Impacts of formal credit on rural household income:Evidence from deprived areas in western China

Financial support is a crucial part of China's poverty alleviation effort.Thus,it is vital to understand how formal credit impacts income growth in rural households.In 2012,2015,and 2018,a survey was conducted to obtain a panel dataset of 592 rural households from 6 poverty-stricken counties in western China,including counties in Guizhou,Yunnan,and Shaanxi provinces.We use the data to examine the effect of formal credit on rural household income and the mechanism that underlies this effect.We find that formal credit can significantly increase rural households'income in deprived areas in western China.Furthermore,formal credit promotes the reallocation of household labor from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector and changes rural households'decisions about investment-consumption behavior.These are the drivers of changes in the amount and structure of household income.Further analyses show that formal credit may widen income inequality among rural households in western China's deprived areas.The individual characteristics of rural households,such as different levels of material capital,human capital,and social capital,bring about differences in the effects of formal credit on income growth.This study emphasizes that the implementation of formal credit is an essential strategy for poverty alleviation in underdeveloped areas,but policymakers should not excessively interfere with the financial market.

Pathways for Expediting Joint Agricultural Development of China and BRI Countries

Based on the agricultural panel data of 107 countries from 1962 to 2016,this paper establishes a global agricultural spatial production model,and explores pathways for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)countries in the agricultural sector.As shown in the empirical results,two-way spillover effects between China and BRI countries are all positive and significantly above world average of its kind,which builds the foundation of cooperation between both sides and reflects the BRI’s vision and foresight.In the context of the BRI,there are two pathways for expediting agricultural development in China and BRI countries:First,both sides may benefit from greater spillover effects from each other’s agricultural growth by promoting agricultural trade;second,China may gain from the overall spillover effects from agricultural development in BRI countries by promoting two-way trade,agri-technology aid and assistance in infrastructure projects for the common good of humanity.

Elite capture,the“follow-up checks”policy,and the targeted poverty alleviation program:Evidence from rural western China

Decentralized methods for targeting poverty are widely adopted in developing countries to improve the performance of various poverty alleviation programs.A common challenge for implementing successful decentralized targeting is the existence of elite capture.China has recently implemented a nationwide decentralized poverty targeting program,the targeted poverty alleviation(TPA)policy,to achieve the national goal of eliminating absolute poverty by the end of 2020.As the largest decentralized poverty targeting program in the world,TPA's successful implementation was believed to be threatened by elite capture in some earlier reports.Since 2015,a targeting correction mechanism,called"follow-up checks"policy,has been introduced.With the"follow-up checks"policy,the elites and other ineligible households who receive benefits under TPA were removed from the program.This paper investigates the elite capture phenomenon in TPA using village census data from a poverty-stricken county in 2017-two years after implementing the"follow-up checks"policy.We find no evidence of elite capture in TPA.The elites are unlikely to become beneficiaries or receive more benefits than non-elites.Our results contradict earlier findings that reported elite capture in TPA.We argue that the reason is the accountability emphasized by the central government in the"follow-up checks"policy.Our findings imply that having proper accountability is critical for improving targeting performance by global antipoverty initiatives.

Influences of large-scale farming on carbon emissions from cropping:Evidence from China

Reducing agricultural carbon emissions is important to enable carbon emission peaking by 2030 in China.However,China's transformation towards large-scale farming brings uncertainties to carbon emission reduction.This study quantifies the carbon emissions from cropping based on life cycle assessment and estimates the effects of farm size on carbon emissions using a fixed effects model.Furthermore,the variations of the carbon emissions from cropping driven by the changes in farm size in future years are projected through scenario analysis.Results demonstrate an inverted U-shaped change in total carbon emission from cropping as farm size increases,which is dominated by the changes in the carbon emission from fertilizer.Projections illustrate that large-scale farming transformation will postpone the peak year of total carbon emission from cropping until 2048 if the change in farm size follows a historical trend,although it is conducive to reducing total carbon emission in the long run.The findings indicate that environmental regulations to reduce fertilizer usages should be strengthened for carbon emission abatement in the early stage of large-scale farming transformation,which are also informative to other developing countries with small farm size.

