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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the returns to rural schooling in China, addressing both endogeneity in rural individuals’ schooling and self-selection into off-farm work.

This paper exploits geographical proximity to rural secondary schools to create instrumental variables (IV) for individuals’ years of schooling. It addresses both endogenous schooling and self-selection using the two-step procedure developed in Wooldridge (2002, p. 586).

The preferred IV estimate of schooling returns, 7.6 percent, is considerably higher than most previous estimates found in rural China.

This paper is among the few papers that examine returns to rural schooling in China while simultaneously addressing both endogeneity in individuals’ schooling and self-selection into off-farm work. Its findings suggest that rural education in China is potentially able to generate a respectable level of economic returns if policies are designed to provide greater school accessibility to rural individuals.

Within individual countries, the paths towards increasing educational attainment are not always linear and individuals are not equally affected. Differences between boys’ and girls’ educational attainments are a common expression of this inequality as boys are more often favored for continued schooling. We examine the importance of birth cohort, sibship size, migration, and school accessibility for explaining both the gender gap and its narrowing in secondary schooling in one district in Northeast Thailand between 1984 and 1994. Birth cohort is a significant explanation for the narrowing of the gender gap. Migration, sibship size, and remote village location are important explanations for limited secondary education opportunities, especially for girls.

The construction of new transportation infrastructure tends to affect the adjoining properties, economy and environment. In particular, studies have investigated the change in the value of properties due to increased access to transportation facilities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the recently completed light rail on residential property values in Sydney, Australia.

Sales data of residential properties was extracted from the CoreLogic’s RP database. The hedonic pricing model was used to assess the effect of proximity to the light rail stops. Two models were developed for the announcement and construction phases of the light rail project.

It was found that during the announcement phase, properties located within the 400 m radius from the station were 3.3% more expensive than those within the 400–800 radius. At the construction stage, the properties within the 0–400 m radius from the stops sold at 3.1% more than those within the 400–800 m radius. This study concludes that a positive relationship exists between the values of residential property and proximity to light rail stations.

These findings would be useful for policymakers to develop land value capture programs for infrastructure funding and to real estate professionals and investors for investment in future transit-oriented development.

Previous studies that aimed at examining the impact of light rails on residential properties values around universities are limited. Hence, this study provides a broad perspective on the impact of light rail on residential properties values.

This study analyzes the role of regional cooperative banks in identifying and financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from a proximity perspective. Access to finance is a major challenge for SMEs. Regional cooperative banks can remove this barrier based on cooperative bank's characteristics and geographic proximity to SMEs. Understanding the interplay between these financial actors and firms can contribute to a better support of SMEs development.

The results are based on a case study of eight SMEs located in southwestern France. Interviews were conducted with two regional cooperative funds and eight SMEs. The interview guide included questions related to the company, the projects financed and how financing was accessed.

Results reveal that a combination of three forms of proximity allows regional cooperative banks and SMEs to establish effective financing operations. They show that regional cooperative banks are key players in the existing financing mechanisms for SMEs. Such financing is often used to gain access to larger players at a later stage. The findings suggest the need for public policies that promote the integration of financing actors in regional ecosystems to advance SMEs' development.

This article examines how SMEs access financing, with a focus on regional cooperative banks, which have received little attention in the literature. Moreover, the relationships between these actors are studied through the lens of proximity. Regional cooperative banks are able to finance projects that may have been overlooked by traditional banks due to trust-building local dynamics.

The purpose of the present study is to explore the factors that influence the residential location choice of households in the Indian context.

Two sub-urban towns of Kolkata, i.e. Biddhanagar Municipal Corporation and Rajarhat Newtown, are taken as case studies. In total, 34 variables are considered related to the household's socioeconomic background (10), dwelling (3), travel (2) and level of importance of neighborhood characteristics (19). A revealed preference household survey is conducted, which resulted in the collection of 390 samples. Firstly, 19 level of importance variables are deduced to 3 latent factors using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. After that, a utility function is estimated using a multinomial logit regression to identify significant factors.

The results indicate the significance of car ownership, work travel time, work mode, monthly income, proximity to work, proximity to family/relative/friends, proximity to quality schools, quality of physical infrastructure such as water availability, power availability and housing typology among others in the residential location choice of households.

Kolkata, a major metropolitan area in eastern India, has been experiencing space constraints to cater to the housing demand of the ever-increasing population. Although satellite towns are being developed, the infrastructure landscape in such towns is uneven, resulting in more housing demand in one area than another. The study furnishes significant findings to develop more informed policies to attract households in low-demand areas and manage high-demand areas to achieve sustainable planning.

Considering the importance of geographical context, it is the first study on residential location choice, providing a perspective of household behavior from eastern India. It also shows the importance of physical infrastructure attributes in residential location choice for developing countries, which is seldom employed in the current practice. Moreover, previous studies (although few) done in India consider the objective value of location characteristics. The present study focuses on subjective value or the level of importance perceived by respondents.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap in knowledge of Jamaican householders’ housing choices and to provide empirical research that will support the inclusion of the householders’ perspectives in developing housing policies and programmes in Jamaica.

A questionnaire survey of 430 householders drawn from public housing developments in 6 of 14 parishes in Jamaica was conducted. A pragmatic approach was taken in this study. As such, both qualitative and quantitative data were used to investigate the factors influencing householders’ housing choices. The data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis to extract the main factors influencing the householders’ housing choices.

The research revealed that the dwelling features and its environment, accessibility and neighbourhood attributes are three factors influencing householders’ housing choice. Notably, the dwelling and its immediate environment explained the majority of the variance in housing choice. This suggests that if householders are given a choice between a larger more desirable dwelling in a clean, safe and well-maintained community and housing with proximity to work, job opportunities, urban services and other proximity variables, they are less likely to choose the latter.

