Yvonne Jie Chen

New Estimates of Factor Income Shares in Central Asian Economies

This paper illustrates a simple method to derive the income accounts in the context of limited macroeconomic data. The method is relevant for several developing countries where the statements on income are clearly absent and the national accounts are confined to statements on expenditure and/or value added. Furthermore, the method is illustrated for four Central Asian economies, namely Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. A Cobb-Douglas factor utilisation function is then used to estimate factor income shares and the relative contributions of factors to economic growth. The analysis reveals limited contribution of labour to economic growth in these economies. This limitation appears to be strongest in the resource dependent economies of Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Early Life Exposure to Tap Water and the Development of Cognitive Skills

To improve drinking water accessibility and safety in rural China, the Chinese government launched the rural drinking water program in the 1980s. As part of the program, tap water infrastructure has been constructed in rural areas to supply tap water to rural residents. This policy intervention provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of early life exposure to tap water on children’s cognitive achievement in later life. Using data extracted from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that one additional year of exposure to tap water in early life increases average cognitive test score by 0.109 standard deviations for a sample of rural children aged 10-15 in 2010. The effect is larger for children whose fathers are less-educated. Event study estimates confirm that the beneficial impacts are concentrated in early life with limited additional impact after the time window.

Reducing Information Asymmetry and Enhancing Economic Literacy in Principles Courses

This paper posits that the sequencing of topics in introductory economics texts plays a subtle, but potentially key, role in influencing the effective delivery of principles courses. The key criterion for effectiveness is the attainment of economic literacy. The effective role of sequencing is illustrated by recourse to the possible implications of the order of content on externalities and imperfect competition subsequent to the treatment of allocative efficiency by markets.

The Value of Skills – Raising the Socioeconomic Status of Rural Women in India

Using primary survey data collected in two sub-districts of Gujarat, India, on a unique program that trains rural women with low human capital to repair village water handpumps, we examine the effect of skills training on their socio-economic outcomes. We find that participating in the training program significantly increases the probability of being employed outside household farms and women’s contribution to household income in the lean season. Further, we find that program participants spend more on female-favored consumption goods and have a greater say in household spending decisions, but only from the women’s perspective and not husband’s or adult son’s perspective. Consequently, providing skills training, even for part-time employment, can have positive effects on rural women’s overall socio-economic status.

China’s Statistical System: Three Decades of Change and Transformation

Qing China was no slouch either in making up in land what Ming “lost” at sea. In Chapter 3 on The Communist Manifesto, Nolan muses on the global impact of Marxism and its salience to China’s ruling party, and China today. Literally offering the manifesto as the key Marxist text, the author matches doctrine with the kind of praxis spinning off in the real world under such headings as, “modern capitalism,” “oligopoly,” “technical progress,” “globalization,” “class struggle?,” “finance,” “environment” and “the commune.” For Nolan, global capitalism and the benefits incurred are the double-edged vindication of Marxist predictions, albeit also bequeathing an unequal global class structure and unstable financial system. Marx, according to Nolan, was wrong in foreseeing that the global spread of capitalism would erode national differences. Neither did Marx foresee global environmental vulnerabilities. This chapter is concluded with talk of a looming human abyss and the Frankenstein monster of unconstrained global capitalism. Citing Marx, he warns: “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk” (79). Marx’s rich intellectual legacy, Nolan hopefully contends, can help East and West to find a common language. Chapter 4 focuses upon the theme of “class struggle” or at least the way that this concept, forged in Europe’s Industrial Revolution, actually translated into China, as with the Cultural Revolution. But rather than dwelling upon China, across 72 pages Nolan sweeps British labour history through the lens of Engels’ Condition of the British Working Class, and with reference to the writings of J. S. Mill. George Orwell and R. H. Tawney. The thesis here, expanded across five historical phases, appears to be the failure of “class struggle” in Britain, hailed by Engels as offering a proletariat in pure form, thus holding up a mirror to Maoist China with its peasant masses. Thatcherism, the globalisation of the economy, the emasculation of the working class with the rise of the service sector and two Englands, with London at the financial core, are all part of the story. Not even the British university system is spared from its skewed role in elite foundation. Class apathy rules. There is only a spare couple of paragraphs in this chapter relating to China, namely a reference to the eleventh CPC Central Committee resolution of 1981 repudiating Maoism. There is no overall conclusion to this book. Given the date of publication, it is surprising that the author does not flag Xi Jingping’s November 2015 call to study Marxist political economy, as it would add ammunition to his argument. A sprawling sometimes unconnected work, some parts redolent of Confucius Institute verities, there is no question that this is a provocative and rewarding book to engage. Far from further understanding China, I learned a lot about the terrestrial Silk Road trade from antiquity, many factoids on UCLOS, and drew much inspiration from a discussion on the working class and the Labour Party in Britain.

Display of Factor -- Utilization in Central Asia

This paper illustrates a simple method to elicit the income accounts in the context of incomplete macroeconomic data. The method the enables the display of widely used factor utilization function in macroeconomics. The analysis of this function with reference to four Central Asian economies (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) provides the basis for studying factor shares of income and the relative contributions of factors to economic growth.