This paper investigates empirically the illiquidity of majority blocks of shares in the context of a search model of block trades. The search model incorporates two aspects of illiquidity, or search frictions. First, upon a liquidity shock, the incumbent blockholders may be forced to sell to a...

This Discussion Paper documents a survey conducted in rural China in 2005. A multi-topic survey funded by the Sino-German international Training Program Sustainable Resource Use in North China, the project covers farm management, land property rights and rural credit access on the North China...

The paper estimates how parents adjust bride-prices and land divisions to compensate their sons for differences in their schooling investments in rural China. The main estimate implies that when a son receives one yuan less in schooling investment than his brother, he will obtain 0.7 yuan more...

Rural poverty is linked to the exposure of the households to economic vulnerability through their chronic dependence on agriculture in income-generation. A starting point in mitigating this vulnerability would be a comprehensive accessibility improvement that substantially reduces transportation...

Much of the recent literature in household economics has been critical of unitary models of household decision-making. Most alternative models currently used are bargaining models and consensual models, including collective models. This paper discusses another alternative: independent individual...

An important criterion for the design of urban water prices is the affordability of water supply for poor customers. This paper presents a typology of water pricing options which policy-makers have at their disposal in order to address affordability. A review of theoretical insights and...

This document provides a description of the STAGE_W computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which is a development of the STAGE model and allows for the depiction of diverse water resources and qualities as well as the simulation of detailed water policy scenarios. The main extensions of...