Xiaojia Bao

Ph.D. Student in Sustainable Development

International Affairs Building
Mail Code 3328, Mailbox 65
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY, 10027

Cell: +1-347-703-1519
Email: xb2112@columbia.edu

CV

Research:

1. Rural Household Residential Water Use Behavior in Northern China (2009-2010)
Supported by Doctoral Empedocle Maffia Fellowship of Columbia University
Summary:
This paper modeled household water use in a water-scarce rural village in Northern China using household level data. Several household characteristics were identified to impact water use significantly. Household size shows a scale-economy effect, with a coefficient close to 0.25. Gender structure and characteristics of household head don’t show a significant effect. In addition, households adjust their water use as a response to weather variability.  The increase of average monthly precipitation by 1mm corresponds to 0.1-0.2% decrease in per capita water use . And the increase of average monthly temperature by 1 degree corresponds to 2-5% increase in per capita water use. The response of households’ water use to weather is state-dependent. Generally, smaller and younger households increase water use more as a response to temperature increase, but decrease water use less as a response to precipitation increase.

2. Distributive Impacts of Dams and Governmental Responses in County-level in China (2010-ongoing)
Summary:
This paper initially built a theoretical model for governments’ fiscal response with respect to the distributive impacts of dams along a river basin. The model claimed that upstream counties should get compensated, while downstream counties should compensate or transfer out, if the local gov-ernments were functioning efficiently. Then the paper verified the distributive impacts of dams on different areas along a river basin using empirical data in county level in China from 2000 to 2008. Empirical analysis indicated that dam construction and finished dams mainly had distributive im-pacts on agricultural economic outcome variables, such as primary industry valued added per capi-ta and grain production.  Local counties would suffer from agricultural loss due to the disruption from dam construction work and land loss for reservoir construction, but those areas were com-pensated correspondingly, which can be seen from the reduced deficit percentage. Upstream coun-ties suffered from deteriorated economic outcome indicators both in agricultural and non-agricultural industries with GDP per capita decreased by 1540 RMB and net income per capita in rural households decreased by 147 RMB, while they got compensated to some extend through the revenue increase (close to 87 RMB per capita). Downstream counties benefited from dam construc-tion on agricultural production, mainly in grain production and meat production, corresponding to a decrease in the expenditure (43 RMB per capita) and increase in revenue (122 RMB per capita).

3. Efficiency and Equity Concerns of Water Transfer Mechanism in Yellow River Basin in China (2011-2012), financially supported by V.K. Wellington Koo Fellowship.

4. Governments' Response to Typhoon Disasters in China (ongoing)

References for "Impact of weather variability on agricultural production along Yangtze River Basin"

Relevant Links:
A comprehensive website on air quality in Asia: CAI-Asia
Source for water information: Global Water Partnership , Columbia Water Center
Data Source for riverbasins: shared rivers
Weekly Econ seminar schedule: seminar