Ma Ning. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-57). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1 --- Problems about Using Sibling Samples --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2 --- Difficulties with the Within-twin-pair Studies --- p.20 / Chapter 3 --- Method --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1 --- Omitted Variable Bias (Selection Effect) --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- OLS Model --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Fixed-Effect Model --- p.23 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- GLS Model --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2 --- Measurement Error --- p.24 / Chapter 4 --- Data --- p.26 / Chapter 5 --- Results --- p.29 / Chapter 5.1 --- "OLS, Fixed-Effect, GLS and IV estimates" --- p.29 / Chapter 5.2 --- Important findings --- p.34 / Chapter 5.3 --- Further Results --- p.35 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Consistency of Fixed-Effect Estimate --- p.35 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Smoking as an Instrument for Education --- p.39 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Symmetry Test --- p.41 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Hausman Test --- p.44 / Chapter 5.3.5 --- Selection Bias --- p.45 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.48 / Chapter 7 --- Bibliography --- p.49

Ye, Maoliang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-36). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.iii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Measurement of Happiness and Its Reliability --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Income and Happiness: Hypotheses --- p.8 / Chapter 2.3 --- Literature Review on MZ twins approach --- p.12 / Chapter 3 --- Methods --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- Omitted Variable Bias (Selection Effect) --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Model --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Fixed-Effect (FE) Model --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Measurement Error --- p.17 / Chapter 4 --- Data --- p.19 / Chapter 5 --- Results --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1 --- Does Income Matter? --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- OLS Regressions Using the Whole Sample --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Within-twin-pair Fixed-effect Estimations --- p.23 / Chapter 5.2 --- Sensitivity Analysis --- p.24 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Other Indicators of Wealth --- p.24 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Wage or Wage Rate? --- p.25 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Measurement Error --- p.25 / Chapter 5.2.3.1 --- Does Education Matter? --- p.25 / Chapter 5.2.3.2 --- Reexamine the Income Effect --- p.27 / Chapter 5.3 --- Men vs Women --- p.29 / Chapter 5.4 --- Within Marriage: Income Pooling or Relative Economic Status? --- p.30 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.31 / Chapter 7 --- Bibliography --- p.32 / Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of the Twins --- p.37 / Table 2: OLS Estimates of Happiness Using All Twins --- p.38 / Table 3: Ordered Probit Estimates of Happiness Using All Twins --- p.39 / Table 4: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using MZ Twins --- p.40 / Table 5: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effects Estimates of Happiness Using MZ Twins: Other Indexes --- p.41 / Table 6: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effects Estimates of Happiness Using MZ Twins: Using Wage Rate --- p.42 / Table 7a： Correlation Matrices of Different Measurements on Education --- p.43 / Table 7b： Correlation Matrices of Different Measurements on Income --- p.43 / Table 8: Estimates of The Effect of Education on Happiness: Considering Measurement Error --- p.44 / Table 9: Reexamine the Effect of Income on Happiness: Considering Measurement Error --- p.45 / Table 10: OLS Estimates of Happiness Using Female and Male Twins --- p.46 / Table 11: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using Male MZ Twins --- p.47 / Table 12: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using Female MZ Twins --- p.48 / Table 13: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using Married MZ Twins --- p.49 / Table 14: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using Married Male MZ Twins --- p.50 / Table 15: Within-twin-pair Fixed Effect Estimates of Happiness Using Married Female MZ Twins --- p.51

Zhan Siyan. / "November 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-152) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

In this thesis, return to health is also estimated. We examine the effects of height on hourly wage, monthly earnings, working hours, and education level. Our results show that height has different causal impacts on women and men. Women benefit from height: taller women earn more, work less, and have more leisure time. However, taller men are more likely to land a job and work longer, largely because they are better endowed. Moreover, the positive effect of height on hourly wage for women is larger than that for men. In general, the findings have contributed new evidence to existing literature that estimates the return to health. / This thesis mainly investigates the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. Specifically, it estimates the effects of family income and parental education on the health status and educational attainment of the next generation using unique twins data collected from urban China. By using twins strategy, we can largely control for unobservables, which may cause biases in estimations. Our results show that the positive correlations of family income and maternal education with child health are largely due to unobserved endowment and family background. However, family income and paternal education do have a positive effect on child education. Overall, our findings suggest that increasing family income and parental schooling do not help in improving child health. However, to reduce the educational gap of the next generation, redistributing income would prove beneficial. The design of government policies is dependent on the policy targets. / Xiong, Yanyan. / Advisers: Hongbin Li; Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2176. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Essay 2 uses Chinese adult twin data to investigate birth weight effect, the outcomes of which have been changed to long-term achievements. The OLS results suggest that birth weight has significant positive relationship with earnings, adult height, and health conditions. However, within-twin-pair results indicate that birth weight has significant positive influence only on adult height. Essay 2 also systematically interprets the pattern of bias directions of OLS relative to within-twins estimates across empirical studies on long-term outcomes. For health measures, OLS estimates are consistently biased upward relative to within-twins estimates across empirical studies, suggesting an overall positive correlation between omitted factors and birth weight. On the contrary, the bias direction of OLS relative to within-twins estimates fluctuates across empirical studies on ability-related outcomes, including educational attainment and earnings. This suggests that there are two main types of omitted variable (e.g., endowments and post-birth parental inputs) with each type having different correlation with birth weight. / Essay 3 uses data from the 2000 and 2005 censuses of China. It analyzes trends on the marital behavior of Chinese people during 1970-2004, and the impact of the one-child policy in terms of marriage age, marriage rate, and assortative mating on age. First, this essay finds that from 1990 onwards, more people have preferred to marry at and after their mid-twenties. Interestingly, up to the early 2000s, the prevailing marriage rates of men and women over 35 years old maintained at very high levels (over 90%) despite China becoming more prosperous. Moreover, the positive assortative mating on age was more or less the same from 1970 to 2004. In addition, this essay is the first to compare the marriages of Zhuang people relative to other non-Han people (excluding Man people) around 1989 to implement the difference-indifferences (DiD) estimation. Results from DiD estimations indicate that the one-child policy encourages more people to delay marriages. On the one hand, the policy favors more men at 30 years old or above to marry young women in their twenties. On the other hand, interestingly, it also induces more young men to marry older women. / The dissertation consists of three empirical studies on Chinese household behavior. Essay 1 uses Chinese child twin data to examine the effect of birth weight on performances during childhood and adolescent periods. Essay 1 has three main contributions to literature. First, this essay is the first to use twin data of an Asian developing country to study the birth weight impact. Within-twins results suggest that birth weight has significant effect on physical growth, but no significant effect on school performance, health conditions, and personality. Second, this study is the first to apply threshold regression on twin data to examine the non-linearity effect of birth weight. Overall, there is no evidence to support the argument that the effect is nonlinear on medium-term outcomes. Third, this study is the first to test directly whether birth weight effect operates through interaction with post-birth parental inputs. There is no evidence to support that this mechanism works in within-twins results. / Wong, Man Kit. / Adviser: Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-01, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.