地点：浙江大学紫金港校区创意楼A座729会议室
主持人：史新杰，浙江大学中国农村发展研究院、公共管理学院研究员。
主讲人：阮建青，浙江大学中国农村发展研究院、公共管理学院教授，农业与农村经济发展研究所所长。
题目一：文化多样性与发展
摘要：文化是经济长期增长的重要影响因素。本研究探究文化多样性对农民收入以及家庭教育的影响。利用语言多样性测度的文化多样性作为关键解释变量，结合微观调研数据，本研究首先在实证上考察了区域文化多样性对农民工工资的影响；本研究进一步考察了家庭内部的文化多样性对子女教育的影响。
主讲人简介：
阮建青，浙江大学管理学博士，国际食物政策研究所(IFPRI)和牛津大学访问学者，自2009年4月开始先后任教于浙江大学管理学院、公共管理学院农经系，现为浙江大学公共管理学院教授、博士生导师，农业与农村经济发展研究所所长。阮建青教授的主要研究方向为产业集群、乡村产业发展。先后主持国家社科基金重大项目、国家自然科学基金面上项目和青年项目，在The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization，American Journal of Agricultural Economics、管理世界、经济学季刊等期刊发表论文40余篇，参与著作编写10余部。是“中国乡村产业发展数据库”的发起人之一。
题目二：Availability of Childcare Facilities and Maternal Labor Supply: Evidence from Rural China
主讲人：沈允，博士生
摘要：Childcare arrangements are important for mothers to balance their time investment in childcare and labor supply. By combining and analyzing data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) and the China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS), two nationally representative panel datasets, this study estimates difference-in-differences models to evaluate the causal effect of the increase in the availability of formal childcare services for preschool-aged (3-6 years old) children on maternal labor supply in rural China. The results show that the installation of a new preschool within same village in which the mother was living before the new preschool was built increased the likelihood that a mother was formally employed in off-farm labor by 19 percentage points. Our interpretation of this result is that the new preschool made childcare facilities more available for mothers to utilize the service, but also possibly made it more accessible to grandmothers that could then take over the responsibilities for sending the children to preschools, enabling mothers to engage in formal employment. Results of the heterogeneity analysis show that when the new preschool that was built was a public preschool, it had a positive impact on the labor force participation of rural mothers, while if the new preschool was a private preschool, there was no effect. The analysis also found when a new preschool is built in the local village of the family, the mothers of girls are more likely to join the labor force, while mothers of boys are not. Our results appear to suggest that affordable and accessible childcare services are essential to improve maternal labor supply and this may have other downstream effects on both the mother, child and perhaps others in the family.
题目三：Dairy Consumption and Child Growth: Evidence from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 1997–2011
主讲人：余露芸，博士生
摘要：Growth recovery plays a crucial role in the development of capabilities for disadvantaged children worldwide. Adequate nutrition is a top contributor to catch-up growth among a range of developmental influences. Specifically, dairy products are widely regarded as an “essential food” for children’s height development as they are an excellent source of essential nutrients and rich in calcium. However, China’s dairy consumption, which has long been suboptimal, is especially relevant. In this context, this study examined the impact of current, past, and sustained dairy consumption on children’s catch-up g growth in China. We used longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey from 1997 to 2011, including a total sample of 9,193 children from nine provinces beyond the 1000-day window (3-18 years old). After controlling for potential confounders, the fixed-effects model found that both current and past dairy consumption play an important role in linear height and height-for-age z-score in Chinese children and adolescents. Furthermore, when children continue to consume dairy products for a long period, their past dairy consumption is likely to have an additional cumulative effect on current consumption. More importantly, sustained consumption of any dairy product is associated with a 0.15 standard deviation higher height-for-age z-score or 1.0 cm greater height than the non-consumption of dairy products. The findings demonstrate that promoting sustained dairy consumption could serve as an effective strategy to expedite the catch-up process for children in China, especially for adolescents in rural areas.
题目四：Better Meals for Better Start? Effects of Preschool Nutrition Pilot Program on Child Nutrition and Cognition from the Less Developed Counties of Southern China
主讲人：俞琰莹，博士生
摘要：Early childhood malnutrition is a long-standing and major public health concern. Emerging nutrition interventions are conducted to improve children’s development, but empirical evidence is still lacking about the nutritional and cognitive impacts of programs targeting preschoolers. This study evaluates a preschool nutrition pilot (PNP) program initiated by the World Food Program (WFP) in selected counties of Hunan province, Central South China. The intervention was at the preschool level with four components: school meal subsidy, kitchen facilities upgrading, nutrition education and agricultural product procurement from local smallholders in low socioeconomic status. Based on two rounds of survey data of 1334 children in 13 treatment and 13 comparison preschools, we used difference-in-differences and propensity score matching approaches to investigate the causal effects of the PNP program on preschoolers’ nutrition and cognition outcomes. Although we found no evidence that the program had any impact on average preschoolers’ nutrition or cognition, the program did generate nutrition benefits among preschoolers who were boys, exposed to the program at a younger age, from a low-income household or with a better-educated primary caregiver. These findings may be relevant for developing countries that aim to fight against hunger and give children a head start.
