Three essays on development economics in China

Abstract

This dissertation is a collection of three independent essays in empirical development economics using data from China. In the first two chapters, I examine the determinants of choices within the household. In the first chapter, I estimate the causal effects of total income, relative female and relative male income on sex imbalance. The second chapter studies the effects of relaxations in the One Child Policy on sex ratios and family size and then exploits the exogenous variation in family size caused by the relaxations to estimate the causal effect of family size on school enrollment. The third chapter is a descriptive study of income inequality for top income earners in China during 1986-2002 and the potential redistributive effectiveness of progressive income taxation.