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This paper presents evidence on intergenerational educational and occupational mobility in rural China over a period of 14 years (1988-2002). To understand whether the estimated inter-generational persistence can be driven solely by unobserved heterogeneity, biprobit sensitivity analysis and heteroskedasticity-based identification are implemented. The empirical results show that there have been dramatic improvements in occupational mobility from agriculture to nonfarm occupations; a farmer's children are not any more likely to become farmers in 2002, although there was significant persistence in occupation choices in 1988. In contrast, the intergenerational mobility in educational attainment has remained largely unchanged for daughters, and it has deteriorated significantly for sons. There is strong evidence of a causal effect of parental education on a son's schooling in 2002. The paper provides some possible explanations for the dramatic divergence between occupational and educational mobility in rural China from 1988 to 2002.

Intergenerational relations. --- Occupational mobility.

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This paper provides evidence on the effects of agricultural productivity on wage rates, labor supply to market oriented activities, and labor allocation between own farming and wage labor in agriculture. To guide the empirical work, this paper develops a general equilibrium model that underscores the role of reallocation of family labor engaged in the production of non-marketed services at home ('home production'). The model predicts positive effects of a favorable agricultural productivity shock on wages and income, but the effect on hired labor is ambiguous; it depends on the strength of reallocation of labor from home to market production by labor surplus and deficit households. Taking rainfall variations as a measure of shock to agricultural productivity, and using subdistrict level panel data from Bangladesh, this paper finds significant positive effects of a favorable rainfall shock on agricultural wages, labor supply to market work, and per capita household expenditure. The share of hired labor in contrast declines substantially in response to a favorable productivity shock, which is consistent with a case where labor-deficit households respond more than the labor-surplus ones in reallocating labor from home production.

Agricultural Productivity --- Economic Theory & Research --- Hired Labor --- Home Production --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Labor Supply Response --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Market Work --- Markets & Market Access --- Poverty --- Poverty Reduction --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social Protections and Labor --- Wage

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This paper provides evidence on the impacts of agricultural productivity on employment growth and structural transformation of non-farm activities. To guide the empirical work, this paper develops a general equilibrium model that emphasizes distinctions among non-farm activities in terms of tradable-non-tradable and the formal-informal characteristics. The model shows that when a significant portion of village income is spent on town/urban goods, restricting empirical analysis to the village sample leads to underestimation of agriculture's role in employment growth and transformation of non-farm activities. Using rainfall as an instrument for agricultural productivity, empirical analysis finds a significant positive effect of agricultural productivity growth on growth of informal (small-scale) manufacturing and skilled services employment, mainly in education and health services. For formal employment, the effect of agricultural productivity growth on employment is found to be largest in the samples that include urban areas and rural towns compared with rural areas alone. Agricultural productivity growth is found to induce structural transformation within the services sector with employment in formal/skilled services growing at a faster pace than that of low skilled services.

Agriculture --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Social Protections and Labor