Journal of Asian Economics最新文献

The role of peer effects in children's human capital accumulation has attracted increased amounts of attention. Using data from a nationally representative survey of Chinese middle school students, this paper exploits random student-classroom assignment as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the peer effects of local students on the human capital of migrant children in Chinese middle schools. The results indicate that the peer effects of local students significantly improve the human capital of migrant children, including academic performance, cognitive abilities and non-cognitive abilities. Moreover, these peer effects can be further explained by improved parent-child relationships and parental expectations, increased student effort and expectations, and optimized teachers' teaching and school climate. Additionally, the peer effects from local students varies with migrant children's gender, Hukou, number of siblings and grade. Our research contributes to complementing the research field regarding peer effects and provides a new policy-oriented direction for the development of migrant children's human capital.

We investigated how regulating political connections affects firms’ employee welfare attitudes using a quasi-natural experiment in China. We find that the depoliticization regulation negatively impacts employee welfare attitudes toward firm staff benefits, but positively impact welfare attitudes toward firm humanistic care. Furthermore, we find that the SOEs’ employee welfare attitude regarding staff benefits is profoundly reduced; the effect of regulating political connections on welfare attitudes toward firms’ humanistic care is particularly effective for non-SOEs. Additionally, the impact of regulating political connections on employees’ welfare attitudes is particularly profound for firms in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, our empirical results indicate that the impact of regulating political connections on employee welfare attitudes is significant, particularly for firms experiencing financial constraints. Firms located in neither left- nor right-leaning regions seem to form the most affected group. Finally, the weakening of firms’ political connections has resulted in a decline of corporate wage differentials.

Rural industrial integration serves as an effective strategy to promote farmers' wealth, income, and overall rural revitalization. Drawing on the theories of national accounting and transaction costs, this study formulates a mechanism for how rural industrial integration increases farmers' income. It achieves this by increasing the value added of products, increasing short-term agricultural output, and reducing transaction costs. The research focuses on agricultural counties and districts in Liaoning and Shanxi provinces, and constructs a rural industrial integration index using the Herfindahl coefficient. The empirical analysis uses the PVAR model to test the relationship between the development of rural industrial integration and farmers' income. The results show that: the integration of primary and tertiary industries has a positive effect on the growth of farmers' income, while the integration of secondary and tertiary industries has only promoted the growth of farmers' income in Liaoning Province. Different integration models have different effects on the growth of farmers' income. Farmers' income significantly influences the development of rural industrial integration, but its effects vary across regions. Based on these findings, policy recommendations include tailoring strategies based on local resources and asset conditions, promoting vertical and horizontal integration of industrial chains, strengthening financial support, and encouraging the participation of new enterprises. The ultimate goal is to achieve comprehensive development of rural industries and increase farmers' incomes.

This study considers the impact of broadband infrastructure construction on household inequality of opportunity. Based on the "circumstance-effort" framework, we estimate the inequality of opportunity index, and we utilize China's household survey data. To identify this effect, we consider the construction of "Broadband China" demonstration cities, and we apply the difference-in-differences method; thus, we observe that broadband infrastructure can promote the equality of opportunity, and with respect to a series of robustness tests (e.g., parallel trend tests and instrumental variable estimation), the conclusion is robust. Furthermore, we observed that by increasing the intergenerational mobility of education for individuals with lower parental education background and by narrowing the gender wage gap, the deployment of broadband infrastructure reduces the opportunity inequality that is occasioned by parental education background and gender.

China's low-income population is primarily mad up of farmers. Elevating their earnings is the key to realizing common prosperity. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the "Broadband China" strategy, we applied the staggered double difference method to explore the impact of Internet use on the income of Chinese rural households. The findings indicate that Internet use can enhance the business income of rural households, whereas it does not have such significantly positive effects on other income. After mitigating endogeneity issues, the basic pattern of the effects remains. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that females and individuals with higher levels of education benefit more from the "Broadband China" policy. The mechanism results show that Income boosting effect may arise from improving rural entrepreneurship behavior.

