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on China |
| By: | Jiang, J.-Q.; Yu, T.; Wang, Z.-H.; Qi, D.-M; Huang, W.-Z |
| Abstract: | Although food waste has become an increasingly important issue in China, little attention has been given to its scale and determining factors in the related literature of food waste. This study uses the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) data surveyed in 1991, 2000 and 2009 to investigate the food waste behavior of Chinese households over the twenty years. In addition, the factors affecting food waste at home were identified and evaluated using the double hurdle model. The survey results show that the food waste amount at home per household has declined over the study span, likely due to the increase of outside-dining, while the percentage of households incurring food waste was on the rise. Also, among the factors associated with household food waste, the household size and regional differences in dietary habits were found positively correlated with food waste over time. In addition, the high-income families tended to generate more waste than low-income families after 2000. The age, education and employment characteristics of the main female member were also related with household food waste although the impact on food waste varied over time. Acknowledgement : This research uses data from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). And we thank the financial support from the Social Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (L16BGL038), Program for Liaoning Excellent Talents in University (WJQ2015026), the Youth Project of the Philosophy and Social Science Research, Ministry of Education of China (13YJC790057, 14YJC90094), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71303161, 71503173). |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277551&r=cna |
| By: | Ma, Xinxin; Zhang, Jingwen |
| Abstract: | For decades Chinese married women have delayed conceiving their first child influenced by government birth limitation policies, the improvement of women’s educational attainment and the changes in childbearing preferences. Even though it can be thought that the delayed childbearing may affect female labor supply in China, there are few empirical studies on the issue. Long-term longitudinal survey data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1989 to 2015 is used to conduct an empirical study to investigate the impact of the timing of childbearing on the labor supply (labor participation and irregular work) of Chinese married women. This study employs the random-effects model and the instrumental variables (IV) method to address the heterogeneity and endogeneity problems. The results indicate that the decision to delay childbearing may increase the female labor supply and decrease the probability of women becoming irregular workers. Robustness checks confirm these results. |
| Keywords: | Timing of childbearing, female labor supply, irregular work, work-family conflict, China |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hitcei:2018-9&r=cna |
| By: | Ma, M. |
| Abstract: | Smallholder farming remains predominant in Chinese agricultural production, despite massive outflows of rural labor to nonfarm sectors. Although a large number of agricultural households in China rent out the farmland for which they hold contract use rights, most of them still partially or seasonally cultivate the contract land. I collected survey data from 512 households in Southwest China to examine the arrangements of farmland, including abandonment, as households make transitory reductions in cultivation sizes. I develop a theory to explain why households tend to maximize the expected income by reducing cultivation sizes partially and seasonally. The theory centers upon the value of farmland as a safety net and an appreciable asset for agricultural households under imperfect land tenure and limited access to social benefit programs. The non-productive, use-based value of contract land is characterized by a function of simultaneous choices of the cultivation size and farm labor. Flexible reallocation of land use rights helps maximize the expected income, but the inefficiency in labor allocation remains considerable. Using the survey data, I find on-farm productivity of part-time farmers to be significantly lower than the opportunity nonfarm wage rate, implying $45 billion nonfarm earnings to be forgone by agricultural households per year. Acknowledgement : I am extremely grateful to Lovell Jarvis, Kevin Novan, Richard Sexton, and Jeffrey Williams for critical and insightful comments on earlier drafts. For helpful discussion and feedback, I thank Timothy Beatty, Steve Boucher, Colin Carter, Michael Carter, Xiaomeng Cui, Travis Lybbert, Xinshen Diao, Xiaopeng Luo, Alex McCalla, Heidi Schweizer, Daniel Sumner, Daniel Tregeagle, Yan Xu, and Xiaobo Zhang. I also thank Jianwei Zhao and Xiaomei Shen among other colleagues and government officials in China for their generous support to my field surveys in Sichuan Province. Funding for this research was provided by Henry Jastro Graduate Research Award and Banner Fellowship. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277433&r=cna |
| By: | Huixin Bi; Yongquan Cao; Wei Dong |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the credit expansion policy pursued by the Chinese government in an effort to stimulate its economy in the post-crisis period affects bank–firm loan contracts and the macroeconomy. We build a structural model with financial frictions in which the optimal loan contract reflects the trade-off between leverage and the probability of default. Credit expansion is introduced in the form of the government's partial guarantee on bank loans to (i) general production firms or (ii) infrastructure producers. We show that in the case of general credit expansion, more persistent credit shocks lead to higher credit multipliers at all horizons, as the benefits of persistently alleviating firms' borrowing constraint outweigh the costs associated with higher non-performing loans. We also show that a more persistent targeted credit expansion raises the production of infrastructure goods. However, higher infrastructure production not only boosts the public capital stock and generates positive externalities, it also crowds out private investment and consumption. With a short-lived targeted credit easing, the expansionary channel of public capital dominates, boosting output. As the credit expansion becomes more persistent, the contractionary channel of lower private investment starts to outweigh the expansionary channel in the medium term. |
