This study contributes to an important, but under-researched, topic on China by empirically examining the theory of compensating wage differentials for occupational risks in urban labour markets. Drawing on two datasets – one national for all workers and one from the Pearl River Delta for...

This study investigates determinants of happiness and job satisfaction of urban locals, first-generation migrants and new-generation migrants in China's urban workforce. We present evidence to suggest that new-generation migrants are less satisfied with their jobs and lives than first-generation...

This study contributes to an important, but under-researched, topic on China by empirically examining the theory of compensating differentials in the context of China's migrant workers. Using survey data collected from the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province in south China, this study...

China’s iron and steel sector is the largest in the world and has been the backbone of Chinese heavy industry. This sector is also a major consumer of energy and, in particular, coal. As a result, the iron and steel sector in China is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and...

This paper uses data from the China Urban Labour Survey administered across 12 cities in 2005 to estimate the economic returns to speaking standard Mandarin among internal migrants in China’s urban labour market. The paper builds on studies that estimate the economic returns to international...

Urban bias has long been China’s dominant economic policy. The persistent urban bias leads to a severe rural-urban income gap and diverts physical as well as an effect of diverting the rural resource out of agricultural sector, and thus is detrimental to agricultural growth. This paper...

This paper examines the determinants of working excessive hours, defined as working in excess of 60 hours per week or for more than six consecutive days, in Chinese and Thai supply-chain factories. We use a matched employer-employee dataset collected from 15 Chinese and Thai footwear and...

In most developing countries children provide some form of insurance against risks when parents are old, which, in turn, justifies parental preference to have more children. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of number of children on several measures of health status of elderly parents...

In this study we examine the extent to which firms pass back the cost of pollution regulation to workers in the form of lower wages using a unique matched employer-employee dataset for Shanghai. The benefits and costs of pollution regulation in China are important topics to study as China comes...

We find that taller people enjoy a higher quality of life at older ages in China. Implications are drawn for investment in health human capital in infancy and adolescence.