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Income inequality is undoubtedly a potential economic and social risk for any country in the world. For China, the improvement in agricultural production capacity and the steady progress of urbanization are fundamental guarantees to mitigate unbalanced urban-rural development and alleviate urban-rural conflict. However, previous studies have paid little attention to the effects of agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers on urban-rural income disparity. Based on a data set of 30 provincial-level regions in China over 1997–2015, we use the system generalized method of moments to investigate the impacts of agricultural production inputs and urbanization on urban-rural income disparity. The results show that increasing urbanization has a significant effect on mitigating urban-rural income disparity. The intensity of chemical fertilizer application also has a significant impact on the disparity, but the impact depends on the level of urbanization. For the provinces with relatively low levels of urbanization, an increase in the intensity of chemical fertilizer application can moderate the disparity, while a decline in the intensity of chemical fertilizer application can narrow the disparity in more urbanized provinces. The threshold levels of urbanization present a time-varying characteristic; however, the threshold effects are significant over the entire sample period. Therefore, during the process of further urbanization in China, it is necessary and urgent to appropriately adjust the pattern of chemical fertilizer application and thus reduce the over-dependence on chemical fertilizers in agricultural production.

Markups vary systematically across firms and are an important cause of productivity dispersion. However, whether markup dispersion represents mis-allocation depends on sources driving the dispersion. This paper provides evidence on the role of demand-side factors in shaping the dispersion of markups. Using data on Indian manufacturing firms, I first document two key correlations: prices and markups are increasing in firm size. I then explore how these correlations are driven by two factors: the assortative matching of wealthier consumers to larger firms, and the lower demand elasticity of wealthier consumers. Guided by this observation, I examine how firms adjust prices to income shocks to poor households. Using weather-driven exogenous changes to local rural income, I find that average prices decrease when demand from poor households increases relative to wealthier households. These effects are driven by changes in markups for firms that sell to both rich and poor households. Higher rural income changes the demand composition and increases the demand elasticity for these firms, and they lower markups in response. The results are supportive of the demand-based markup channel: selling to wealthier and less demand elastic households leads larger firms to charge higher markups. The channel accounts for at least 8 percent of the observed productivity dispersion across the Indian manufacturing sector.

Summary Since the introduction of private tubewells in rural Pakistan, farmers have increasingly used groundwater to supplement canal water for irrigation and improve the reliability of the water supply. Farmers obtain groundwater either from their own tubewells or from other well owners. This paper examines the effect of private tubewells on rural income, both in terms of income level and income distribution since it may differ across farmers with different irrigation status (only canal water, canal water and groundwater from own tubewell, and canal water and purchased groundwater). The results show that private tubewells work to enhance rural income and reduce income inequality in rural Pakistan.

This study applies bootstrap panel Granger causality to test the relationship between urbanization and the urban-rural income gap in China. We find that patterns of interaction between urbanization and the urban-rural income gap vary according to different regions. Empirical results show that urbanization does Granger-cause an urban-rural income gap, mainly in the Eastern region of China. In one-third of all provinces, the urbanization levels have a significant impact on the urban-rural income gap; however, the urban-rural income gap does not play a significant role in urbanization. The Eastern region's result is also in line with Kuznets's (1955) theory. These results could help regional governments develop fair policies for urban and rural income distribution in the process of urbanization of different regions.

Summary Through addressing the motivations behind rural households’ livelihood diversification, this paper examines the effect of the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) on livelihood diversification using a longitudinal household survey data set spanning the overall implementation of the SLCP. Our results show that the SLCP works as a valid external policy intervention to increase rural livelihood diversification. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the implementation of the SLCP has had heterogeneous effects on livelihood diversification across different rural income groups. The lower income group was more affected by the program in terms of income diversification.

This paper evaluates the impact of the 8-7 Plan, the second wave of China's poverty alleviation program, on rural income growth at the county level over the program's disbursement period, from 1994 to 2000. Program participation was largely determined by whether a county's pre-program income fell below a given poverty line; hence, a regression discontinuity approach is employed to estimate the causal effects of the program. Using a panel data set, we find that the 8-7 Plan resulted in an approximately 38-percent increase in rural income for counties that were treated between 1994 and 2000. Our empirical results also suggest the important role of initial endowments in the path toward economic development.

