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This paper aims to explore the rationale, the process and the outcomes and risks of place branding in rural China.

An in-depth case study analysis, including interviews, has been conducted.

Place branding in the case of China is practiced and dominated through administrative entities by using subsidies and regional development programs to coordinate, organize and promote local agricultural resources. Although this government-led place branding has effective effects on rural development, it is unsustainable and unstable because it lacks sufficient market and stakeholder participation.

The effectiveness of place branding in China has been examined and proved.

The government’s role in place branding in China should be adjusted. The government should position itself as a service and auxiliary role. Simultaneously, it should strengthen market-oriented operations and stakeholder participation in place branding.

This paper is one of the first contributions to examine the impact of place branding as a rural development policy tool in China, and the in-depth case study examines and proves the effectiveness of place branding in rural China.

This research examines the impact of the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project (NRECDP) on poverty reduction and income growth in rural China.

The study develops a theoretical framework, which considers the role of geographical, technological, institutional and cultural factors for the e-commerce poverty alleviation (e-CPA) model. Empirically, this study applies the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the event study approach to evaluate the effectiveness of NRECDP on the basis of large-scale county-level and household-level panel data spanning 2010 to 2020.

The study found that the NRECDP, as a government-led, information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled, market-based program, has led to a significant increase in per capita output of primary industry employees, as well as in the disposable income of rural residents, especially those in national-level poverty-stricken (NP) counties. The interventions of the NRECDP achieved these positive outcomes through transportation and Internet infrastructure improvement, ICT adoption and human capital accumulation in impoverished towns and villages in remote rural areas. These effects are larger in the eastern region of China, followed by the central region, whereas the weakest effects were found in the western region. However, we found little evidence of the NRECDP increasing household developmental expenditure.

The study findings have important practical and policy implications for rural e-commerce development and self-sustained poverty alleviation solutions. The research revealed the significance of government NRECDP interventions for increasing rural income, reducing living costs, and empowering the rural population in its multiple social roles, namely, as consumers, producers, employees and microentrepreneurs. The local cultural context may also play a role in ICT adoption and entrepreneurship cultivation with a downstream effect on the effectiveness of e-CPA practices. Policymakers would need to ensure a supportive entrepreneur-friendly environment for rural e-commerce development and continue implementing progressive policies for poverty alleviation.

This study explores poverty alleviation issues in China by developing for the first time a multi-faceted framework that is subsequently tested by both county-level and household-level large-scale observations. Also, it is the first study to provide nationwide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of e-CPA in narrowing down the spatial and digital divides in China. In addition to the impact of geography, technology and governmental support, this study also sheds light on the role of culture in the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies and as a source of local entrepreneurial opportunities.

The aim of this study is to discern the role of digital finance in driving rural industrial integration and revitalization. Specifically, it intends to shed light on how the deep development of digital finance can contribute to the optimization and transformation of the rural industrial structure. The research further explores the particular effects of this financial transformation in the central and western regions of China.

This research studies the influence of digital finance on rural industrial integration across 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020. Utilizing the entropy weight method, a comprehensive evaluation index system is established to gauge the level of rural industrial integration. A two-way fixed effects model, intermediary effect model, and threshold effect model are employed to decipher the relationship between digital finance and rural industrial integration.

Findings reveal a positive relationship between digital finance and rural industrial integration. A single threshold feature was identified: beyond a traditional finance development level, the marginal effect of digital finance on rural industrial integration increases. These effects are more noticeable in central and western regions.

Empirical outcomes contribute to policy discourse on rural digital finance, assisting policymakers in crafting effective strategies. Understanding the threshold of traditional finance development provides a new perspective on the potential of digital finance to drive rural industrial integration.

This paper aims to examine the impacts of unstable off-farm employment on the probability and stability of farmland rent-out and explore its mechanisms.

The paper adopts Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Probit, Tobit, Order probit models with two-way fixed effects to conduct empirical analysis based on the balanced panel data collected in 2016 and 2023 with a national representativeness sample of 1,206 rural households in 100 villages across 5 provinces in China.

