This paper is based on an ongoing joint work with David Sahn and Xiaobo Zhang.

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential of clustering in the development of agriculture and rural communities in China. We shall examine in detail the food industry, which is the link in the food chain that propels the industrialization of agriculture, and identify instances of...

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...

Households in developing countries take various actions to smooth income or consumption as a means of managing or responding to risk. One of the principal means of smoothing income is through the diversification of income sources, including non-farm employment and rural-urban migration. An...

Previous studies commonly assume that the effects of introducing and ending cereal price subsidies on the poor’s nutrient intakes are symmetric. We question the assumption of symmetry and show that the poor’s nutrient intakes respond asymmetrically to declines and increases in the price of...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/14/11.

Informal credit markets are very active in many developing countries including China. Informal financial associations have become a major channel of borrowing. Using data from the 2006 Rural Household Survey, this paper investigates farmers’ borrowings from both formal and informal sources...

This paper examines changes in agriculture and livelihood system in four Chinese villages, on the basis of two waves village-wide household surveys conducted over a decade interval. To identify the factors that are important in accounting for variation in household income change, an income...

Technology and innovation play an increasingly important role in the economic development of both developed and developing countries. We investigate how policy and market factors influence firms’ (or other potential innovators’) decisions on innovation or imitation by developing a conceptual...

China has embarked on a major program to modernise agricultural and agribusiness structures with far reaching implications for rural development, international competitiveness / trade and food safety. There are, however, few studies that examine in detail how the modernisation program has...