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on China |
| By: | Huang, Jikun; Zhi, Huayong; Huang, Zhurong; Rozelle, Scott; Giles, John |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of the financial crisis on off-farm employment of China's rural labor force. Using a national representative data set collected from across China, the paper finds that there was a substantial impact. By April 2009 off-farm employment reached 6.8 percent of the rural labor force. Monthly earnings also declined. However, while it is estimated that 49 million were laid-off between October 2008 and April 2009, half of them were re-hired in off-farm work by April 2009. By August 2009, less than 2 percent of the rural labor force was unemployed due to the crisis. The robust recovery appears to have helped avoid instability. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Work&Working Conditions,Tertiary Education,Crops&Crop Management Systems |
| Date: | 2010–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5439&r=cna |
| By: | Yuyu Chen; Ginger Zhe Jin |
| Abstract: | Many governments advocate nationwide health insurance coverage but the effects of such a program are less known in developing countries. We use part of the 2006 China Agricultural Census (CAC) to examine whether the recent health insurance coverage in rural China has affected children mortality, pregnancy mortality, and the school enrollment of the 6-16 year old. Our data represent a census of 5.9 million people living in eight low-income rural counties, four of which have adopted the New Cooperative Medical System (NCMS) by 2006 and the other four did not adopt NCMS until 2007. In the counties that offer NCMS, a household may take or not take the insurance. A first look of the data suggests that enrolling in NCMS is associated with better school enrollment and lower mortality of young children and pregnant women. However, using a difference-in-difference propensity score method, we find most of these differences are driven by the endogenous introduction and take up of NCMS, and classical propensity score matching fails to address the selection bias. While NCMS does not show beneficial impacts on the average population, we find some evidence that NCMS helps improve the school enrollment of six-year-olds. |
| JEL: | I18 I21 I38 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16417&r=cna |
| By: | Nathaniel John Porter |
| Abstract: | Chinese inflation, particularly non-food inflation, has been surprisingly modest in recent years. We find that supply factors, including those captured through upstream foreign commodity and producer prices, have been important drivers of non-food inflation, as has foreign demand for Chinese goods. Domestic demand and monetary conditions seem less important, possibly reflecting a large domestic output gap generated by many years of high investment. Inflation varies systemically within China, with richer (and urban) provinces having lower, more stable, inflation, but this urban inflation also influence that in lower-income provinces. Higher Mainland food inflation also raises inflation in non-Mainland China. |
| Date: | 2010–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:10/221&r=cna |