主题Topic：Forced Gift: a Burden of Being Friend
时间Time：12月2号（周五）｜December2, 2016 (Friday), 14:00–15:35
地点Venue：文波207｜Room207，WENBO
主讲 / Speaker：
王睿新，香港浸会大学经济系院助理教授；荷兰蒂尔堡大学经济学博士。2016年获中国劳工经济学家论坛（China Labor Economists Forum） 最佳论文奖。主研发展经济学、公共经济学等方向。
RuixinWang, the Best Paper Award winner of the 2016 China Labor Economists Forum, wasgraduated from Tilburg University with Ph.D. in Economics. Now he is the assistantprofessor (economics) at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
研究领域 / Research Interests
发展经济学、公共经济学、中国经济、实验经济学
Primary:Development Economics, Public Economics
Secondary:Chinese Economy, Experimental Economics
摘要/ Abstract:
Generous gift giving fosters reciprocalrelationships, but may account for a substantial part of householdexpenditures. As incomes rise, gift expenses are escalating – rising morerapidly than incomes – in several developing countries. We develop a theoreticalmodel to demonstrate how (unequal) income growth may trigger “gift competition”and drive up the financial burden associated with gift exchange. We use uniquecensus-type panel data from rural China to test our model predictions anddemonstrate that (i) the value of gifts responds to the average gift in thecommunity; (ii) the escalation of gift giving may have adverse welfareimplications (especially for the poor); and (iii) escalating gift levels crowdout expenditures on other consumption items.