Rural E-commerce and County Economic Development in China

With the proliferation of information and communication technology in rural areas,rural e-commerce has gradually become a new economic phenomenon in China. Usingthe national rural e-commerce comprehensive demonstration policy as a quasi-naturalexperiment, this study examines the causal linkage between rural e-commerce andcounty-level economic development in China. Its findings, which draw on county-levelpanel data from 2011 to 2018, indicate that the policy had a positive effect on the countyleveleconomy in China, resulting in an overall increase in county GDP by 3.5 percent(0.7 percent annually). Our analysis further shows that the impact of the policy diferedalong the region and human capital dimensions. Further analysis reveals that industrialstructure and nonagricultural employment were the main channels for the policy toexert a county-level economic impact. Infrastructure improvement in China also playsan important role. The findings emphasize the importance of advancing e-commerce inrural areas to stimulate county-level economic development.

Food safety controls in different governance structures in China's vegetable and fruit industry

Food safety issues constitute an international topic discussed by many scholars. Although there is an extensive body of literature on comparisons of food safety control practices across different governance structures, these studies have been conducted mainly in terms of qualitative and descriptive analysis. In addition, little attention has been given to family farms. This study addresses the food safety control practices adopted by firms with different governance structures in China. Food safety control is expressed by the following aspects, i.e., pollution-free, green, organic, and/or geographical indication prod- ucts certification, establishment of production records, and pesticide residue testing. Three types of governance structures that engage in agricultural production are distinguished： farmer cooperatives, agricultural companies, and family farms. The food safety control practices of various governance structures are investigated based on a database that comprises 600 vegetable and fruit enterprises in Zhejiang, China. The results show that （1） pesticide residue testing is adopted by the most firms, followed by products certification, and production records are adopted by the fewest firms, and （2） agricul- tural companies adopt more food safety control practices than family farms, while farmer cooperatives adopt the fewest food safety control practices. Governance structure features of a cooperative in terms of ownership, decision-making, and income distribution are the main reasons for the low level of food safety control in the cooperative.

Pig farmers’ willingness to recover their production under COVID-19 pandemic shock in China-Empirical evidence from a farm survey

Pig farmers’willingness to recover production under the COVID-19 pandemic shock is significant to recover live pigs’supply in China in 2020.Increasing farmers’willingness to recover pig production contributes to enhance pig supply,stabilize the pig and pork market,and to improve pig farmers’income.This research studies the determinants of pig farmers’willingness to recover production under COVID-19 pandemic shock by applying survey data of 201 farmers in Huai’an City and Lin’an City and a logit regression model.The estimation results show that a farmer’s risk perception,the duration time of a farmer’s feed supply under COVID-19 pandemic shock,whether or not being a cooperative member,and a farmer’s knowledge on government’s policy designed to encourage pig production,a farmer’s education level and production experience are the key determinants to a farmer’s willingness to recover pig production.Thus,it’s important for policymakers to solve the problems for farmers to get access to feed during the pandemic,to encourage the development of cooperatives,as well as to issue and advocate policies to encourage pig production.The study contributes to the scant literature by providing fresh empirical evidences on determinants of farmers’willingness to recover pig production.It has significance to farmers and governments to enhance farmers’willingness to recover production,which contributes to secure pig supply in China after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vegetable production under COVID-19 pandemic in China: An analysis based on the data of 526 households

The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on the vegetable supply chain in China.Effective evaluation of the pandemic’s influences on vegetable production is vital for policy settings to enhance the security of vegetable supply.Based on first-hand data from 526 households,we explored regional differences in different types of loss and potential factors affecting the severity farmer households suffered during the pandemic.The results underline that sales contraction and price volatility in the context of interruption of supply chain dominate the total losses during the pandemic.Such losses differ across provinces and are more substantial in provinces with stricter confinement measures.Farmer households’participation in local market and modern marketing methods helps mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 shock,while labor hiring and facilities adoption in production widen the losses due to the shortage in the workforce.In the future,the vegetable industry practitioners and relevant government departments should work together to coordinate the development of short and long supply chains and strengthen the stability and security of the vegetable supply chain.

