Essays in Migration, Health, and Policy

Abstract

This dissertation is three chapters on the consequences of policy-driven transformation in contemporary China, each pairing nationally representative data with quasi-experimental designs. The first chapter asks whether the rise of rural e-commerce reshapes internal migration. Exploiting the spread of "Taobao Villages" and variation in e-commerce concentration across cities, I find that greater e-commerce prevalence raises migrants' willingness to return home---by generating new local employment rather than redistributing existing jobs---while leaving largely unchanged their willingness to transfer their Hukou to cities, owing to persistent institutional barriers. The second chapter evaluates China's 2013 program to equalize public health services for its migrant workforce. Drawing on the China Migrants Dynamic Survey and a difference-in-differences design that exploits pilot-city assignment, I find suggestive gains in health-record establishment and awareness, driven by expanded local healthcare infrastructure that spills over to the broader urban population. The third chapter turns to the environment, studying China's Low-Carbon City pilot program. Using a panel of 296 cities and heterogeneity-robust estimators, I find no robust evidence that designation reduced CO2 emissions; a near-zero aggregate effect masks offsetting responses between industrial and ordinary cities. Together, these essays trace how China's various policies redistribute opportunity, services, and environmental burdens, highlighting both the reach of such programs and the priorities that remain for policymakers.