Housing and wealth accumulation: evidence from China

Homeownership is the most prevalent tenure in most countries. One of the main purposes of households in accessing homeownership is to accumulate wealth. Homeowners are not only found to accrue housing wealth but also own more non-housing wealth than tenants. The patterns of accumulating wealth through homeownership and its socio-economic consequences in modern economies, however, have not been fully understood and examined. Using data from the 2013-2017 China Household Finance Survey and the 2015-2017 Chinese Housing Consumption Survey, this research investigated the relationships between homeownership and wealth and its components. It explored diverse mechanisms derived from different theoretical perspectives and linked homeownership with wealth inequality and housing strategies in urban China. Through a combination of the Differences-in-Differences model, Logit model, fixed-effect model and Tobit model, the empirical results from this thesis suggest that the transition of households from renting to owning is positively related to wealth holdings after controlling for relevant, confounding variables. Households accumulate housing wealth mainly through housing price appreciation and mortgage repayments, with housing price appreciation dominating. With long-term housing price increases, housing wealth accumulation has transformed from relying on saving through mortgage repayments to being more dependent on capital gains. There is a trade-off between mortgage repayments and residual savings. When controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and time-constant variables, homeowners do not own more non-housing wealth than tenants. The widely recognised notion that homeowners own more non-housing wealth than tenants comes from the result of selection. In other words, households who attain homeownership are wealthier before they become homeowners than households who remain in rental markets. Tenants do not compensate for their disadvantage in housing assets by augmenting more non-housing wealth. The favourable status of wealth holdings by homeowners relative to renters, therefore, principally arises from the accumulation of housing wealth through housing price appreciation rather than from the fixed commitments of mortgage repayments, changed saving behaviour and the accumulation of non-housing wealth through homeownership, at least for the time before 2022. Growing home ownership has typically been connected with spreading wealth and reducing wealth inequalities. The results reported in this thesis, however, indicate that associated with housing prices increasing ahead of income since 2015 in China, the accumulation of wealth through homeownership has begun to act as a possible mechanism of increasing wealth inequalities by concentrating more wealth in developed regions which attract more capital, and in the hand of homeowners, multiple-property owners, and older generations. The changes in housing price dynamics and wealth accumulation patterns also promoted the use of speculative strategies among households and, in consequence, housing policies inherited from the savings era may not be best designed to cope with challenges caused by rising housing prices. Corresponding with these findings, this thesis thus proposes policy reforms on housing, land and tax

New information on the skipper fauna of Guangxi, China (Lepidoptera, Hesperiidae)

Xue, Guoxi, Niu, Jinqiao, Long, Jifeng, Zeng, Weibo (2018): New information on the skipper fauna of Guangxi, China (Lepidoptera, Hesperiidae). Zootaxa 4497 (2): 258-270, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4497.2.

Mixed matrix membranes containing MOF@COF hybrid fillers for efficient CO2/CH4 separation

10.1016/j.memsci.2018.11.060JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE57397-10

First Report of Crown Gall of Kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) Caused by Agrobacterium fabacearum in China and the Establishment of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Technique

Kiwifruit is moderately sweet and sour and quite popular among consumers; it has been widely planted in some areas of the world. In 2019, the crown gall disease of kiwifruit was discovered in the main kiwifruit-producing area of Guizhou Province, China. This disease can weaken and eventually cause the death of the tree. The phylogeny, morphological and biological characteristics of the bacteria were described, and were related to diseases. The pathogenicity of this species follows the Koch hypothesis, confirming that A. fabacearum is the pathogen of crown gall disease of kiwifruit in China. In this study, Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) analysis for genome-specific gene sequences was developed for the specific detection of A. fabacearum. The detection limit of the LAMP method is 5 × 10−7 ng/μL, which has high sensitivity. At the same time, the amplified product is stained with SYBR Green I after the reaction is completed, so that the amplification can be detected with the naked eye. LAMP analysis detected the presence of A. fabacearum in the roots and soil samples of the infected kiwifruit plant. The proposed LAMP detection technology in this study offers the advantages of ease of operation, visibility of results, rapidity, accuracy and high sensitivity, making it suitable for the early diagnosis of crown gall disease of kiwifruit

Luminescent Metal-Organic Frameworks for the Detection and Discrimination of o-Xylene from Xylene Isomers

10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b02230INORGANIC CHEMISTRY572113631-1363

Identification of the Causal Agent of Brown Leaf Spot on Kiwifruit and Its Sensitivity to Different Active Ingredients of Biological Fungicides

Kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) is an important commercial crop in China, and the occurrence of diseases may cause significant economic loss in its production. In the present study, a new pathogen that causes brown leaf spot disease on kiwifruit was reported. The fungus was isolated from an infected sample and identified as Fusarium graminearum based on morphological and molecular evaluation. Koch’s postulates were confirmed when the pathogen was re-isolated from plants with artificially induced symptoms and identified as F. graminearum. Based on the biological characteristics of the pathogen, it was determined that: its optimal growth temperature was 25 °C; optimal pH was 7; most suitable carbon source was soluble starch; most suitable nitrogen source was yeast powder; and best photoperiod was 12 h light/12 h dark. Further investigations were conducted by determining 50% effective concentrations (EC50) of several active ingredients of biological fungicides against F. graminearum. The results showed that among the studied fungicides, tetramycin and honokiol had the highest antifungal activity against this pathogen. Our findings provide a scientific basis for the prevention and treatment of brown leaf spot disease on kiwifruit