Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China

Sylvie Démurger and Xiaoqian Wang

China Economic Review, 2016, vol. 37, issue C, 177-190

Abstract: This paper investigates how private transfers from internal migration in China affect the expenditure behavior of families left behind in rural areas. Using data from the Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) survey, we assess the impact of remittances sent to rural households on consumption-type and investment-type expenditures. We apply propensity score matching to account for the selection of households into receiving remittances, and estimate average treatment effects on the treated. We find that remittances supplement income in rural China and lead to increased consumption rather than increased investment. Moreover, we find evidence of a strong negative impact on education expenditures, which could be detrimental to sustaining investment in human capital in poor rural areas in China.

Keywords: Labor migration; Expenditure behavior; Left-behind; Propensity score matching; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J22 O15 O53 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X1500156X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China (2016)
Working Paper: Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China (2016)
Working Paper: Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China (2016)
Working Paper: Remittances and Expenditure Patterns of the Left Behinds in Rural China (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:37:y:2016:i:c:p:177-190

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2015.12.002

Access Statistics for this article

China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu

More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().