Soil biota, ecosystem services and land productivity

The soil environment is likely the most complex biological community. Soil organisms are extremely diverse and contribute to a wide range of ecosystem services that are essential to the sustainable function of natural and managed ecosystems. The soil organism community can have direct and indirect impacts on land productivity. Direct impacts are those where specific organisms affect crop yield immediately. Indirect effects include those provided by soil organisms participating in carbon and nutrient cycles, soil structure modification and food web interactions that generate ecosystem services that ultimately affect productivity. Recognizing the great biological and functional diversity in the soil and the complexity of ecological interactions it becomes necessary to focus in this paper on soil biota that have a strong linkage to functions which underpin ‘soil based’ ecosystem services. Selected organisms from different functional groups (i.e. microsymbionts, decomposers, elemental transformers, soil ecosystem engineers, soil-borne pest and diseases, and microregulators) are used to illustrate the linkages of soil biota and ecosystem services essential to life on earth as well as with those associated with the provision of goods and the regulation of ecosystem processes. These services are not only essential to ecosystem function but also a critical resource for the sustainable management of agricultural ecosystems. Research opportunities and gaps related to methodological, experimental and conceptual approaches that may be helpful to address the challenge of linking soil biodiversity and function to the provision of ecosystem services and land productivity are discussed. These include: 1) integration of spatial variability research in soil ecology and a focus on ‘hot spots’ of biological activity, 2) using a selective functional group approach to study soil biota and function, 3) combining new and existing methodological approaches that link selected soil organisms, the temporal and spatial dynamics of their function, and their contribution to the provision of selected ‘soil based' ecosystem services, 4) using understanding about hierarchical relationships to manage soil biota and function in cropping systems, 5) using local knowledge about plants as indicators of soil quality, remote sensing and GIS technologies, and plant-soil biota interactions to help understand the impacts of soil biota at landscape scale, and 6) developing land quality monitoring systems that inform land users about their land's ecosystem service performance, improve capacities to predict and adapt to environmental changes, and support policy and decision-making.     

Mineral endowment, labor productivity, and comparative advantage in mining

Labor productivity in the U.S. copper mining industry tripled between 1975 and 1995, allowing the industry to recover its comparative advantage. Mine level data on output and labor input indicate that over three-quarters of this increase came from labor productivity growth at individual mines, and less than a quarter from shifts in output from low- to high-productivity mines. This finding supports the hypothesis that new technology and innovation are as important or more important than mineral endowment in shaping labor productivity trends and comparative advantage in mining.     

Natural resources,education, and economic development

Economic growth since 1965 has varied inversely with the share of natural capital in national wealth across countries. Four main channels of transmission from abundant natural resources to stunted economic development are discussed: (a) the Dutch disease, (b) rent seeking, (c) overconfidence, and (d) neglect of education. Public expenditure on education relative to national income, expected years of schooling for girls, and gross secondary-school enrolment are all shown to be inversely related to the share of natural capital in national wealth across countries. Natural capital appears to crowd out human capital, thereby slowing down the pace of economic development.     

An experimental analysis of cooperation and productivity in the trust game

In the standard trust game the surplus is increased by the risk taking first mover while cooperation by the second mover is a one-to-one transfer. This paper reports results from experiments in which the reverse holds; the first mover’s risky trust is not productive and the second mover’s cooperation is productive. This subtle difference significantly lowers the likelihood of trust but increases the likelihood of cooperation conditional on trust. Evidence is presented that the change in trust is consistent with first movers failing to anticipate the later result. Drawing upon the analogy that the trust game represents a model of exchange, the results suggest that markets should be organized so that the buyer moves first and not the seller as in the original trust game.

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Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.      