Modeling the effects of urbanization on grain production and consumption in China

The impact of rapid urbanization on food security of China has received considerable attention.It is not clear whether China can strike a balance between urbanization and food security,especially grain security.There have been numerous studies examining the effects of urbanization on grain production or consumption,but few studies have yet analyzed grain balances.Based on the Chinese World Agricultural Regional Market Equilibrium Model（CWARMEM）,this paper explores the impacts of urbanization on national and regional grain balances through different scenarios.The CWARMEM is a global partial equilibrium multimarket model which captures the differences between urban and rural residents as well as the effects of globalization.The results show that urbanization has a small negative effect on maintaining grain self-sufficiency.Despite of that,China is able to achieve the objective of grain security set by its policymakers.Moreover,urbanization changes regional grain balances across China：The position of Northeast China and North China,as two dominant grain suppliers of China,will be weaken;Central China and East China will increase dependence on other grain suppliers;the grain surplus of Northwest China will increase slightly.Besides,in terms of grain category,urbanization helps China achieve self-sufficiency in food grain（rice and wheat）,while expands deficit of feed grain（maize）.

Factors affecting the adoption of on-farm milk safety measures in Northern China-An examination from the perspective of farm size and production type

The cow stock of smallholder farmers with less than 100 cows still accounted for nearly 50% of total cows in China. Since the milk scandal occurred in 2008, raw milk safety has become focus for the sound development of the Chinese dairy industry. Adoption of on-farm milk safety measures by smallholders is a key for ensuring milk safety, and these measures are largely voluntary in nature. The recent survey conducted in northern China reveals that an overall adoption rate of various milk safety measures by smallholders is close to 48% with wide variations across the dairy farmers. We employ the Poisson regression model to study the determinants of farmers' adoption of voluntary milk safety measures. Compared with backyard dairy farmers, dairy complex and scaled dairy farms adopted more milk safety measures. Moreover, the empirical result indicates that farmers' adoption of raw milk safety measures is positively affected by farm size. These findings suggest that the changing dairy production structure towards larger farms and away from backyard dairy farming prompts smallholder dairy farmers to adopt more raw milk safety measures. This lends some support to the role of recent policy initiatives towards larger farms and away from backyard dairy farming on increasing the farmers' milk safety practices and reducing on-farm incidence of milk safety.

Determinants of cooperative pig farmers' safe production behaviour in China——Evidences from perspective of cooperatives' services

Farmers＇ production behaviour is a key to ensuring the safety and quality of their final products, and cooperatives play an important role in shaping that behaviour. This paper aims to explore the determinants of pig farmers＇ safe production behaviour, giving special focus from the perspective of cooperatives＇ services. This study adopted cross sectional survey data from 27 pig cooperatives and their 540 farmers in China to test the influence of cooperatives＇ services on farmers＇ safe production behaviour. The hypotheses were tested using a logit regression model. The findings indicated that although the number of services is not a key determinant of farmers＇ safe production behaviour, service quality matters. When a cooperative is strongly capable of involving more farmers in certain services, and provides certain services in more frequency, member farmers behave more safely. The results also show that veterinarian and pig-selling services play an important role in ensuring farmers＇ safe production behaviour. For this study, the quality of cooperatives＇ services is implied to have a positive impact on farmers＇ safe production behaviour. Leaders/managers of cooperatives must try to improve the quality of their services instead of merely attempting to provide a large number of services. For government officials and policy makers, designing policies that encourage cooperatives to improve their service quality is important. This research contributes to the scant literature on how cooperative services could help farmers engage in safer production behaviour, which would improve the safety of pork products in the future.