The empirical results showed that unstable off-farm employment had negative effects on the probability of farmland rent-out, but it had no effects on the stability of farmland rent-out. The mechanism analysis showed that unstable off-farm employment affected the probability of farmland rent-out by decreasing the probability of purchasing houses in city and endowment insurance with high pension. Heterogeneity analysis indicated that the negative effect of unstable off-farm employment was much larger for the households with higher share of labor engaging in off-farm employment outside home county, elder members in the households and those located in the villages of mountain areas.

This paper is the first to define the unstable off-farm employment from the perspective of incontiguous off-farm employment for several years, which could capture the normality rather than particular case in a certain year of off-farm employment among rural labors. Using these new measurements of unstable off-farmland, this paper examined the impacts and mechanisms of share of unstable off-farm employment on the probability and stability of farmland rent-out.

Since smartphones became ubiquitous, online grocery and food purchases through take-away delivery platforms have steadily increased in China. Nevertheless, whether the development of take-away delivery can ameliorate urban–rural wage inequality still requires further analysis. The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether this positive effect exists.

This paper makes estimations based on city and individual levels combining the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) 2008, CHIP 2013, CHIP2018 survey data and the take-away delivery site data. At the city level, the Oaxaca-Blinder (O-B) decomposition method is employed to construct wage inequality index of urban and rural labors. At the individual level, this paper analyzes urban–rural wage differentials with high or low formal education level.

The rapid establishment of take-away delivery sites has resulted in an increase of 52.425 yuan on average in the annual wage of rural labors with low formal education level. When the cumulative number of sites increases by 1 unit, the annual wage inequality index decreases by 0.007 on average. Labors with the characteristics of rural household registration and low education can enjoy more dividends. Through inter-/within-industry decomposition, this paper elaborates formal education, age and cross-industry transfer as the main factors for the improvement of urban–rural wage inequality. Narrowing effect of wage differences between different groups in multiple sample slices also contributes to the mechanism analyses.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze the impact of take-away delivery development on the urban–rural wage inequality from the perspective of the establishment of take-away delivery sites. This empirical study will enrich the existing theoretical perspectives on urban–rural divide under the emergence of new forms of employment. The results indicate that new forms of employment represented by take-away delivery can not only promote economic growth, but also eliminate urban–rural inequality.

This study investigates whether, how and under what circumstances off-farm work induces farmland abandonment, which is of great importance for developing countries to cope with food security.

Exploiting large-scale panel data from the newly released Chinese Family Database, this study employs a two-way fixed effects model to empirically estimate the causal relationship between off-farm work and farmland abandonment.

In the context of large-scale labor migration in rural China, current off-farm work leads to an increase in the probability and area of farmland abandoned due to insufficient agricultural labor. However, off-farm work does not harm farm households in plain areas, or villages with land rental markets, abundant agricultural labor, and agricultural machinery, while it harms others. Moreover, farmers who work off-farm in the local area are less likely to abandon their farmland than those in other areas. Additionally, when the number of off-farm workers in a household exceeds two, the probability and area of farmland abandonment will miraculously decline, as the household will no longer live entirely on agriculture.

This study may fill the gap in clarifying the relationship between off-farm work and farmland abandonment, and identify scenarios where off-farm work may not cause farmland abandonment through multiple dimensions, providing insights into the governance of farmland abandonment during rural-urban transformation in developing countries.

This study aims to estimate the synergy effect of agricultural dual-scale management (ADM) on farmers' total household income, its heterogeneous effects and its mechanisms.

This study constructs a theoretical analysis framework based on the division of labor and synergy theory, empirically assesses the impact of ADM on farmers' income, and further discusses the heterogeneity and mechanisms using the propensity score matching (PSM) and quantile treatment effect (QTE) models. Data is collected from 1,076 households across 4 cities in Liaoning Province of China in 2021.