Geography, institutions, and the making of comparative development

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I re-examine the theories put forward by La Porta et al. (J Law Econ Org 15(1):222–279, 1999 and Acemoglu et al. (Am Econ Rev 91(5), 1369–1401, 2001. I find strong support for both theories, but also evidence that the authors’ estimates of the impact of colonization on institutions and growth are biased, since they confound the effect of the historical determinants of institutions with the direct impact of geographic endowments on development. In a baseline estimation, I find that the approach of Acemoglu et al. (2001) overestimates the importance of institutions for economic growth by 28 %, as a country’s natural disease environment affected settler mortality during colonization and also has a direct impact on prosperity. The approach of La Porta et al. (1999) underestimates the importance of colonization-imposed legal origin for institutional development by 63 %, as Britain tended to colonize countries that are remote from Europe and thus suffer from low access to international markets.     

Natural carbon capture and storage (NCCS): Forests,land use and carbon accounting

The use of forests as natural carbon capture and storage sinks is considered by introducing carbon sequestration benefits’ accounting in a multi-vintage partial equilibrium land-use model, under different carbon price scenarios. The consequences to timber and land markets and to the profile of the carbon sequestration time path are examined in the short-run, long-run, and transition. Following IPCC, three carbon accounting methods are considered: the carbon flow, the ton-year crediting and the average storage. A full proof of long-run optimality of steady-state forest is provided. Numerical simulations are performed and results discussed illustrating the setup's potential.     

Technology, productivity, and organization

The on-coming age of changing technology and knowledge intensification, and its interactions with human values are expected to bring forth fundamental shifts in socioeconomic environment. The paper presents an overview of the dynamics of technological change, a hypothesis on productivity dynamics, and likely shifts in organizational structure. To cope with changes, organizational productivity has to be increasingly governed by human creativity and managerial effectiveness. The structure will be flatter, action-oriented, entrepreneurial, and, above all, flexible. By being organically alive, it will be different from conventional mechanical setups. The future will witness more of flexible manufacturing and flexible management systems and a change of emphasis from “management of technology” to “management of change”, governed by a multiperspective vision. The paper also analyzes major problems likely to be faced by developing countries in getting prepared for the future. In addition to their current focus on technological aspects, the Third World countries have to be seriously concerned about people and organizational issues.     

河南中外合作办学高校CPM分析及发展策略

面对高等教育的国际化,地方高校应高度重视并积极开展中外合作办学.尤其是河南省,又好又多的生源因缺乏更多本土优质高校的支撑,最终不少人只能与理想中的大学失之交臂.本文将运用CPM分析,探讨河南高校中外合作办学的发展策略,找准中外合作办学的定位.     

Incentives,supervision, and sharecropper productivity

Though sharecropping remains widespread, its determinants are still poorly understood and the debate over the extent of moral hazard is far from settled. We address both issues by analyzing the role of landlord supervision. When landlords vary in their cost of supervision, otherwise identical share-tenants can have different productivity. Unique data on monitoring frequency collected from share-tenants in rural Pakistan confirms that, controlling for selection, ‘supervised’ tenants are significantly more productive than ‘unsupervised’ ones. Also, landlords' decisions regarding monitoring and incentives offered to tenants depend importantly on the cost of supervision.     

Micro-heterogeneity and aggregate productivity development in the German manufacturing sector

A decomposition of aggregate productivity growth of German manufacturing firms that pertain to 11 different industries at a roughly two-digit level observed over the period 1981–1998 is performed. Productivity is measured by a nonparametric frontier function approach. The decompositions of productivity allow for an explanation of the aggregate outcomes by the quantification of the effect of structural change and the contributions of entering and exiting firms. Our results show that these forces drive aggregate productivity to a considerable extent. Remarkably, the large productivity improvements after the German reunification are mainly driven by structural change.

武汉生产力发展的新思考

武汉市在全国的经济地位正像中国在世界的经济地位一样,可称为发展中的城市。本文论述了武汉市在经济发展中应该采取的战略举措：从发展导向看,应以建立外向型城市为目标;从城市空间发展来看,走板块扩张的方式;从壮大经济实力的突破口来看,应积极吸纳国际制造业转移。对于如何实现战略,本文提出了一些新的思路。     

武汉生产力发展的新思考

武汉市在全国的经济地位正像中国在世界的经济地位一样,可称为发展中的城市.本文论述了武汉市在经济发展中应该采取的战略举措从发展导向看,应以建立外向型城市为目标;从城市空间发展来看,走板块扩张的方式;从壮大经济实力的突破口来看,应积极吸纳国际制造业转移.对于如何实现战略,本文提出了一些新的思路.     