The Impact of Water Pricing Policy on Local Environment-An Analysis of Three Irrigation Districts in China

As a high priority in dealing with the problem of water scarcity, the effect of water pricing policy remains a controversial issue, especially the environmental effect. Using household-level panel data of three irrigation districts （IDs） in the northern China, this paper probes the potential impact of water price rising on local environment. The examination shows that farmers will reduce the rice area as a response to the rising surface water prices. The changing cropping pattern will exert three-fold environmental impacts, including the dropping groundwater level resulting from the reduction of seepage and percolation of irrigated water and overexploitation of groundwater, the negative effect of non-point pollution from fertilizer and pesticide application, and the loss of field irrigation facilities. Water pricing is not a valid means of significantly reducing agricultural water consumption due to the substitution of groundwater for surface water, it will lead to negative environmental effect. It is an imperative task for Chinese government to improve the management efficiency at IDs.

Are vulnerable farmers more easily influenced?Heterogeneous effects of Internet use on the adoption of integrated pest management

The Internet is believed to bring more technological dividends to vulnerable farmers during the green agriculture transformation.However,this is different from the theory of skill-biased technological change,which emphasizes that individuals with higher levels of human capital and more technological endowments benefit more.This study investigates the effects of Internet use on farmers'adoption of integrated pest management(IPM),theoretically and empirically,based on a dataset containing 1015 farmers in China's Shandong Province.By exploring the perspective of rational inattention,the reasons for the heterogeneity of the effects across farmers with different endowments,i.e.,education and land size,are analyzed.The potential endogeneity issues are addressed using the endogenous switching probit model.The results reveal that:(1)although Internet use significantly positively affects farmers'adoption of IPM,vulnerable farmers do not benefit more from it.Considerable selection bias leads to an overestimation of technological dividends for vulnerable farmers;(2)different sources of technology information lead to the difference in the degree of farmers'rational inattention toward Internet information,which plays a crucial role in the heterogeneous effect of Internet use;and(3)excessive dependence on strong-tie social network information sources entraps vulnerable farmers in information cocoons,hindering their ability to reap the benefits of Internet use fully.Therefore,it is essential to promote services geared towards elderly-oriented Internet agricultural technology information and encourage farmers with strong Internet utilization skills to share technology information with other farmers actively.

Who Will Care for Middle Aged and Elderly Parents in Rural China?

Using data from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study,this paper analyzes how the health of parents is causally linked to the gender of their children.We find that,compared with parents with no daughters,those with one daughter are healthier by 0.155 more activities of daily living.This effect is mainly channeled through the provision of emotional comfort and financial support,and not through living with parents.We also confirm that daughters are an important source of financial and emotional support for elderly parents,regardless of whether the parents have pension insurance.This study has important policy implications fo r China as it focuses on the support from daughters,who historically have not been considered to be as reliable as sons in supporting their parents.

电子商务助推小农发展的中国例证

电子商务的发展有力地助推了中国小农户与大市场的连接,成了小农户进入大市场的重要途径,也将有助于促进以安全、营养、可持续、有韧性的中国新型农食系统的转型。研究发现,电子商务通过降低信息和交易成本,推动小农进入全球价值链,帮助小农更好地进入市场。物流和通讯基础设施、对小农具有包容性的数字商业平台以及新农人是发展农村电子商务的前提条件。农村电子商务发展需要构建一个由网商、政府、服务商或公共服务主体共同组成的、适合小农发展的电商生态系统。网商是电商发展的主力,负责整体的网络市场运作;政府是电商发展的助力,负责道路、通信等基础设施建设,营造发展氛围,政策引导和统筹协调;服务商则提供代运营、网商孵化、人才培育、资源整合、园区运营等一系列电子商务公共服务。此外,电子商务也可能将无法参与数字经济或缺乏所需技能的小农排除在市场之外,因此,“数字鸿沟”成为在发展农产品电商过程中带来外部区域失衡和内部农户差异的重要影响因素。

Provision of Residential Solid Waste Management Service in Rural China

Drawing on a dataset covering a large number of randomly sampled villages across China, the present paper examines the issue of residential solid waste management service provision in rural China, Using a logistic model we evaluate the impacts of different factors on service provision at the village level with regard to residential solid waste disposal. These factors include the environmental pressures caused by residential solid waste generation, the financial capacity of the Villagers＇ Committee, village elections and the individual characteristics of village heads. We find that living density, village per capita income, the ratio of irrigated land, and the per capita profit submitted by village enterprises to the Villagers＇ Committee all have positive impacts on service provision. Moreover, village heads who are popularly elected by villagers are more likely to provide services that satisfy voters＇ demands.

