A survey of rural migrants employed in enterprises in four Chinese cities is analysed to answer the following questions. Are the productive characteristics of migrants rewarded in the urban labour market? How do migrants compare with non-migrants in their productive characteristics, occupational...

Why is it that couples who have a son or whose last child is a son earn higher conditional income? To solve this curious case we tell a detective story: evidence of a phenomenon to be explained, a parade of suspects, a process of elimination from the enquiry, and then the denouement. Given the...

The impact of education on farmers' attitudes toward endogenous risk (measured using an attitude survey instrument) is estimated with household data from rural Ethiopia. Education of the household head is found to decrease risk-aversion. Next, the effects of education and risk attitudes on...

The paper presents subjective well-being functions for urban and rural China, based on a national household survey for 2002. Whereas the vast income disparity between urban and rural households is confirmed, it is found that, remarkably, rural households report higher subjective well-being than...

As the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip in a more market-oriented economy, why have membership and the economic benefits of joining risen? We use three national household surveys over 11 years to answer this question for wages in urban China. Individual demand for Party membership...

The conventional approach of economists to the measurement of poverty is to use measures of income or consumption. This has been challenged by those who favour broader criteria, such as fulfilment of 'basic needs' and the 'capabilities' to be and to do things of intrinsic worth. This paper asks:...