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。