The factors obtained from this study provide some insights into the scale of preference of the household heads and desired attributes of affordable housing solutions. They also shed some light on what might have caused some past affordable housing solutions to be undesirable. In addition to this, there is some intuition that there may be efficacy in adopting a community development approach to housing. These results have strong implications for housing planning. However, given the island’s challenge with the proliferation of squatter settlements, it is recommended that further research, which includes these householders’ be carried out.

This research is the first to examine the views of Jamaican householders’ with the purpose of understanding what influences their choice of housing. The findings provide new insights into the trade-off that householders may be willing to make in choosing their housing. The results provide a source of reference in reviewing the performance of past policies and programmes.

This research aims to identify the statistically significant characteristics of a hedonic model to explain the pricing of residential properties in two cities in Pakistan.

The research methodology applies extreme bounds analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Estimators of efficient pricing were measured via stochastic frontier analysis.

The study findings show that the market valuation of residential properties in Islamabad and Rawalpindi is systematically related to numerous factors, including property location, neighborhood characteristics, environmental characteristics, structural characteristics and administrative qualities of local housing societies. The authors also find statistical evidence that suggests that residential estate properties in the two cities are overpriced in the sense that the market transaction prices tend to be higher than the fair prices of the properties in the two cities.

In Pakistan, the term “real estate” is used rather synonymously with the word “investment.” The findings of this research will help investors to identify the measurable factors that affect the transaction prices of residential real estate. These identifications will facilitate the development of strategic plans toward achieving sustainable rates of return in residential real estate markets.

The residential real estate sector in Pakistan is constantly changing. There are myriad causes for these changes, including changes in social structure, cultural attitudes and technology. Customary methods for forecasting market prices for residential properties have been rendered unreliable because of the dynamics of the market. This study will contribute to the understanding of the changing dynamics of residential real estate pricing.

Although Pakistan's residential real estate market is growing very rapidly, there is little published research identifying the drivers of this growth. This study covers these aspects to fill the theoretical gap in a real estate context.

The purpose of this paper is to present partial results of a survey conducted in Slovenia and Japan. Its aim is to determine factors, which have a decisive influence on potential acquirers of real estate rights when deciding to purchase real estate. Discussed is the role of personal expectations and the role of satisfaction of potential acquirers of real estate rights regarding factors related to the real estate in which participants live and according to their different cultural identity.

The authors follow the hypothesis that differences in personal expectations and expressed satisfaction of potential acquirers of real estate rights regarding real estate factors according to different cultural identity are statistically significant. The main instrument for measuring the participants' expectations is a questionnaire in which 1,270 participants took part.

By analysing the results of statistical analyses, the hypothesis is confirmed. Results show that Slovene participants compared to Japanese participants express a higher satisfaction level with the current real estate in which they live and at the same time lower expectations regarding practically all real estate factors. The article explains the difference of the higher expressed satisfaction with the difference in the level of residential estate ownership, which is higher in Slovenia. Also explained is the lower expectations of Slovene participants, with the conclusion that less than one‐third of Slovene participants are willing to give up certain key factors in case of a lower real estate price.

There are potential risks of error arising from the use of assumptions, limited samples size and data from the secondary resources.

The major contribution of this paper is showing that expressed participants' high satisfaction with residential status does not necessarily generate high expectations regarding real estate factors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the location of fast-food outlets around secondary schools and the influence of fast-food availability on the food choices of school children in an inner-London borough.

A number of methods including: mapping of outlets relative to schools; sampling food; gathering data on secondary school food policies; observing food behaviour in fast food outlets and focus groups with young people. Findings were fed back to a committee consisting of representatives from nutrition, public health, planning services and local community groups.

There are concentrations of fast-food outlets near schools and students reported use of these, including “stories” of skipping lunch in order to save money and eat after school at these outlets. Food from fast-food outlets was high in fat, saturated fat and salt, but these are not the only source of high such foods, with many of the students reporting buying from shops near the school or on the way to or from school. At lunchtime food outlets were less likely to be used by school students in areas near schools that have a “closed gate” policy.

The “snapshot” nature of the research limited what can be said about the food behaviours of the children outside school hours.

The local policy context requires action to improve both the food offered in schools and the immediate environment around the school in order to tackle fast-food and other competitive foods on offer outside the school.

This is one of the first studies in the UK to systematically map fast food outlets around schools and explore what might be done. This research shows how it is possible to link the findings of local research and develop local responses from both public health and local authority planning perspectives. The research moves away from a mere documenting of problems to devising integrated public health solutions. The findings show how public health and planning services can work together to the mutual benefit of each other.

Active travel to school, by walking or cycling, can positively influence children's health and increase physical activity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the context and promoters and barriers of active travel, and the required actions and actors that need to be involved to address each of these.

Both quantitative and participative research methodologies were employed. The sample consisted of 73 children aged between 11 and 13 years from four primary schools in the West of Ireland. A self-completion questionnaire was followed by a participative protocol conducted with the class groups.

Overall 30.1 per cent of children reported that they actively travelled to school. A greater proportion of children from urban and disadvantaged schools actively travelled. Proximity to the school was the most frequently reported promoter and barrier. The children identified many actors that need to be involved to eliminate the barriers and enact the promoters of active travel to school. They also highlighted the need for a multi-sectorial approach to improve active travel rates in Ireland.

This study holds potential value in addressing the continued decline in active travel to school in Ireland as it shares a new perspective on the issue; that of the children. Adopting a participative approach allowed the children to participate in groups and develop the data themselves. The children confirmed that they have a relevant and valuable understanding of the process necessary to address active travel to school as a public health issue in Ireland.