During the 2003-2006 period, subjective health status in Chinese rural areas improved. We used a unique household longitudinal survey to analyze how the introduction of a public insurance system has contributed to the change. This program is based on a doubly voluntary process: counties decide...

We consider commuting in a congested urban area. While an efficient time-varying toll may eliminate queuing, a toll may not be politically feasible. We study the benefit of a substitute: a parking fee at the workplace. An optimal time-varying parking fee is charged at zero rate when there is...

Urbanization and poverty have a two-way relationship. Using fixed-effects regression andpanel data from household surveys, we estimate the effect of urbanization on welfare andpoverty of rural households in Vietnam. We find that urbanization tends to increaselandlessness of rural households and...

This paper studies the link between migration, remittances and productive assets accumulation for a panel of poor rural households in Mexico over the period 1997- 2006. In a context of financial markets imperfections, migration may act as a substitute for imperfect credit and insurance provision...

By focusing on human capital investment, the Mexican Oportunidades program will influence the economic choices of the rural poor. To understand how beneficiaries may alter their behavior as a result of this intervention, this paper uses administrative data to analyze the economic activities of...

This paper provides quasi-experimental (RDD) estimates of the impact of a tax credit program targeted at less densely populated areas. The program was launched in the mid 1990s in rural France and includes corporate and payroll tax exemptions. Variations over time and across rm types allow...