviation reduction in inequality. These effects are robust to the different specifications and different measures of inequality. More interestingly, the estimated relationship between emigration and the gender wage gap also has an inverse Ushaped pattern. Emigration tends to increase the gender wage gap initially, and then tends to decrease it in the sending villages. |
| Keywords: | Internal Migration; Inequality; System GMM |
| JEL: | O15 J61 D31 C33 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdr:papers:hdrp-2009-27&r=cna |
| By: | Kai Guo; Papa M'B. P. N'Diaye |
| Abstract: | This paper gauges the key determinants of China's private consumption in relation to GDP using data on the Chinese economy and evidence from other countries' experiences. The results suggest there is nothing "special" about consumption in China. Rather, the challenge is to explain why the conditioning variables-notably a low level of service sector employment, the level of financial sector development, and low real interest rates-are so different in China relative to other countries' historical experience. The results suggest, in particular, that efforts to further raise household income and the share of employment in the services sector, as well as to develop capital markets, including liberalizing interest rates and creating alternative savings instruments are likely to have the biggest impact on consumption. Other mechanisms to raise household income and mitigate household-specific risk (such as by improving the healthcare and pension systems) also have a role to play. |
| Keywords: | China, People's Republic of , Cross country analysis , Economic models , Employment policy , Income distribution , Private consumption , Private savings , Private sector , Services sector , |
| Date: | 2010–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:10/93&r=cna |
| By: | Carine Milcent; Feng Jim |
| Abstract: | In China, with the economic reforms leading to the raise in agricultural productivity, the rural healthcare organisation has been weakened. In a 1991-2006 database, a decrease in the healthcare demand is observed. If many papers study the effect of the insurance system (NCMS) on the healthcare demand, other factors explaining the healthcare demand have not received much research attention yet. We use a matching and difference in difference model to correct for the selection bias on insurance effect. If the income level and insurance enrollment plays a major role on the healthcare demand, we shed light on the peer effect of the industrialization process and the changes affecting healthcare facilities. In a context of healthcare price widely increasing, the change in villagers working activity leads to an increase in the inequality of healthcare access (due to inequality of wage, mobility, and private insurance). The result is a reduction and sometimes worse, an exclusion from the healthcare access for the poorest. A public policy has to be conducted to support farmers, in particular in areas where a significant part of the village inhabitants have an industrial activity. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2010-10&r=cna |
| By: | Ana Fernandes (University of Sussex); Heiwai Tang (Tufts University ,Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano ,Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses detailed product-level export data for China and proposes an extension of the Antrˆjs and Helpman (2004) framework that includes investments in component search to investigate the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) versus foreign outsourcing. We exploit the coexistence of two regulatory trade regimes for export-processing in China, pure-assembly and import-and-assembly. We find that if Chinese plants import materials and assemble them, the share of exports from vertically integrated plants is increasing in the intensity of headquarter inputs across sectors, and is decreasing in the contractibility of inputs. These results are consistent with existing theories. However, if Chinese plants engage in pure-assembly, under which regime ownership over the materials shipped to China remains with the foreign firm, we find little support for the existing theories on FDI and outsourcing that focus on contract incompleteness and the relative importance of relationship-specific investments. We also find that more dispersed firm productivity in a sector is associated with a larger export share of integrated plants under pure-assembly but not under import-and-assembly. These results are consistent with the predictions of our model, which focuses on ownership of imported components as an alternative to asset ownership for alleviating the hold-up problem by the export-processing plant. |
| Keywords: | Intrafirm Trade, Vertical Integration, Export Processing, Outsourcing |
| JEL: | F14 F23 L14 L33 |
| Date: | 2010–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hkm:wpaper:052010&r=cna |