This paper estimates the labor supply functions for health care professionals in China using Census-based data in 2005. The rapid economic growth and population aging in China led to a substantial increase in the demand for health care services and the derived demand for health care professionals in recent years. However, the increase in the supply of doctors and nurses lags behind the growth in demand, raising the question of whether the excess demand should be met by expanding the health care manpower or by inducing the existing personnel to work more hours through wage increase. Our findings indicate that wage rate adjustment has a significant impact on the length of working time among the self-employed practitioners (with an estimated short-run elasticity of 0.575), while the labor supply of hospital employees is inelastic due to their fixed payment scheme. Instead, hours worked in the employee group are related to non-wage factors such as asset holdings and the hospital ownership type. An important policy implication of our study is that adjustments of labor compensation methods and hospital ownership structure are potentially effective approaches for coping with the excess demand for health care professionals and improving the quality of health care in China.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL) in China using the hedonic wage model, and to explore the regional difference in VSL within the country. #n#Design/methodology/approach - Using the hedonic wage regression, this paper estimates the compensating wage differential for incremental job mortality risk among Chinese workers. The implied VSL is derived for China and its different regions. The data is from the 2005 China inter-census population survey, consisting of 1.3 million urban and rural workers. The authors also made important improvement in the model specification to explicitly address the missing variable issue in the previous studies. #n#Findings - The paper results indicate that the industry mortality risk has a significant impact on the wage rate. The implied VSL is 1.81 million RMB, a value substantially higher than previous estimates. The results also suggest a sizable urban-rural difference, with the urban VSL being 4.3 times higher than the rural estimate. The strong urban-rural inequality of income could be attributed to the segregation between the urban and rural labor markets. Practical implications The paper findings indicate the importance of reforming the current workers' compensation standard and improving the institutional environment, as well as enhancing the labor protection in the rural labor market. #n#Originality/value - This paper is the first attempt to estimate the value of life in China using the census based data. The paper results contribute to the growing literature in obtaining comparable VSL estimates in the developing countries.

In this paper, we examine the impact of family size on maternal health outcomes by exploiting the tremendous change in family size under the One-Child policy in China. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1993-2006, we find that mothers with fewer children have a higher calorie intake and a lower probability of being underweight and having low blood pressure; meanwhile, they have a higher probability of being overweight. This would occur if a smaller family size increases the food consumption of mothers, leading underweight women to attain a normal weight and normal weight women becoming overweight. Robust tests are performed to provide evidence on the hypothesis that the tradeoff between children's quantity and mother's "quality" is through a budget constraint mechanism, that is, having more children decreases the resource allocated to mothers and affects their health outcomes.

Fan, Shenggen, Li, Lixing, and Zhang, Xiaobo-Challenges of creating cities in China: Lessons from a short-lived county-to-city upgrading policy #n#It has been widely observed that China is under-urbanized. The central government has tried to use various policies to promote urbanization. In this paper, we evaluate one of these policies - count-to-city upgrading. Under China's hierarchical governance structure, a city status can only be determined and awarded by the central government. In the 1980s and 1990s, China adopted a formula-based county-to-city upgrading policy. Based on a large panel dataset covering all counties in China, we find that the formula was not strictly enforced in the practice. Moreover, jurisdictions that were upgraded to cities prior to 1998 do not perform better than their counterparts that remained county status in terms of both economic growth and providing public services. Largely because of these problems, this policy was called off in 1997. Given the strong need for urbanization, more indigenous institutional innovations are needed to find a viable way of creating cities, which would also provide compatible incentives to local governments. Journal of Comparative Economics 40 (3) (2012) 476-491. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC, United States; China Center for Economic Research, National School of Development, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. (C) 2012 Association for Comparative Economic Studies Published by Elsevier Inc.

本文使用1998～2005年中国县级财政数据和工业企业数据,利用国民收入账户原理和企业会计准则计算之间利润的差异,考察了县级政府规模和地方治理对企业所得税逃税的影响。我们发现,县级政府会将自身规模扩大后的财政压力施加到企业身上,从而提高企业面临的实际税负水平。但这并没有带来地方税收征管水平的提高,反而会导致更多的企业逃税。政府规模指标(县级财政支出占GDP的比重)增加1个百分点,企业会少报告0.8%的利润,这意味着企业会少缴纳0.8%的所得税。在那些地方政府治理水平更差、提供公共品能力更弱的县,这种现象会更为严重。本文的经验研究表明,政府规模过大和地方治理水平较低是导致企业逃税等非正规经济活动普遍存在的重要原因。

探索集体土地股份制改革,使农民对集体资产享有充分的股权,实现农民收入的持续性和永久性。这是城镇化健康推进的需要,更是农村乃至国家长治久安的需要。本期会客厅邀请北京大学国家发展研究院博士李力行、中国人民大学土地管理系教授严金明、国务院发展研究中心研究员秦中春、清华大学中国与世界经济研究中心研究员袁钢明就相关问题共同探讨。

