Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Household
Count
Average
Total
Compensation
County
Dam Site (status)
(yuan)
Fengqing 29
Xiaowan (completed 2010)
11,280a
Manwan (completed 1996) Dachaoshan (completed
2003)
Yun
38
4,957a
Lancang
55
Nuozhadu (under construction)
31,420b
Total
Sample
122
18,390
Note
: Compensation figures were adjusted for inflation to 2010 yuan, using a consumer price index from the World
Trade Organization. In the compensation column, the letters
a
and
b
indicate counties whose average compensation
levels differ from one another at the
p
< 0.05 level of significance as determined by a one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) with post hoc tests (Dunnett's C).
The difference in means between the three counties was statistically significant, driven
primarily bythe fact that average compensation levels in Lancang County were statistically
far beyond those in Fengqing and Yun Counties. The quality of these data is likely
hampered by the political sensitivity of the topic: as I pointed out in the chapter on the
Lancang, nearly 250 households in the data set belonged to the resettled category, but only
122 were willing to answer questions about the monetary value of compensation they had
received. It is difficult to know how to treat the missing households, whether they reflect
uneven compensation or simply uneven reporting of compensation, because the political
sensitivity surrounding resettlement can abruptly end conversation and make it difficult to
pose follow-up questions.
Despite this limitation, these data provide one of the only available glimpses into how
compensation levels vary across different policy eras. In Yun County, villagers displaced
during the 1990s and early 2000s for the Manwan and Dachaoshan projects have walked a
very difficult road; their compensation levels are far below those of more recently resettled
households (see also Galipeau, Ingman, and Tilt 2013). Some villagers reported receiving
only a few hundred yuan in total compensation; many resorted to scavenging in garbage
bins for food and clothing, a plight that has been well documented (Guo 2008). Further-
more, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the nation was undergoing a massive trans-
ition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, government economic plan-
ners gradually allowed prices to fluctuate for a variety of commodities, including important
