Do roads lead to grassland degradation or restoration? A case study in Inner Mongolia, China

We use satellite remote sensing data of grassland cover in Inner Mongolia, China to test whether the existence of and the size of roads in 1995 is associated with the nature of the grassland in 2000 and/or if it affects the rate of change of the grassland between 1995 and 2000. The regression results show that the impact of roads on grassland cover depends on the nature of the resource. When the grassland is composed of relatively high quality grassland, roads lead to degradation, whereas when grassland resources are sparse, access to a road results in the restoration of the resource

Cognitive Skills, Non-Cognitive Skills, and the Employment and Wages of Young Adults in Rural China

The objective of this paper is to examine whether noncognitive skills explain differences in employment status and hourly wages even after controlling for age, experience, schooling and cognitive skills. Of particular interest is to examine the relative magnitudes of the impacts of the cognitive and noncognitive skills on these labor market outcomes. Data used in this paper come from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (GSCF), which followed a random sample of 2,000 children in rural areas of Gansu Province who were 9-12 years old in the year 2000. Three waves of surveys were completed in 2000, 2004, and 2007-2009. The GSCF is the first large-scale data collection on child and adolescent cognitive and noncognitive skills in rural China.cognitive skills, noncognitive skills, years of schooling, wage, Gansu, China, International Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Irrigation, poverty and inequality in rural China

This paper examines the impact of irrigation on rural incomes, poverty and the income distribution in rural China. The relationship between irrigation and income is examined using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis. A simulation approach is used to explore the impact of irrigation on poverty incidence. To uncover the effect of irrigation on the income distribution, inequality is decomposed by source of income, by group according to access to irrigation and by estimated income flows as a result of specific household characteristics. The results show that irrigation increases income and reduces poverty and inequality.income, inequality, irrigation, poverty, rural China, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Security and Poverty,

Migration, Money and Mother: The Effect of Migration on Children's Educational Performance in Rural China

Migration is widely known as one of the main ways of alleviating poverty in developing countries, including China. However, migration itself is not costless. In recent years, there is an emerging concern about the effect of migration on the educational achievement of the children of migrants in China since most of the young children of school age of the migrants are being left in the village when one or both of their parents move to the city to work. This paper examines the effect of the migration activities of the father and/or mother on the educational performance of elementary school students (First to Fifth grade). With a dataset that collected from a survey designed specifically to examine changes in school performance of children before and after their parents left the village to migrate to the city we use Difference-in-Difference and, propensity score matching approaches. Although the grades of the children from some migrants family are sometimes lower than those from non-migrants family (in the time period before and after migration), somewhat surprisingly, we find that there is no significant negative effect of migration itself on the childrens school performance. In fact, in some cases (e.g., after the father migrates), performance improves. Our paper also demonstrates and explains the interaction effects of migration from wealth and household composition.Labor and Human Capital,

Pro-poor intervention strategies in irrigated agriculture in Asia: poverty in irrigated agriculture: issues and options: China

Irrigated farming / Poverty / Households / Income / Irrigation management / Institutions / Conflict / Legal aspects / Water policy / Water allocation / Price policy / Water rights / Water market / Irrigation programs / Public ownership / Models / Regression analysis / Farm size / Labor / Productivity / China