ADM can improve the total household income of farmers, and the impact force is greater than that of the single-scale management mode. ADM is more conducive to improving the income of farmers with low income and low labor endowment. Moreover, ADM can improve agriculture production efficiency, increase net grain production income. Nevertheless, it has no significant effect on farmers' off-farm employment income.

Previous studies have mainly focused on the income effect of land scale management or service scale management. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to identify the synergy effect of ADM on farmers' income in China. It provides new insights into the process of agricultural production and management mode transitions in rural China.

This article aims to explore the impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers’ willingness to cooperate and explore the mediating effect of social capital.

The study investigates farmers’ willingness to cooperate through a framed field approach and surveys the information of individuals and villages, including climate disasters and social capital, using a structured questionnaire from rural communities in Jiangxi and Sichuan, China.

The results show that climate disasters and social capital are significant and positive determinants of farmers’ willingness to cooperate. In specific types of climate disasters, drought is positively associated with farmers’ cooperation willingness. Moreover, the mediation effect of drought on farmers’ willingness to cooperate through social capital has been demonstrated to be significant although negative, whereas the mediation effect of flood on farmers’ willingness to cooperate through social capital is significant and positive.

First, given the limited studies focusing on the impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers’ willingness to cooperate, the authors complement the existing literature through a framed field experiment approach by designing a scenario that every farmer may encounter in their production activities. Second, the study figures out the roles of drought and flood as different kinds of climate disasters in farmers’ decision-making of cooperation and sheds light on the positive impact of climate disasters on small-scale farmers. Finally, this paper provides empirical evidence of social capital as a potential channel through which climate disasters could possibly affect farmers’ willingness to cooperate.

Rural development programs are widely used policy instruments mitigating rural-urban economic disparities. Yet, little research has examined their effect on rural labor. This study fills this knowledge gap by quantifying the causal impact of such programs on the labor allocation of farm households in Taiwan.

A theoretical framework based on the agricultural household model is constructed to guide the empirical specification. A unique dataset compiles administrative data on the program’s subsidies with farm household surveys across seven years. To cope with endogeneity bias, an instrumental variables model is applied. The eligibility rule for a township to participate in the program is used as the instrument.

We find that the program increases the labor supply of farm household members. These effects are more pronounced for off-farm work, particularly non-heads of farm households. The program’s subsidies supporting culture and promotion-related activities have larger effects. Finally, females benefited more from the program.

We focus on farm households since this group is the target of place-based rural development programs. In addition, we identify the causal impact of place-based development programs on rural labor. Finally, this study is relevant to the literature on intra-household models by demonstrating that place-based rural development programs can affect the labor supply of farm household members.

This study aims to analyze the influence of farmers’ degree of participation in collective action on their adoption decisions and waiting time regarding soil and water conservation (SWC) measures.

The Probit model and Generalized Propensity Score Match method are used to assess the effect of the degree of participation in collective action on farmers’ adoption decisions and waiting time for implementing SWC measures.

The findings reveal that farmers’ engagement in collective action positively influences the decision-making process regarding terrace construction, water-saving irrigation and afforestation measures. However, it does not significantly impact the decision-making process for plastic film and ridge-furrow tillage practices. Notably, collective action has the strongest influence on farmers’ adoption decisions regarding water-saving irrigation technology, with a relatively smaller influence on the adoption of afforestation and terrace measures. Moreover, the results suggest that participating in collective action effectively reduces the waiting time for terrace construction and expedites the adoption of afforestation and water-saving irrigation technology. Specifically, collective action has a significantly negative effect on the waiting time for terrace construction, followed by water-saving irrigation technology and afforestation measures.

The results of this study underscore the significance of fostering mutual assistance and cooperation mechanisms among farmers, as they can pave the way for raising funds and labor, cultivating elite farmers, attracting skilled labor to rural areas, enhancing the adoption rate and expediting the implementation of terraces, water-saving irrigation technology and afforestation measures.

Drawing on an evaluation of farmers’ degree of participation in collective action, this paper investigates the effect of participation on their SWC adoption decisions and waiting times, thereby offering theoretical and practical insights into soil erosion control in the Loess Plateau.