This paper focuses on the determinants of self-employment among rural to urban migrants in China. Two self-selection mechanisms are analysed: the first relates to the manner in which migrants choose self-employment or paid work based on the potential gains from either type of employment; the...

Using data from recent surveys of migrants and local residents in 10 cities in 2005, this paper examines how migration influences measurements of urban poverty and inequality in China, and also compares how other indicators of well-being differ for migrants and local residents. Contrary to...

This paper investigates the impact of land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of China's rural residents. A simple model first frames the relationship among these variables and the probability that a reallocation of land will occur in the following year. After first demonstrating that...

This paper explores the relationship between fiscal decentralization, which gave greater rural industrialization and fiscal authority to local governments, and the emergence of rural-rural undocumented inter-provincial labor migration during China's initial reform period. A Heckman model is...

In this paper, we examine the impact of reductions in barriers to migration on the consumption of households in rural China. We find that increased migration from rural villages leads to significant increases in consumption per capita, and that this effect is stronger for poorer households...

The main objective of this paper is to propose a systematic approach to empirically analyse the effect of remittances on the utility of migrants, as proxied by their subjective well-being (SWB). Using data from a new survey on China (RUMiC), we estimate models in which a measure of subjective...

Should public investment be targeted to big cities or to small towns, if the objective is to minimize national poverty? To answer this policy question we extend the basic Todaro-type model of rural-urban migration to the case of migration from rural areas to two potential destinations, secondary...

We analyse the impact of internal migration in China on natives' labour market outcomes. We find evidence of a large positive correlation of the city share of migrants with natives' wages. Using different sets of control variables and instruments suggests that the effect is causal. The large...

This paper provides evidence on the impacts of non-cognitive skills and attitudes towards risk on the decision to migrate from rural to urban areas. Our analysis is based on a unique four-wave panel of Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for the period between 2003 and 2012. Adopting the...

Over the past two decades, more than 160 million rural residents have migrated to cities in China. They are usually separated from their rural families and work in an unfamiliar, and sometimes hostile, city environment. This paper investigates to what extent city social networks alleviate mental...