This paper builds simultaneous equations model based on survey data of 2445 Chinese villages to do empirical analysis of the relationship among farmer economic organization, agricultural specialization and rural income. It finds that raising the level of agricultural specialization can improve rural income significantly, and the development of farmer economic organization is an effective way to raise the level of agricultural specialization; The factors, which affect whether farmers participating in farmer economic organization, are characteristics of farmers, situation of farmer economic organization and relevant policies promoting the development of farmer economic organization. Therefore, it has great significance to agricultural specialization and rural income growth for government to take measures to promote development of farmer economic organization.

This paper examines the links between the assets and the economic activities of rural households in developing countries to provide insight into how the promotion of certain key assets-particularly education, land, and infrastructure-influences the economic choices of these households. Nationally representative data from 15 countries which form part of the rural income-generating activities (RIGA) database are used in the analysis. The results indicate that improved land access is linked to agricultural production and thus will lead households to take, on average, this path for improving household welfare. Higher levels of education and greater access to infrastructure appear to be most closely linked to non-agricultural wage employment. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The potential of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the Mediterranean region as a source of livelihood and sustainable development has been widely recognized. Yet, surprisingly few efforts have been made to value them comprehensively. Valuation efforts usually focused on selected NTFPs traded on formal markets, at local level. This paper aims to provide comprehensive estimates of NTFPs benefits at national and regional level in the Mediterranean region. Six major groups of NTFPs are identified: firewood, cork, fodder, mushrooms, honey and other NTFPs. Valuation is based on a wide variety of techniques, drawing on official statistics, and supplemented by results of local surveys. It shows that at Mediterranean level, NTFPs provide annual benefits of about €39/ha of forests, accounting for about a fourth of the total economic value of forests estimated by this study. The average estimate for southern countries (€54/ha) is considerably higher than for northern (€41/ha) and eastern countries (€20/ha). The paper reveals the degree of importance of the main NTFPs benefits for the country groups and the region as a whole. It also discusses some reasons of concern when drawing policy tools for improving rural income and forest conservation in the Mediterranean.

The harvesting of non-timber forest products has been proposed as an alternative to timber harvesting that can increase rural income while having a reduced impact on forest structure. However, surprisingly little is known about the biological consequences of harvesting these products. We conducted a 3-year experiment in which we simulated the stem harvesting of the Amazonian plant Ischnosiphon polyphyllus, which is used by traditional and indigenous populations in the Amazon for the construction of baskets, mats, and other handicrafts used in manioc cultivation. We found that plant mortality is limited in all except the most extreme harvesting treatments. However, we also found that plants recuperate extremely slowly from experimental harvesting. These results suggest that current harvesting strategies may not be conservative enough to ensure long-term population survival.

Using survey data from China, this article examines the effects of income gaps on migration decisions and the sources of these gaps. The econometric results support the hypothesis that income gaps significantly influence migration decisions. When income gap reaches a certain level, the reaction of the migration probability to income gap is weaker for men than for women. The relative income of women is less sensitive to an increase in rural income but more sensitive to a decrease in urban income than that of men. Moreover, we find that the urban to rural income gap is larger for women than for men, which suggests that women receive larger monetary return from migration than men do. In decomposing income gaps, we find that the gap for men is largely determined by differences in the attributes of migrants and nonmigrants, whereas for women, the gap is mainly determined by differences in returns to attributes.

This paper is an attempt to explore the factors behind the changes in rural income inequality in China in the second half of the 1980's by decomposing overall rural income inequality into contributions by different sources of income. Furthermore, by extension of Shorrocks' decomposition rule (Shorrocks, 1982, Econometrica 50, 1:193–211, Jan. 1982), the contribution of each source of income is further decomposed into its between-regions and within-region contributions. Statistical tests are developed to ascertain whether the changes in the contributions are statistically significant. The policy implications of the empirical findings with respect to region-based redistributive and preferential policies are discussed. J. Comp. Econom., September 1998, 26(3), pp. 502–528. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong.

Over the past ten years, an informal West African animal helminthosis network has developed (Appendix A), with the aims of both improving livestock productivity through parasite control and, ultimately, increasing rural income. The network places a strong emphasis on building up local research capacity through scientific partnership. This article highlights recent findings from projects of the network.