| Keywords: | Credit and credit aggregates, Fiscal Policy, International topics |
| JEL: | E62 E44 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:18-53&r=cna |
| By: | Yi, H.; Mo, D.; Wang, H.; Gao, Q.; Shi, Y.; Wu, P.; Abbey, C.; Rozelle, S. |
| Abstract: | It is commonly believed that reading challenges should be addressed early to reduce the likelihood that developmental delays will impact students over the long term. However, students in developing countries often have limited access to reading resources. This study uses a randomized controlled trial to examine the causal effect of a classroom library program on student reading outcomes and academic achievement in schools with poor reading resources over an eight-month period. We find that the program significantly improved student reading habits (borrowing books, reading time, communication with friends on readings), and the degree to which students like reading. Furthermore, the heterogeneous analysis suggests that disadvantaged (male, low-income, low-performing at baseline) students benefited more in terms of reading time, communication with friends on reading, and affinity towards reading. However, we did not find any overall effect of the program on other variables such as student confidence in reading, reading achievement, creativity, or performance in math or Chinese class. The heterogeneous analysis shows that while students, in general, did not benefit, male students did benefit in terms of confidence in reading and performance in math. A follow-up evaluation of the program is suggested to examine whether the program improves student reading achievement or not in the longer run. Acknowledgement : This work was supported by the Xinhe Foundation. We are grateful for the encouragement and support from Xin Liu and Song Wu. Shoulder Action has provided invaluable support for our field work. The authors are supported by the 111 Project (Grant number B16031). |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277317&r=cna |
| By: | Liu, M.; Huang, J.; Zhang, Q.; Gao, S. |
| Abstract: | Rural e-commerce has developed rapidly in China, but it has presented big regional differences. This paper aims to empirically examine what determines the development of rural e-commerce in China. It is further hoped to contribute to reduce the gap of regional differences in e-commerce development and prompt the e-commerce development in underdeveloped areas. The emerging and rapid growth of Taobao Villages is a typical example of rural e-commerce development. We therefore focus on exploring the major driving forces of emerging Taobao Villages in China. The data used in this study are generated through Geography Information System with location of each Taobao Village and data mining with web crawler, which includes the data for a total sample of 2018 Taobao Villages over 2013-2017. The random-effect probit and bivariate probit models with robust standard errors and clustering standard errors are estimated. The results show that the economic condition of a village and its surrounding areas and the distances to national way and highway impact the development of rural e-commerce at different extents. The area with developed e-commerce promotes rural e-commerce development of the nearby areas, which reflects there are spillover effects on developing rural e-commerce. The paper concludes with several policy implications. Acknowledgement : Funding for this research was supported by a grant from the Asian Development Bank (2017X127.CCA). The authors would like to thank the colleagues who helped to collect data. They are Dr. Shi Shu, Yueying Bai, Xiya Zhao, Yaqi Hu and Yuling Li. We are also grateful to Dr. Hongdong Guo, Dr. Qihui Chen, Dr. Shi Min and Jiaqi Qi for their useful suggestions to improve the quality of this paper. |
| Keywords: | Research and Development/ Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277531&r=cna |
| By: | Liang, Q.; Zhou, J.; Jin, C.; Zhou, W.; Wang, Y. |
| Abstract: | This paper maps the risks of aquatic products in different seasons, categorizes risk items, explores the transferring of risk items along the supply chain, and identifies actual risk sources of aquatic products in China, based on the data of regular sampling inspections for aquatic products conducted by national and provincial CFDA. Both descriptive analysis and crossing matrix analysis are used. Some explicit results are derived from the analyses. First, the quality and safety of aquatic products in China exhibit stable improving. Second, economically motivated adulterations by people s behaviors such as the use of drugs and chemical additives are the most important causes of risks for aquatic products. Third, risks at upstream parts transfer along the supply chain to the downstream. Fourth, the two riskiest stages causing food safety problem are manufacture and farming. Specifically, most risks for fresh aquatic products lie in farming, while those for processed products are at manufacture. However, the assignment of regulation strength and resources does not match with the distribution of risks. Stronger regulations such as the adoption of origin certificate at farms and more sampling inspections at manufacture are necessary to control for the risks of aquatic products. Acknowledgement : The work was supported by the the project Systemic Risk Management of Food Supply Chains in China , National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71773109, 71573227, 71633002); and the Project of Humanities and Social Science of the Ministry of Education in China (grant number 14YJC790089); Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science (Grant No. 17NDJC193YB). |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277056&r=cna |
| By: | Tong, Q.; Swallow, B.; Zhang, L.; Zhang, J. |
