Between 2002 and 2024, Mongolia's income inequality decreased substantially. Structural economic shifts, labor market changes, and evolving income composition drive this reduction. Using income source decomposition on household survey data, this study finds that the reduced shares of self-employment and agricultural income were the main equalizing channel. In contrast, rising wage shares exerted upward pressure on inequality despite declining wage concentration. The expansion of employment in the mining, trade, and finance sectors, along with broad coverage of social welfare programs, especially child benefits, played a significant role. Pandemic-era transfers intensified the impact of social transfers. However, regional disparities and vulnerability of herder households persist. The results highlight the importance of targeted labor market policies, improved social transfer design, and resilience measures for rural livelihoods in resource-dependent developing economies.
We examine the effect of maternal education on preventive health behavior using data from Cambodia. Given concerns about the endogeneity of education, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) strategy that exploits the variation in the average years of maternal education across provinces and between cohorts that entered primary school following the 1993 UNICEF Education Plan and older cohorts, as the 1993 reform substantially altered the educational environment following decades of political conflict. The IV estimates indicate that higher maternal education has positive effects on preventive health behavior, including receiving adequate antenatal care, having skilled birth attendants, and not smoking. These results further suggest that maternal information-gathering ability and bargaining power may serve as mechanisms linking maternal education to preventive health behavior.
This paper examines the impact of services trade liberalization on the productivity of manufacturing firms in China. Using a shift-share approach, we construct a city-level measure of services trade restrictiveness to capture regional variation in exposure to liberalization. To address potential endogeneity, we employ an instrumental variable strategy that draws on services trade policy trends in other countries. Our empirical findings show that liberalization significantly enhances manufacturing firm productivity, with stronger effects in industries that rely more heavily on service inputs. Mechanism analysis suggests that liberalization improves firms' access to more efficient service providers, resulting in cost savings and productivity gains. Sectoral heterogeneity analysis reveals that these effects are especially pronounced when trade barriers are reduced in courier and transport services, financial services, professional services, and telecommunications and computer services. Among various policy dimensions, restrictions on labor mobility, discriminatory regulations, and barriers to competition emerge as the most influential. These findings offer valuable policy insights into the economic benefits of services liberalization and underscore the importance of such reforms in supporting industrial upgrading in emerging markets.
Preventing school bullying is a critical issue in the global educational landscape. This paper focuses on the influence of peer violent behavior on the likelihood of junior high school students becoming school bullies. Utilizing data from the 2014 to 2015 China Education Panel Survey, we employ Ordinary Least Squares estimation to examine the relationship between peer violence and individual bullying behavior and find that the probability of students bullying classmates significantly rises by 9.0% when their close friends are involved in violent acts. This baseline conclusion remains robust even after addressing endogeneity concerns using the Oster test and propensity score matching (PSM) method. This relationship appears to be mediated by several mechanisms, including behavioral imitation, emotional contagion, and erosion of moral inhibitions. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive correlation between peer violence and bullying is particularly pronounced among male class teachers. Finally, the study also uncovers that peer violence can lead to a range of negative consequences, including increased incidences of student truancy, academic dishonesty, negative academic achievement, and strained familial relationships. Our findings carry significant implications for developing strategies to mitigate and prevent school bullying.
This paper empirically analyzes tourist inflows as a determinant of merchandise exports for the Pacific countries by employing a gravity model technique. Other relevant variables that augment the model are trade agreements, language affinity, and visa policies. The paper finds that inbound tourism to Pacific countries significantly increases merchandise exports: 1% increase in tourist inflows is associated with a 0.17% rise in merchandise exports in the region. This relationship is along expected lines, as international tourist arrivals can help reduce trade costs, increasing such exports. If international tourists come from countries that share a common language and have established economic partnerships through FTAs and relaxed visa policies, the increase in tourist arrivals is notably bigger.
With China elevating the "Digital China" initiative to a national strategy, we examine how government digital attention enhances international service trade competitiveness by reducing trade costs and increasing service tradability. Using digital-related keyword frequency in government reports from prefecture-level cities (2010-2022), we construct a government digital attention index and integrate it with service trade data from the China Business Yearbook. Employing a two-way fixed effects model, we find that a 1% increase in government digital attention leads to a 3.06% rise in total service trade and a 2.12% increase in service trade exports. The findings remain robust after controlling for extreme values, adopting alternative variable measurement methods, and accounting for regional economic fluctuations. Moreover, we identify the development of digital infrastructure, the enhancement of human capital and education, and improvements in government governance efficiency as the primary mechanisms driving this effect. In regions with high market potential, greater openness, southeastern areas, non-resource-based economies, and higher development levels, the trade-promoting effect of government digital attention is more pronounced, mainly driven by digital infrastructure density and governance efficiency. Our study advances digital governance and high-quality service trade development, offering policy insights for differentiated digital strategies and refining the digital economy-service trade framework.