基于中国普遍存在的对男孩的性别偏好,本文采用所生育小孩的性别作为妇女家庭地位和议价能力的度量指标,研究该指标对家庭内部资源分配及后果的影响。中国健康营养调查数据中有关家庭耐用品消费决策的信息表明,第一胎性别对妇女在家庭中的地位有重要作用。本文发现,当妇女的家庭地位随着生育男孩而提高后,家庭中食物支出份额会增加,该妇女营养摄入增加,而她的身体健康状况会变好。

Based on the prevalent son preference in China, this paper proposes a new measure of relative bargaining power within the household. Using data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we show that a woman with a first-born son has a 3.9 percentage points' greater role in household decision-making than a woman with a first-born daughter Having a first-horn son improves the mother's nutrition intakes and reduces her likelihood of being underweight. While thinking of these impacts as being channeled through intrahousehold bargaining power we cannot fully rule out other possible direct effects of a first-born son on the outcomes.

China operated an urbanization policy by which counties could be given city status between 1983 and 1997. The policy had substantial impacts on the new administrative entities, including more discretionary power and fiscal independence. Such "county-to-city upgrading" provided the central government with an instrument to reward localities. Using a large dataset covering all counties during 1993-1997. I show that upgrading is not an automatic procedure that endorses the high urbanization levels in existing counties. Although official guidelines for upgrading counties to cities were published, these requirements were largely ignored in practice. Instead, economic growth rate was the key factor in determining which counties obtained city status. This paper interprets the creation of county-level cities through upgrading as part of the incentive structure of Chinese local officials. The importance of both fiscal and political incentives facing the local government in promoting economic growth is highlighted.

本文基于Soares(2005)的模型,导出婴儿死亡率和成年人预期寿命对人力资本积累以及最后对经济增长的影响效果,然后用跨国数据对模型的预测进行验证。本文模型的独特之处在于区分了成年人对小孩和对成年人自己的人力资本投资,揭示了成年人寿命增加对经济行为的影响的作用机制。在实证检验中,本文除了采用地理、气候等指标作为工具变量外,还独创性的利用因为实施大范围免疫计划的时间不同而产生的外生的免疫率的国别差异来解决健康的内生性问题。本文的结论对中国和发展中国家经济增长中健康的重要作用具有启发意义。

农村金融可以刺激投资、创业、技术进步和移民,这些都是农村发展、消除贫困最有力的因素。土地和房屋是农民最重要的资产,其抵押功能成为发展农村金融的关键。理论上需要撇清的,是区分集体土地的保障功能和财产功能。长期以来,关于

在发展经济学中,农村金融的功能早已被提升到农村发展的核心地位。对许多发展中国家的研究表明,包括土地抵押融资、小额信贷在内的农村金融,可以刺激投资、创业、技术进步和移民,而这些都是农村发展、消除贫困最有力的因素。土地和房屋是农民最

市场化改革可以减少寻租空间,从而降低腐败等违法案件的发生。我国国有土地出让所经历的市场化改革,为验证上述结论提供了很好的例证。本文利用2003—2007年的省级面板数据,研究了不同的土地出让方式对土地违法案件的影响。我们发现,市场化程度较低的协议出让和挂牌出让方式会对违法案件的数量和涉案面积构成正向的影响,而市场化程度较高的招标和拍卖出让方式则有助于遏制土地违法案件的发生。分地区的比较显示,东部地区的土地违法案件受市场化影响程度最大,中部和西部地区则不然,这可能源于各地区市场化改革的深入程度的不同。

本文总结了中国城市化水平偏低的几个主要原因,并对土地城市化与人口城市化不均衡的现状进行了具体的阐释。本文发现,城市建成区面积的扩张大大快于常住人口数量的增长,这在一些沿海省份尤为明显,其原因在于地方政府土地财政的动机,以及为农民工提供福利和保障的巨大财政压力。本文提出了在十二五期间提升城市化水平的一些政策应对,包括加速发展第三产业、扩大城镇新增就业、推进公共服务均等化,同时主动改革土地制度、并创新行政区划管理体制等。

本文利用2005年全国1%人口抽样调查数据,依据国际标准的享乐主义工资模型,对我国人口的生命统计学价值进行估算,并对城乡之间及东西部地域之间的生命价值进行比较。结果显示,行业的工伤死亡风险对工资率具有显著影响,由此计算得出的我国劳动力生命价值约为181万元人民币(按2000年美元折合约19万美元),远远高于之前国内外文献中的估计。同时,本文的结果还显示出我国城镇与农村人口在生命价值上的差异高达4.3倍,反映出我国城乡之间收入的严重失衡以及劳动力市场的分割。本文是在文献中首次运用全国性人口普查数据对中国生命价值进行估算的研究,并且在模型设计方面进行了多种改进,所得出的研究成果对我国人身伤亡赔偿法规的改革以及农村劳动力市场制度的建设具有很高的参考价值。