This study examines the impact of the educational level of grassroots leaders on the vulnerability to poverty among villagers in China, using panel data from the National Fixed-Point Survey (NFS) from 2003 to 2015. Our findings indicate that a higher proportion of village cadres with a high school education or above significantly reduces the vulnerability to poverty among rural households in China. We identify two main mechanisms underlying this effect: (1) highly educated village cadres possess greater capabilities in assisting eligible poor households to understand and access government assistance programs, thereby increasing household transfer incomes; and (2) highly educated village cadres can alleviate household vulnerability to poverty by promoting local infrastructure development in the village. These results offer an alternative perspective on targeted poverty alleviation, suggesting that efforts should be directed toward enhancing the human capital level of local grassroots leaders or appointing highly educated leaders in underdeveloped villages.

This research explores how renewable energy investment and financial development affect climate change using panel data of 26 OECD countries and 18 non-OECD countries from 1996 to 2019. Several conclusions are drawn from empirical analysis. First, there exist cointegration relationships among renewable energy investment, financial development, and climate change. Second, the effects of renewable energy investment and financial development on climate change exhibit heterogeneity. In the full sample and for OECD countries, renewable energy investment and financial development have a negative impact on climate change, while for non-OECD countries, renewable energy investment has a positive impact on climate change.

Government commitment to early-life education intervention has contributed to human capital accumulation and economic growth in developing countries. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, we investigate the effects of the primary school consolidation program on children’s cognitive development and behavioral performance. Using a cohort difference-in-differences model, we find that rural children who experienced school consolidation performed better in cognitive tests and had higher levels of openness of the Big Five personality traits, but lower levels of extraversion. Further analysis suggests that early-life education intervention generates long-term effects. Those who experienced school consolidation had higher educational attainment, better occupational fit, and more consistent independent learning, but difficulties in interpersonal interaction. Our findings imply that early-life education intervention should pay more attention to the cultivation of socio-emotional abilities.

This paper analyzes the relationship among temperature exposure, health inequality, and adaptive behavior in China, a country with diverse climate zones ranging from the cold, arid northwest to the warm, humid south. Utilizing follow-up survey data spanning from 2000 to 2015, this paper constructs a measure of health inequality at the community level. Our findings reveal that extremely cold or hot days increase the health inequality at the community level. Specifically, with each incremental rise in the day’s extreme temperature, the Gini coefficient of community health rises by 0.0032, which constitutes approximately 0.4% of the community average. Furthermore, vulnerable communities, which are characterized by low average income, education levels, per capita electricity consumption, and urbanization, are highly susceptible to the effects of extreme temperatures on health equality. From the perspective of adaptive behavior, residents in high-income communities exhibit elevated electricity consumption and engage in frequent preventive health check-ups during extreme temperature exposure. This phenomenon may exacerbate social polarization because well-resourced individuals and communities are better equipped to withstand the challenges posed by climate change and extreme weather events compared with impoverished ones. Addressing this disparity requires local managers to implement comprehensive policies and interventions that can enhance the adaptability of low-income communities, improve public health facilities, and promote social equity.

This study utilizes data from Taiwan’s “The Survey of Family Income and Expenditure” from 2011 to 2021 to examine the differences in expenditure patterns between single-person households and multi-person households. The aim is to understand the impact of being single and living alone on living expenses. The estimation results indicate that, after controlling for other variables, single-person households spend significantly more on “housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels”, amounting to NT$67,920 per capita higher than other families. Additionally, per capita expenditures related to maintaining the living environment and daily operations are also significantly higher for single-person households. This shows the higher fixed cost of living alone without sharing expenses with others. However, single-person households have the advantage of being able to concentrate their expenses more on themselves. Significant higher per capita expenditures on several “treating oneself well” items demonstrate the freedom that comes with single living. On the other hand, the comparison of income elasticities shows that the expenditures of single-person households fluctuate more significantly, indicating higher financial risks.