This study examines the role of digital finance in shaping the dynamic longevity of firms' export activities, with a particular focus on whether the development of digital finance prolongs export duration within a heterogeneous firm framework. Using panel data on Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2016, we first document that export spells are generally short-lived, a pattern consistent with the stylized facts reported in the existing literature. Our baseline results indicate that digital finance significantly extends export duration, and this finding remains robust across a wide range of alternative specifications. Mechanism analyses based on a two-stage least squares (2SLS) strategy further suggest that digital finance prolongs export survival primarily by alleviating recurrent liquidity constraints and mitigating cross-border trade risks. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that the positive effect of digital finance on export longevity is more pronounced among smaller-scale listed companies, firms located in China's economically developed eastern region, and firms engaged in the production of intermediate goods.
This study examines the causal effect of university types on labor market outcomes in Cambodia, leveraging the country's rapid higher education expansion following the 1997 Higher Education Privatization policy, set against Cambodia's labor market, characterized by pronounced regional disparities and uneven sectoral development. Using pooled cross-sectional data between 2020 and 2023 from 1091 graduates across 36 universities, observed during the early stages of their employment, we implement an Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) methodology to address selection bias. We find that private university graduates earn a significant wage premium of 9%-10% compared to public university graduates with similar endowments. Oster's bounding approach also confirms robustness to unobserved selection. Heterogeneous effects are observed across wage distribution, major composition, and employment regions. The wage premium is driven by occupational and sectoral sorting, with private university graduates concentrated in knowledge-intensive service occupations, highlighting implications for higher education policy in structurally transforming economies.
This study reveals significant gender disparities in the health effects of spousal education among Indonesians aged 45-80. Married Females with 9 years of schooling experience poorer self-rated and mental health, whereas husbands' health remains unaffected by their spouses' education. Social capital moderates these effects in a gendered manner. For example, cognitive social capital enhances women's health, while structural social capital benefits men. These findings underscore the need for gender-sensitive policies to address health inequalities stemming from spousal education, offering new insights into the interplay of education, gender, and well-being in later life.
China's poverty alleviation efforts have gradually shifted from solving absolute poverty to relieving relative poverty. The objective economic poverty diverges from psychological subjective poverty and cannot fully capture the sense of relative poverty. Therefore, this study explores the role of homeownership in alleviating subjective poverty using 2018 China Family Panel Studies data. Our results indicate that homeowners in China have a significantly lower subjective sense of poverty, compared with those not owning homes. Furthermore, homeownership has a more significant impact on subjective poverty for “low,” “high,” and “very high” poverty categories, whereas multiple homeownership has a more substantial impact for “very low” and “high” groups. The study also concludes that factors including age, marriage, hukou status, health, education, family cash deposits, and per capita household income have a significant influence on subjective poverty. It is interesting to note that the effect of age on subjective poverty follows an “inverted U‐shaped” pattern. In addition, the effects of homeownership on subjective poverty differ significantly across regions and income groups. Thus, our findings suggest that it is essential to reduce inequality in home ownership and formulate policies that would strike a balance between tenants and homeowners in their access to real estate.
In China, household incomes have undergone significant changes due to rapid economic growth. While it is argued that income change may influence participation in risky financial markets, there is limited empirical evidence for China. Using national longitudinal survey data, this study first examines the impact of income change on the holding of risky financial assets (RFAs) in China. It uses fixed- and random-effects models, and propensity score matching methods, to address endogeneity issues. The empirical results indicate that income change reduces the likelihood of holding RFAs and their shares. The negative effect of income change on participation in risky financial markets varies by demographic group. This effect is more pronounced among middle-aged and elderly individuals, women, and urban residents compared to their counterparts, including youth, men, and rural residents. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing income risk may promote the development of the stock market.
This study analyzes how gender diversity at the board, managerial, and employee levels relates to firm performance in Japan, using panel data from 311 listed companies (2006–2017). We apply instrumental variable estimation to address endogeneity. Across all levels and models, we find no statistically significant association between female representation and performance (measured by Tobin's Q and profit margin). These insignificant results may reflect structural or cultural barriers that limit the impact of diversity. The findings suggest that increasing female representation alone may be insufficient without broader organizational reform and institutional support mechanisms.
We analyze the evolution of intergenerational class mobility in China from a multidimensional perspective, exploring the underlying mechanisms driving this mobility. Using data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS) spanning 2008 to 2021, we find that class barriers remain persistent, with offspring from middle‐ and upper‐class families more likely to remain in higher social classes. The variance decomposition analysis shows that intra‐community differences contribute only 35% to the mobility coefficient, while external differences account for the remaining 65%. Specifically, inter‐provincial differences explain 32%, while inter‐community differences within the same province account for 33%. When educational differences are incorporated, they account for 52% of the coefficient in the full sample. Notably, educational differences explain 7% of the intra‐community proportion, two‐thirds of the inter‐community proportion (excluding inter‐provincial effects), and nearly all of the inter‐provincial proportion. We also perform a heterogeneity analysis by grouping the sample based on birth cohort, residential area, and gender. Additionally, we incorporate subjective class perception as a variable, revealing the prevalent bias in class identification among Chinese residents. Therefore, mitigating the development gaps between communities and provinces, and ensuring equitable access to educational opportunities, are key strategies for improving intergenerational mobility in China.
