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Abstract In the late 1990s, China initiated the Conversion of Croplands to Forest Program (CCFP) and the Ecological Welfare Forest Program (EWFP) based on the Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) principle. Positive socioeconomic outcomes of the programs are essential for the long-term success of eco-environment conservation. However, there is lack of understanding of their longer-term (over 10 years) impacts on rural livelihoods. In this paper, we examine income distribution and inequality of rural households under CCFP and EWFP in rural Anhui, China after 12 years of program implementation. Results show that CCFP-participating households have higher income inequality than non-participants, while the EWFP does not have a significant effect. Local off-farm work and out-migration with remittances are the two principal income sources and both add to inequality. A regression-based decomposition of inequality shows that the CCFP indirectly alters livelihoods by increasing out-migration with remittances, but it also adds to inequality from shifting livelihoods to non-agricultural activities. Meanwhile, EWFP payments positively affect agricultural incomes and contribute 16% to agricultural income inequality. Finally, human capital, natural capital and physical capital all play important roles in generating income and inequality, but the factors affecting inequality from agricultural and non-agricultural activities are different. Highlights • We examine rural household income distribution under two concurrent PES programs. • CCFP positively affects non-farm income via out-migration followed by remittances. • EWFP positively affects agricultural income and adds slightly to inequality. • Factors affecting agricultural and non-agricultural income distributions differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential energy consumption level, structure, and potentiality are crucial indices reflecting economic and social development. In rural China, energy poverty is still prevalent, and economic poverty is a critical factor that deteriorates energy poverty. This paper combines income- and asset-based measures of wealth to provide a more dynamic perspective on the effects of economic poverty on energy poverty. Results show that for the household which in an average asset or income level, when its assets and income increase by 10%, the probability of a household choosing clean fuels increases by 0.007 and 0.002, respectively. Rural household prefers gas than electricity when household income and assets increase. To solve the energy poverty problem in rural areas, governments need to take measures to improve the accumulation of wealth, raise the infrastructure level and increase the employment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Microcredit has gained worldwide acceptance in recent years as a flexible mechanism to expand individuals’ (especially the poor''s) access to financial services, which is considered as an efficient way to achieve poverty reduction and other social development. A large number of empirical studies have been done to examine the welfare effects of microcredit on the borrowers and such effects are well documented in many other countries such as Bangladesh. However, the impacts of microcredit on China rural households’ livelihood are not well documented. This paper attempts to empirically evaluate the impact of microcredit on household welfare outcomes such as income and consumption in rural China. The estimation is based on the difference-in-difference approach which is an increasingly popular method of tackling the selection bias issue in assessing the impacts of microcredit. The study uses a two-year panel dataset, including both primary and secondary data collected through a household survey in rural China. Our empirical results favour the wide belief in the literature that joining microcredit programme helps improve households’ welfare such as income and consumption. Despite the optimistic findings on how microcredit has changed the rural households’ living conditions, our results show that the vast majority of the programme participants are non-poor, which casts some doubts on the social potential (such as poverty reduction) of China''s microcredit programmes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]