Food safety inspection and the adoption of traceability in aquatic wholesale markets: A game-theoretic model and empirical evidence

Supply chain traceability is key to reduce food safety risks,since it allows problems to be traced to their sources. Moreover,it allows regulatory agencies to understand where risk is introduced into the supply chain,and offers a major disincentive for upstream agricultural businesses engaging in economically motivated adulteration. This paper focuses on the aquatic supply chain in China,and seeks to understand the adoption of traceability both through an analytical model,and empirical analysis based on data collected through an extensive (largest ever) field survey of Chinese aquatic wholesale markets. The field survey includes 76 managers and 753 vendors,covering all aquatic wholesale markets in Zhejiang and Hunan provinces. The analytical and empirical results suggest that the adoption of traceability among wholesale market vendors is significantly associated with inspection intensity,their individual history of food safety problems,and their risk awareness. The effect of inspection intensity on traceability adoption is stronger in markets which are privately owned than in markets with state/collective ownership. The analysis offers insights into the current state of traceability in China. More importantly,it suggests several hypothesized factors that might affect the adoption of traceability and could be leveraged by regulatory organizations to improve it.

Impacts of Import Refusals on Agricultural Exports duri ng Pan demies: Implicatio ns for China

Pandemic outbreaks disrupt agricultural trade.The possible strengthening of import barriers to products from countries at the epicenter of a pandemic by their trade partners could aggravate this situation.This paper examines the responses of the US Food and Drug Administration(FDA),import refusals,and subsequent trade impacts on the agricultural exports from the developing countries that were the epicenters of four pandemics in the past two decades.Using monthly data for the period 2002-2020,we find increased import refusals and amplified trade-impeding impacts on agricultural exports during pandemic outbreaks.Increased import refusals and the amplification of the trade-impeding effect of import refusals were especially large when China was the epicenter.We further examine possible differences in these results across products and FDA inspection methods,and the main conclusions remain robust.This paper offers a better understanding of the economic outcomes of pandemic outbreaks and provides policy suggestions for China.

Increasing Wages,Factor Substitution,and Cropping Pattern Changes in China

This article analyzed the influence of increasing wages on cropping patterns from theoretical and empirical perspectives.The results showed that the increasing labor cost provided a significant incentive to adjust the grain cropping pattern,which increased the production of the three major cereal grains but reduced the production of other grain crops.Increasing wages had a significant negative impact on cash crops.More laborintensive cash crops experienced a larger negative impact in the context of increasing wages.The increase in labor costs also had a negative impact on the proportion of vegetables produced,which was more evident in northern China.A further mechanism test indicated that factor substitution was a significant reason for cropping pattern changes;this illustrated the substitution of labor by machinery not only between grain crops and cash crops but also among different cash crops.

Does Chinese Environmental Policy Affect Income Inequality? Evidence from the Central Environmental Protection Inspection

This paper investigates the effect of environmental policy on income inequality.It focuses on the central environmental protection inspection led by the central government in China.Using a diference-in-diferences approach,it finds evidence that environmental regulation decreased the per capita income and enlarged the gap between urban and rural income while showing an insignificant effect on employment.Although the policy can reduce pollution levels and bring environmental benefits in aggregate,the findings of this study suggest that the regulations appear to have reduced the proportion of manufacturing industry and hindered general innovation and investment from entrepreneurs,which resulted in greater inequality.Rural residents suffered more from environmental regulation due to relatively high migration costs and their disadvantaged human resources on the aspects of health,education level,and skills.The local government's execution incentive can also play a key role in the effectiveness of environmental policy.Regions with lower GDP growth targets and younger government leaders were affected significantly with regard to the income growth of local residents and the urban-rural income gap.