This article investigates improved allocation of subsidized credits among farm groups in East Java, Indonesia. The empirical results of a bilevel programming model show that not only aggregate agricultural output, but also rural income distribution can be improved by increasing the availability of subsidized credit to small farmers.

This paper presents issues and challenges for farm and enterprise diversification and integration of small scale farmers into value chains in East Europe and Central Asia (EECA). First, it discuses context and approaches to agricultural and rural income diversification. Second, it assesses the extent of agricultural diversification in EECA. Third, it identifies issues, challenges and lessons learnt of the integration of small farmers into agricultural value chains in the region. Forth, it outlines options and areas of intervention to foster diversification and market inclusion of smallholders in EECA. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for improvement of public policies and international assistance.

Maize self-sufficiency has normally been an explicit policy goal throughout Eastern and Southern Africa because of the perception that it could be achieved at prices below import parity and that it contributes to rural income growth. However, this analysis, based on household survey data from Zimbabwe and the results of an econometrically based simulation model, indicates that a pricing policy geared towards maize self-sufficiency would mainly benefit a small set of well-off farmers and require either greater subsidies or higher prices to consumers, many of whom are low-income rural farmers in low-rainfall areas. The broader implications of this analysis are that, even if the producer price needed for self-sufficiency is below import parity, the pursuit of food self-sufficiency may inflate food costs and exacerbate rural and urban food insecurity compared to a self-rellance policy involving imports.

In this paper, we have used some mobility indexes to measure the rural income movements that happened in the time from 1988 to 2005, and decomposed it with the Fields&OK methods. From the analysis results, we found that income movements could reduce the short-term inequality in rural China, but this mobility in short-term is on the weaken over the time in rural China. And the decomposition outcome of mobility shows that, although the transfer effects that come from the change of relative income rank is still the leading factor for short-term mobility, but the income growth’s contribution is increasing. And in the long run, the mobility is an outcome of income growth.

This paper examines the role of government spending in the rural sector in Latin America. We estimate the effect of various forms of government spending on rural income explicitly considering the interactions among the various types of government expenditures. Most previous analyses have concentrated on either the aggregate level of government expenditures or specific components of various expenditures in isolation. Using data from eleven Latin American countries for the period of 1985 to 2001, we are able to pinpoint not only the substitution among specific expenditures but we also show the existence of important complementarities among certain expenditure pairs.

A widely accepted tenet of the development literature is that, in the process of structural economic transformation that accompanies economic development, the farm sector as a share of the country’s GDP will decline as a country’s GDP grows (Chenery and Syrquin, 1975). In rural areas, this implies that a shrinking agricultural sector and expanding rural non-farm (RNF) activities, as well as a changing definition of rural itself, should be viewed as likely features of economic development. The available empirical evidence unequivocally points out to the existence of a large RNF economy. While few data sources exist which allow for consistent measurement of changes in RNF income and employment over time, available information points to an increasing role for RNF activities.

China is going to become a major agricultural power with improved transportation systems and growth in rural income and infrastructure. In 20 years China will be the second largest economy in the world behind the US. China will increase it's imports of food as income rise and trade agreements are signed. China and the ASEAN countries have signed a free trade agreement and China is in discussions about free trade with Brazil and India. Growth is seen in China's agricultural economy.

Target groups for rural poverty alleviation schemes in South Asia and elsewhere have often been identified in terms of their landholding class, with landless or near landless households being the intended beneficiaries. This paper offers a quantitative approach to the analysis and design of land-contingent poverty alleviation schemes. An application to Bangladesh suggests that, when income is generally unobserved, landholding class is a good instrument for targeting poverty relief, in that it is strongly correlated with the informationally feasible allocations which minimize aggregate poverty for a given budget. It is, however, far from being a perfect instrument. Even under otherwise ideal conditions, the maximum feasible reduction in poverty which is attainable by relying solely on land-based targeting is substantially less than that attainable with perfect income information. Indeed, the poverty alleviation impact of domestically financed and revenue-neutral transfers across 10 landholding classes in rural Bangladesh could also be achieved without targeting by simply giving every household a lump-sum payment equivalent to 10% of mean rural income. Political restrictions on tax powers or errors made in administration will further reduce the gains from land-contingent targeting. Greater impact on poverty for a given budgetary cost will require more precise targeting within landholding classes.