Asset endowments, non-farm participation and local separability in remote rural China

作者：Liang Yicheng^*; Feldman Marcus W; Li Shuzhuo; Daily Gretchen C

来源：China Agricultural Economic Review, 2013, 5(1): 66-88.

DOI：10.1108/17561371311294766

• Agricultural economic theory
• China
• Employment
• Labor use and migration
• Household analysis
• Agriculture

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to address a local separability character partly identified by non-farm participation behaviors in the context of multiple market imperfections.
Design/methodology/approach - The paper develops a model to analyze agricultural household's non-farm participation based on heterogeneous asset endowments. The model is applied to recent data from Zhouzhi, a mountainous county in rural western China.
Findings - The paper shows that human capital, social capital and other capital assets have significant but different effects on the agricultural household's participation in non-farm activities, and they help to break down non-farm labor constraints. Nonseparability holds only for those households unable to participate in non-farm activities due to poor asset endowments.
Originality/value - The agricultural household model developed in this paper and its application in China provide insights into theory and empirical analysis of agricultural households' behavior and rural development.

• 出版日期2013
• 单位西安交通大学