| Abstract: | Rice production in China is under pressure to adapt to changing weather conditions and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. This paper explores the possibilities for achieving climate-smart agriculture among rice farmers in the Jianghan Plain of China. Data for 873 rice plots are analyzed using Stochastic Frontier Analysis to simultaneously estimate a production function and factors associated with technical efficiency. The production analysis shows the importance of climate variables to production, while use of climate-smart practices, including insurance, conservation tillage, and crop rotations all have the extra benefit of reducing technical inefficiency. However, risk aversion complicates these relationships. We found that most farmers are risk averse and that risk aversion has a negative effect on technical efficiency and U-shaped effects on the purchase of insurance and use of soil-conserving practices. Soil conserving practices are least likely to be used by risk neutral farmers, while insurance is most likely to be purchased by risk neutral farmers. Crop insurance that appeals to the most risk averse farmers appears to be a high priority for encouraging climate-smart agriculture in this region where climate has such large impacts on crop production. Acknowledgement : The authors gratefully acknowledge ?nancial support from the Natural Sciences Foundation of China (41501213); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662017PY045); the Key Project for Studies of Philosophy and Social Sciences by Ministry of Education (15JZD014); the program of China Scholarship Council (No. 201706760038). |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277311&r=cna |
| By: | Zhang, Y.; Chen, K.; Zhu, T. |
| Abstract: | China has started to implement the most stringent of Three Red Lines water policy since 2012, which sets targets for total water use, water use efficiency, and water quality for a number of benchmark years to 2030 by province and prefecture. This paper aims to develop an integrated regional CGE and water resource model at river basin-provincial level for China and to quantify regional and sectoral economic impacts of three red lines. Five policy scenarios are constructed to assess the impacts of water red lines, including the red line of total water use cap, irrigation efficiency, industrial water use intensity, surface water pollution and all redlines combined. The red line of total water use cap will increase water shortage drastically, leading to considerable negative impacts on the economic growth of East, South Central and Southwest. The sectors with the higher water use intensity such as machinery and equipment, metal and metal products, chemical products and non-metal products are affected most. Other two red lines need to go hand in hand to minimize water shortage and mitigate potentially negative economic impacts. Establishing regional water use right market and promoting economic restructuring are two policy options to cope with water scarcity challenge. Acknowledgement : We would like to acknowledge Winston Yu from the World Bank for the guidance and Shuzhong Gu from Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC) for his valuable comments in the early stage of the research. We are grateful to Xinshen Diao and James Thurlow from International Food Policy Research Institute for their guidance on developing regional CGE model. We acknowledge funding support by the World bank through the project Mind the Gap: Balancing Growth and Water Security in China , and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant No.71761147004) ,the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (ASTIP-IAED-2017-04? |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277509&r=cna |
| By: | Song, Changcheng (National University of Singapore); Yang, Nan (National University of Singapore); Yi, Junjian (National University of Singapore); Yuan, Ye (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | We examine the launch of a mobile outpatient appointment app in China to study the effect of information provision and a streamlined appointment process on hospital operations and the alignment of healthcare supply and demand. Using a longitudinal dataset on hospital operations and a difference-in-differences model, we document that the app increases completed hospital consultations by 9.5%, through boosting registrations by 4.8% and reducing appointment cancellations by 3.4%. The app improves queuing efficiency in overcrowded hospitals and draws demand for underutilized ones. Supported by additional evidence from a subset of patients' electronic medical records, we also find that the app directs patients to the hospital and department more suitable to their medical conditions and to less busy days, resulting in a better match between patient demand and hospital service. |
| Keywords: | healthcare information technology, information provision, hospital operations, patient sorting, patient choices |
| JEL: | I11 I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11845&r=cna |
| By: | Zhang, Y.; Jin, S.; Zhang, Y.Y.; Yu, X. |
| Abstract: | The importation of liquid milk has been increasing rapidly with an average annual growth rate over 40% after 2008. The objective of this study is to investigate how country-of-origin (COO) affects Chinese consumers' evaluation for imported milk sourced from Australia, New Zealand, German and France. We decompose the effects of COO into dimensions at macro-level related to country images and four dimensions at micro-level related to product attributes. We then investigate how different dimensions influence consumers' evaluation of milk using the Becker-Degroot-Marschak (BDM) auctions. The results show that Chinese consumers would like to pay a premium for UHT milk from foreign countries. The regression results confirm that COO exerts substantial influence on consumers' evaluation for food products. In general, the micro-level image has greater impact on evaluation for milk than macro-level image. Particularly, the macro-political dimension has positive influence on consumers' WTP for milk, while the macro-economic and macro-technological dimension have no significant impact. In terms of the micro-level image, except for the micro-price/value dimension, all the other dimensions exert positively impact on evaluation for milk, i.e. the more favorable of the perceived COO, the higher is the WTP. Specifically, micro-technology/quality dimension exerts greater influence than micro-prestige/brand dimension, and micro-design/package dimension has the least impact. Acknowledgement : The authors would like to thank research assistant Haiyue Guo, Yue Jin, Changhua Qian?Rao Yuan, Zhanyi Shi, Yu Jiang for their helpful support. We gratefully acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC-71273233, 71333011), the Major Program of the Key Research Institute of Chinese Ministry of Education (No. 15JJD790032), the Key Consulting Project of Chinese Academy of Engineering Research on the Development Strategy of China s Prataculture (2016-XZ-38), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzuzbky-2017-k01). |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:277193&r=cna |