This paper empirically investigates the impact of global value chain (GVC) participation on environmental pollution using data from China's manufacturing sector. A new Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is introduced as a proxy for assessing changes in environmental pollution. The key findings are as follows: Firstly, although total factor productivity (TFP) in China's manufacturing sector has not shown recent improvement, green total factor productivity (GTFP) has increased. This finding suggests an improvement in environmental quality. Secondly, an increase in the degree of GVC participation is associated with greater environmental pollution. Thirdly, an increase in the GVC position index across all industries in China contributes to a reduction in environmental pollution, suggesting that as production moves upstream, environmental quality tends to improve. Fourthly, however, in the case of energy-intensive industries, this reduction in environmental pollution was not evident. These findings highlight the importance of directing governmental policies toward promoting forward GVC participation rather than backward participation, particularly for reducing environmental pollution. However, it is crucial to note that for energy-intensive industries, shifts in GVC position toward the upstream may not necessarily result in environmental improvements.
The recent advances in robotics technologies and increased adoption of industrial robots have brought about tremendous changes to the production processes and labor market, thus raising the question of how women fared relative to men in this process. In this paper, we study the impacts of robot adoption on gender inequality. Using data on robot imports of Chinese industrial firms, we find that the use of robots significantly increases the relative share of female employees and thus reduces the gender employment gap. We then examine the heterogeneous impacts across industries and regions and find stronger positive effects of robots on women's employment in labor-intensive industries, low- and medium-tech sectors, male-intensive industries, and regions with lower female educational attainment. Further empirical analysis suggests that the use of robots significantly reduces the gender pay gap for low-skilled workers, but not for higher-skilled workers. Our findings are consistent with the fact that robots mainly substitute for brawn skills in which men have a comparative advantage. Overall, our study highlights the importance of robots and other automation technologies in boosting women's employment and reducing gender inequality in the labor market.
This study examines household income mobility in South Korea during two distinct periods (2011-2014 and 2014-2017), employing a second-order Markov chain model that incorporates novel analytical approaches, including Markovity tests, Class Mobility Delta (CMD), and phase-type distribution analyses. We find that income transitions depend significantly on income classes of the preceding 2 years rather than just 1 year. Our CMD analysis shows that income classes exhibited statistically significant divergence during 2014-2017, characterized by bipolarization with expansion at both the top (Q7) and contraction in the middle (Q4). Furthermore, phase-type analyses reveal statistically significant reductions in the expected absorbing time for lower-income groups transitioning to middle and upper classes, suggesting enhanced upward mobility during 2014-2017. These results underscore the importance of long-term policy approaches that address deeper structural dynamics influencing household income mobility.
This study examines the effect of class size on the academic achievement of ninth-grade students, using random variation in enrollment as an instrument for class size. I find a substantial improvement in reading test scores after a reduction in class size. These favorable effects are especially strong for students in coeducational schools and for boys. Distributional analysis shows a beneficial effect on reading across all percentiles and on mathematics and English in the lower and middle percentiles. I find that reducing class sizes increases counseling sessions and reduces incidents of school violence, resulting in beneficial effects on academic performance. These findings indicate that the beneficial effect can be attributed to the improved teacher-student relationship and the peer-to-peer relationship. These results suggest that the effect of class size reduction depends on the classroom environment.
This present study examines the time-varying relationship between the bond markets of Asian countries and global bond markets using wavelet techniques. The study focuses on the period from 2006 to 2022 and covers the Asian bond markets of China, Japan, Korea, India, and Singapore and global markets of the United States of America and European Union. The findings show a significant degree of positive co-movement and integration between the bond markets of these Asian countries as well as with their global counterparts. However, integration varies, with short- and medium-term coherence driven by crises and policy announcements, while long-term patterns remain diverse.
In the global energy framework, renewable energy has been crucial in displacing fossil fuels to advance energy security and sovereignty. This paper empirically examines how green finance affects renewable energy investment, using samples of 111 renewable energy firms listed on the A-share market between 2011 and 2020. We find that green finance in China will increase investment efficiency and reduce excessive investment by renewable energy enterprises. According to mechanism testing, green finance mainly affects the scale of renewable energy investment by controlling the debt financing scale and shortening the debt financing period. It also affects the efficiency of renewable energy investment by controlling the debt financing scale, shortening the debt financing term, and reducing debt financing costs. The heterogeneity of various industries and ownership properties was also examined. This paper offers a theoretical foundation for promoting the growth of the renewable energy sector and provides China with rich policy insights to improve its green finance system. This study supplements the relevant literature regarding how green financing affects investments in renewable energy, providing a reference for the formulation of policies related to China's renewable energy development.
