Hukou and Consumption Heterogeneity: Migrants' Expenditure Is Depressed by Institutional Constraints in Urban China

This paper provides a new explanation for China's extremely low consumption-to-GDP ratio, highlighting the constraints of the "household registration system" (Hukou) on China's household consumption. Our baseline results show that the consumption of migrants without an urban Hukou is 30.7% lower than that of urban residents. Moreover, consumption heterogeneity cannot be explained by migration effects, culture, social norms, habits or some other forms of household heterogeneity. Further studies on the composition of household consumption have shown that the gaps are largest in areas such as education and culture, durable goods and health. As both the number and income level of migrants are rising, the constraining effects of Hukou on household consumption will continue to increase.Consumption, Heterogeneity, Hukou System, Migrants, Urban Residents

City Size, Migration, and Urban Inequality in the People's Republic of China

This paper examines the relationship between city size, migration, and urban income inequality using the 1% sample of the 2005 Census in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We calculate various measures of within-city income inequality for 252 PRC cities. It is found that city income inequality is significantly and positively correlated with city population size. As rural-to-urban migration is crucial in determining city size distribution in the PRC, we focus on exploring the role of massive migration into big cities on shaping this size-inequality relationship. We find that the share of migrants alone accounts for more than 40% of the city-size inequality premium. This is mainly because migration leads to a higher skill premium in larger cities by changing the skill composition of the labor force in those places. The main findings still hold after we deal with the endogeneity of migration using an instrument variable approach.ADB_City_size_migration_and_urban_inequality_in_China.pdf: 364 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Hukou and Consumption Heterogeneity: Migrants' Expenditure Is Depressed by Institutional Constraints in Urban China

This paper provides a new explanation for China's extremely low consumption-to-GDP ratio, highlighting the constraints of the “household registration system” (Hukou) on China's household consumption. Our baseline results show that the consumption of migrants without an urban Hukou is 30.7% lower than that of urban residents. Moreover, consumption heterogeneity cannot be explained by migration effects, culture, social norms, habits or some other forms of household heterogeneity. Further studies on the composition of household consumption have shown that the gaps are largest in areas such as education and culture, durable goods and health. As both the number and income level of migrants are rising, the constraining effects of Hukou on household consumption will continue to increase.グローバルCOEプログラム = Global COE Progra

Application of First Principles Computations Based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) in Cathode Materials of Sodium-Ion Batteries

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have been widely explored by researchers because of their abundant raw materials, uniform distribution, high-energy density and conductivity, low cost, and high safety. In recent years, theoretical calculations and experimental studies on SIBs have been increasing, and the applications and results of first-principles calculations have aroused extensive interests worldwide. Herein, the authors review the applications of density functional (DFT) theory in cathode materials for SIBs, summarize the applications of DFT in transition-metal oxides/chalcogenides, polyanionic compounds, Prussian blue, and organic cathode materials for SIBs from three aspects: diffusion energy barrier and diffusion path, energy calculation and structure, and electronic structure. The relationship between the structure and performance of the battery material will be comprehensively understood by analyzing the specific working principle of battery material through theoretical calculation and combining with high-precision experimental characterization technologies. Selecting materials with good performance from a large number of electrode materials through theoretical calculation can avoid unnecessary complex experiments and instrument characterizations. With the gradual deepening of research, the DFT calculation will play a greater role in the sodium-ion battery electrode field

Carbon Nanotube Far Infrared Detectors with High Responsivity and Superior Polarization Selectivity Based on Engineered Optical Antennas

Single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) thin films are promising for sensitive uncooled infrared detection based on the photothermoelectric effect. The SWCNT film is usually shaped into a belt and diversely doped to form a p-n junction at the center. Under the illumination of a focused incident light, the temperature gradient from the junction to the contacts leads to photoresponse. When the SWCNTs are aligned in one direction, the photoresponse becomes polarization selective. Although a typical bowtie antenna can improve the responsivity and polarization extinction ratio by deep-subwavelength light focusing, the absolute absorptance of the junction region is only 0.6%. In this work, the antenna was engineered for a higher light coupling efficiency. By integrating a bottom metal plane at a specific distance from the SWCNT film and optimizing the antenna geometries, we achieved ultra-efficient impedance matching between the antenna and the SWCNTs, thus the absorptance of the junction region was further enhanced by 21.3 times and reached 13.5%, which is more than 3 orders of magnitude higher than that of the device without the engineered antenna. The peak responsivity was further enhanced by 19.9 times and responsivity reached 1500 V/W at 1 THz. The resonant frequency can be tuned by changing the size of the antenna. Over the frequency range of 0.5 THz to 1.5 THz, the peak responsivity was further enhanced by 8.1 to 19.9 times, and the polarization extinction ratio was enhanced by 2.7 to 22.3 times. The highest polarization extinction ratio reached 3.04 × 105 at 0.5 THz. The results are based on the numerical simulations of the light and the thermal fields

Exosome cofactor hMTR4 competes with export adaptor ALYREF to ensure balanced nuclear RNA pools for degradation and export

The exosome is a key RNA machine that functions in the degradation of unwanted RNAs. Here, we found that significant fractions of precursors and mature forms of mRNAs and long noncoding RNAs are degraded by the nuclear exosome in normal human cells. Exosome-mediated degradation of these RNAs requires its cofactor hMTR4. Significantly, hMTR4 plays a key role in specifically recruiting the exosome to its targets. Furthermore, we provide several lines of evidence indicating that hMTR4 executes this role by directly competing with the mRNA export adaptor ALYREF for associating with ARS2, a component of the cap-binding complex (CBC), and this competition is critical for determining whether an RNA is degraded or exported to the cytoplasm. Together, our results indicate that the competition between hMTR4 and ALYREF determines exosome recruitment and functions in creating balanced nuclear RNA pools for degradation and export