SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Dai, Yingchun; Tuan, Francis C.; Lin, William W.; Zhong, Funing; Chen, Xi.

This study analyzes whether biotech labeling has an impact on consumers' purchasing behavior in China using vegetable oils in Nanjing as a case study. Results from an Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) based on retail scanning data suggest that biotech labeling induced only a modest switch in vegetable oils consumption away from labeled soybean and blended oils and toward non-biotech vegetable oils.

Blood for Social Status: Preliminary Evidence from Rural China

Palavras-chave: Consumer/Household Economics.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21235

Xi Chen acknowledges generous Doctoral Research Grant from the Institute for the Social Sciences at Cornell University and precious data set provided by the Development Strategy and Governance Division at IFPRI. Conference Travel Grant provided by the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell is also acknowledged. We are grateful to Ravi Kanbur for invaluable comments, guidance and encouragement. This paper also benefited from helpful discussion and invaluable comments from Robert Frank, David Sahn, Marc Rockmore, and seminar participants in the Department of Economics at Cornell. Due to time limit, I have not incorporated all helpful comments and suggestions in this early draft paper. The views expressed herein and any remaining errors...

Anatomy of Stigmatized Behavior: Peer Influence and Relative Concern

Palavras-chave: Blood Donation; Social Status; Poverty; Inequality; Relative Deprivation; Rural China; Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Health Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; International Development; Labor and Human Capital; Political Economy; Production Economics; Public Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty; I32; J22; D13; D63.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/49411

Chen, Xi.

This paper is based on an ongoing joint work with David Sahn and Xiaobo Zhang.

Costly Posturing: Relative Status, Ceremonies and Early Child Development

Palavras-chave: Social Stigma; Peer Influences; Relative Concern; Blood Donation; China; Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Security and Poverty; Health Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; International Development; Labor and Human Capital; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty; JEL: I32; J22; D13; D63.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103644

Though social spending facilitates risk‐pooling in the impoverished regions, too many resources devoted to social occasions may impose negative externalities and hinder efforts to alleviate poverty for households living close to subsistence. Conducting three waves census‐type panel survey in rural western China with well‐defined reference groups and detailed information on social occasions, gift exchanges, nutrients intake and health outcomes, we find that the squeeze effect originated from lavish ceremonies is associated with lower height‐for‐age zscore, higher probability of stunting and underweight in early child development. The lasting impact suggests that “catch up” is limited. The squeeze is stronger for the fetal period and towards the lower tail...

Pure Entertainment or Social Harmony? Understanding Private Returns to Social Spending on Household Ceremonies in China

Palavras-chave: Relative Status; Squeeze Effect; Nutrients Intake; Stunting; Underweight; Gender; Agribusiness; D13; I32; O15.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/115517

Chen, Xi.

Recent social spending inflation in China has led to its growth rate far exceeding that of income and other consumption. In this paper, we estimate private returns to social spending, such as higher social status and larger social network that serve as certain functions. In almost all specifications we find that gift spending has significant private returns, but the returns are biased towards richer households. Upon comparing different measures of centrality, we also find that social connections are more accurately characterized when weighted by their intensities (values), capturing their role in mobilizing scarce resource in the network. Furthermore, social status and network may change long-term income trajectory and the resulted consumption. However,...

Do Consumers Really Care about Biotech Food Label? What Do We Know? What Else Should We Know?

Palavras-chave: Social network; Social status; Private return; Social spending; Consumption; Consumer/Household Economics.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/98874

Chen, Xi; Zhong, Funing; Zhou, Bin.

This paper is Selected for presentation at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, January 31-February 3, 2009. The research is partially funded by ERS/USDA China Project and Social Science Fund of Jiangsu Province in China. The authors are grateful for comments from Dr. William Lin and Dr. Francis Tuan at ERS/USDA, and Prof. Loren Tauer at Cornell University. All errors are those of the authors.

Relative Income, Network Interactions and Social Stigma

Palavras-chave: Biotech labeling; Actual sales data; Household survey data; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Marketing; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Risk and Uncertainty; Q13; Q17; Q18.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/46198

Blood donation with compensation is considered as a social stigma. However, more people in the reference group donate blood often leads to less moral concern and more followers. Therefore, the behavior is likely to be influenced through one’s interactions with neighbors, friends and relatives. Meanwhile, relative income may affect the motives for blood donation through increasing mistrust and stress. The motives might be stronger for households of lower social rankings. Utilizing three-wave census-type panel data in 18 villages in rural western China, two identification strategies, instrumental variable and network-based identification, are implemented to estimate the effect of social interactions. Both community-specific and household-specific relative...

Peer Effect, Risk-Pooling and Status Seeking: Which Matters to Gift Spending Escalation in Rural China?

Palavras-chave: Blood Donation; Social Interactions; Inequality; Relative Income; China; Agricultural and Food Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Political Economy; JEL: I32; J22; D13; D63.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/90796

This paper is based on our ongoing joint work with Ravi Kanbur. Xi Chen is grateful to Ravi Kanbur for invaluable comments, guidance and encouragement. For comments and suggestions, please direct correspondence to Xi Chen at xc49@cornell.edu.

Accounting for Social Spending Escalation in Rural China

Palavras-chave: Social Network; Peer Effect; Risk-pooling; Status Seeking; Gift-giving; Ceremony; Agricultural and Food Policy; Agricultural Finance; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; International Development; Public Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty; I32; J22; D13; D63.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103643

Chen, Xi.

It has been widely recognized that the poor spends a significant proportion of their income on social spending even at the expense of basic consumption. What are the motives behind the observed lavish social spending among the poor? We attempt to test three competing explanations at the social link level, risk pooling, peer effect, and status concern, via a uniform framework based on a unique primary dataset. The data set include household information from a three wave census type household survey as well as a long term gift record for all households in three villages in a poor region in rural China. Our dyadic estimations confirm the prevalence of peer influence and the status seeking motive in shaping gift spending and its rapid growth, while...