Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China

Sylvie Démurger and Xiaoqian Wang
Additional contact information
Xiaoqian Wang: Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France

No 1601, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: This paper investigates how private transfers from internal migration in China affect the expenditure behaviour 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: remittances; labour migration; expenditure behaviour; 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
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-lma, nep-mig and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2016/1601.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: 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:gat:wpaper:1601

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nelly Wirth ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).