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Water savings through off‐farm employment?

Author

Listed:
  • Veronica Wachong Castro
  • Nico Heerink
  • Xiaoping Shi
  • Wei Qu

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to gain more insight into the relationship between off‐farm employment of rural households and water‐saving investments and irrigation water use in rural China. Design/methodology/approach - Data from a survey held among 317 households in Minle County, Zhangye City, Gansu Province, covering the year 2007, are used for a probit analysis explaining investments in land leveling and for an ordinary least squares regression explaining irrigation water use per mu. Findings - Off‐farm employment is not significantly related to investments in land leveling, but is negatively associated with water use per mu. In addition, the paper finds that the share of migrant students in a household is positively related to investments in land leveling. The results indicate the presence of major factor market imperfections in the research area, and confirm that the new economics of labor migration (NELM) approach is more relevant for analyzing off‐farm employment and agricultural production in China than neoclassical economic theory. Originality/value - The paper expands the NELM approach towards the analysis of water‐saving investments and water use. In addition, it distinguishes migrant students as an important category that should be taken into account in analyzing farm household decisions making.

Suggested Citation

  • Veronica Wachong Castro & Nico Heerink & Xiaoping Shi & Wei Qu, 2010. "Water savings through off‐farm employment?," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 2(2), pages 167-184, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:caerpp:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:167-184
    DOI: 10.1108/17561371011044289
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Lei & Heerink, Nico & Dries, Liesbeth & Qu, Futian, 2012. "Water users associations and agricultural water use efficiency in northern China," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 125214, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Guofeng Wang & Nan Lin & Xiaoxue Zhou & Zhihui Li & Xiangzheng Deng, 2018. "Three-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis of Agricultural Water Use Efficiency: A Case Study of the Heihe River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-17, February.
    3. Ye Sun & Tomohiro Akiyama, 2018. "An Empirical Study on Sustainable Agriculture Land Use Right Transfer in the Heihe River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, February.
    4. Zhang, Lei & Zhu, Xueqin & Heerink, Nico & Shi, Xiaoping, 2014. "Does output market development affect irrigation water institutions? Insights from a case study in northern China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 70-78.
    5. Zhang, Lei & Heerink, Nico & Dries, Liesbeth & Shi, Xiaoping, 2013. "Water users associations and irrigation water productivity in northern China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 128-136.
    6. Wang, Yahua & Chen, Chunliang & Araral, Eduardo, 2016. "The Effects of Migration on Collective Action in the Commons: Evidence from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 79-93.

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