Parental involvement in matchmaking may distort the choice of spouse because parents are willing to substitute love for market and household production, which are more sharable between parents and their children. This paper finds supportive evidence in a survey of Chinese couples. In both rural...

Parental involvement in marriage matchmaking may distort the optimal spouse choice because parents are willing to substitute love for money. The rationale is that the joint income of married children can be shared among extended family members more easily than mutual attraction felt by the...

In the past decade, the World Bank has promoted improving business environments as a key strategy for development, which has resulted in a significant amount of investment in collecting firm-level investment climate surveys across countries. What lessons have emerged from the papers using these...

Although previous research has demonstrated the health benefits of water treatment programs, relatively little is known about the effect of water treatment on education. This paper examines the educational benefits to rural youth in China of a major drinking water treatment program started in...

"Many governments advocate nationwide health insurance coverage but the effects of such a program are less known in developing countries. We use part of the 2006 China Agricultural Census (CAC) to examine whether the recent health insurance coverage in rural China has affected children...

"This essay reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on quality disclosure and certification. After comparing quality disclosure with other quality assurance mechanisms and describing a brief history of quality disclosure, we address three key theoretical issues: (i) Why don't sellers...