In this article, we examine both pre- and post-reform economic convergence behaviour in China using the time-series procedures developed in the Hobijn and Franses (2000). Our results are striking: First, we find a number of extremely small convergence clubs for both the pre- and post-reform...

This paper relaxes the assumption of homogeneous rates of return to schooling by employing nonparametric kernel regression. This approach allows us to examine the differences in rates of return to education both across and within groups. Similar to previous studies we find that on average blacks...

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well-established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship − particularly on child health − is limited. We use two measures of child health to asses the quantity-quality trade-off across the...

We compare several income distributions in urban China in the late 1980s and mid-1990s using tests for stochastic dominance in order to decompose gender differentials. Examination of the entire distribution gives insight into the uniformity of such differentials across the distribution....

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship is limited. This chapter applies a recently developed nonparametric estimator of the conditional local average treatment effect to assess...

China's phenomenal growth is accompanied by both relatively low level of standards of living and high inequality. It is widely believe that investing in education could be an effective strategy to promote higher standards of living as well as to reduce inequality. However, little is known about...

This paper provides a framework for estimating intergenerational mobility elasticities (IGE) of children's income with respect to parental income. We allow the IGEs to be heterogeneous, by leaving the relationship of parental and child incomes unspecified, while acknowledging and addressing the...

The use of informal job search method is prevalent in many countries. There is, however, no consensus in the literature on whether it actually matters for wages, and if it does, what are the underlying mechanisms. We empirically examine these issues specifically for rural migrants in urban...

Faced with the increasingly worsening obesity crisis, many governmental and non-governmental organizations have been promoting home cooking as a key part of the strategy to tackle poor quality diets and obesity. Home cooked food sharing platforms, as a quintessential illustration of the sharing...

This note takes a first look at the distribution of returns to education for people with disabilities, a particularly disadvantaged group whose labor market performances have not been well studied or documented. Using a nonparametric approach, we uncover significant heterogeneity in the returns...