This study exploits the correlation between Yellow River flooding and human capital accumulation using county-level data from Anhui, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, and Shandong provinces in China. Employing a spatial regression discontinuity approach, we compare the differences in human capital accumulation within and beyond the Yellow River floodplain areas (YRFA). Empirical results show human capital accumulation in the YRFA is at least 12.1 percent lower than outside the YRFA. Furthermore, our results demonstrate intergenerational transmission and gender differences in the negative impact of the Yellow River flooding on human capital accumulation. The baseline specifications of this study are not affected by drought and overall natural disasters. This paper documents historical human capital accumulation, clan power, and social trust, through which Yellow River flooding has a long-term impact.

A number of important topics, themes and concepts frequently recur in studies of digital labour over the past decade, such as exploitation, precarity, unpaid labour, gig economy and platform labour. The first generation of the critique has drawn on a variety of Marxist, post-structuralist and Weberian sources to question prevailing neo-liberal and centrist models centred on values of efficiency and the supposed empowerment of workers and users. While these topics, themes and concepts have been beneficial in establishing a basis for critique, there is a danger that they may become rather familiar and potentially even a little stale. Therefore, this article suggests a need to renew the critique of digital labour, as the digital realm stabilises around a set of key global players and platforms and as labour activists continue to face serious obstacles to success in an era of authoritarian populism. Here, I concentrate on introducing our themed collection surrounding a renewed critique moving beyond a dichotomy of exploitation and labour agency. I also encourage different disciplines to enrich and renew studies of digital labour.

This article addresses three main issues: the relationship between commute time and sickness absence, the heterogeneity of the commuting–absenteeism effect between rural migrants and urban citizens, and the effect of China’s Hukou system on the commuting–absenteeism effect. It applies a unique set of employer–employee matched data in China and a zero-inflated negative binomial model. We find clear evidence that a longer commuting time contributes to an increase in sickness absence. The heterogeneity of the commuting–absenteeism effect can also be confirmed: longer commuting leads to higher absence rates for urban citizens but not for rural migrants. Furthermore, we explore the effect of commuting on a set of health-related outcomes. The estimations demonstrate that commuting time has a significant impact on health-related outcomes for both migrants and urban citizens, but unequal access to housing provision and to social health insurance in the Hukou system may mean that rural migrants resort to more informal medical services and thus lack access to the official sickness certificate required to seek legal sickness absence. We recommend accelerated reform of the Hukou system to encourage rural workers to seek appropriate and timely medical services, thereby reducing public health risks.

The use of exchange rates based on Purchasing Power Parities to compare incomes across countries and over time has now become standard practice. But there are reasons to believe that this could lead to excessively inflated incomes for poorer countries and in some cases also inflate the extent of real changes over time. Estimates of gross domestic product growth in the Chinese and Indian economies in recent years provide examples of this.

We used the 2016 Hong Kong Census data and the diagonal reference model to investigate the effects of partners' educational pairings on fertility in Hong Kong. Our findings suggest a negative relationship between couples' educational achievements and their fertility. Moreover, males' educational attainment is more consequential of whether having children or not and both males' and females' educational attainments are determinants of the number of children to raise. In addition, the more educated a wife is relative to her husband, the less likely the couple is to have children. Once these educationally hypogamous couples have at least one child, they tend to have fewer children than their homogamous counterparts. By contrast, couples with a relatively more educated male are more likely to have children and tend to rear more children than those in educationally homogamous marriages.

This monographic issue of the RHE-JILAEH presents new case studies in order to compare regions of Asia, Europe and the Americas through analysis of global demand for western goods in China (goods of European and American origin) as well as demand eastern goods (of Chinese and Indian origin) in Europe and the Americas. The global circulation of goods included accumulation of American silver in the hands of Chinese merchants and private institutions. Thus, this issue re-evaluates origins of the first globalisation during the 16th century, as opposed to the 1820s. Global trade networks and long-distance alliances in Asia, the Americas and Europe date back to the 16th century when Manila galleon routes were established.

New global history studies have provided theoretical models related to different paths of economic growth and consumer behaviour between East Asia (mainly China and Japan) and Europe during the period of the first industrialisation. However, more research challenging the Eurocentric views of the origins of globalisation is needed. In this article, I examine the exchanges of Chinese silks and porcelains and European wines and liquors for American silver through the Swedish Grill Company. This company had extensive business activities in Canton and Macao establishing strategic links and intermediation with other relevant companies from China, Manila, Seville and Marseille. On the global level, such exchanges played a crucial role for the accumulation of American silver in China during the Qing dynasty, and the outflows of Chinese goods to the Americas and Europe fostered market integration and globalisation that occurred earlier than 1820.