Social approval,competition and cooperation

Non-monetary rewards are frequently used to promote pro-social behaviors, and these behaviors often result in approval from one’s peers. Nevertheless, we know little about how peer-approval, and particularly competition for peer-approval, influences people’s decisions to cooperate. This paper provides experimental evidence suggesting that people in peer-approval competitions value social approval more when it leads to unique and durable rewards. Our evidence suggests that such rewards act as a signaling mechanism, thereby contributing to the value of approval. We show that this signaling mechanism generates cooperation at least as effectively as cash rewards. Our findings point to the potential value of developing new mechanisms that rely on small non-monetary rewards to promote generosity in groups.     

Trust, contract and economic cooperation

After providing a brief overview of the standard economic analysisof incomplete contracts in terms of property rights, transactioncosts and self-enforcing implicit contracts, the author showswhy, in the orthodox view, trust is not a pertinent categoryto their negotiation or effectiveness. Drawing on various empiricalstudies which he has undertaken in the area of industrial relations,the author develops an alternative approach to the study ofincomplete contracts in which the concept of trust is central.In this alternative vision, boundedly rational agents with limitedforesight form provisional judgements about the trustworthinessof their trading partners based on the success of their pastencounters. A consequence of this alternative understandingof incomplete contracts is that there is no guarantee that cooperationwill succeed, even when the circumstances appear to promisemutual gain. The author argues, however, that by establishingan appropriate set of procedural rules to guide their responseto the unanticipated, agents can promote the kinds of mutuallearning that contribute to the build-up of trust and that increasethe likelihood of successful cooperation.     

Social norms,cooperation and inequality

This paper analyzes the outcomes that can be supported by social norms in a society of infinitely lived and patient agents that are randomly matched in pairs every period to play a given game. I find that any mutually beneficial outcome can be supported by a self-enforcing social norm under both perfect information and a simple local information system. These Folk Theorem results explain not only how social norms can provide incentives that support cooperation in a community, providing support to the concepts of social capital and corporate culture, but also how they can support inequality and discrimination.I am grateful to David Levine for invaluable guidance and ideas. I also thank Anna Aizer, Hongbin Cai, Walter Cont, Ernesto Dal Bó, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Federico Weinschelbaun, William Zame, anonymous referees and seminar participants at Universidad de Buenos Aires, UCLA, Universidad T. Di Tella, Harvard Business School and Stockholm School of Economics for very useful comments and discussions     

APEC电子商务活动:协调、合作与发展

电子商务是伴随着网络信息技术的发展和计算机应用的普及而产生的一种新型的商务交易形式。APEC作为目前世界上最大的区域经济合作组织,已经意识到电子商务对本地区乃至世界经济的巨大影响,对各成员电子商务的发展也给予了越来越多的关注。但是,APEC成员为数众多,经济发展水平的参差不齐造成了发达成员和发展中成员开展电子商务活动的不平衡。因此,APEC在电子商务领域的协调与合作对有效消除“数字鸿沟”,实现亚太地区的共同繁荣有着重要的意义。APEC电子商务合作内容框架与发展趋势自1997年11月电子商务在温哥华会议上被列为重要议…     

The development of factor productivity in an international comparison

Zusammenfassung Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Entwicklung des realen Outputs in sechs OECD-Staaten für den Zeitraum von 1965 bis 1979 verglichen. Dabei zeigt sich für alle untersuchten Länder eine deutliche Wachstumsverlangsamung seit 1973 im Vergleich zu den vorangegangenen Jahren. Innerhalb beider Perioden weisen die nationalen Wachstumsraten erhebliche Unterschiede auf, seit 1973 ist allerdings ein Trend zur Vereinheitlichung auf einem relativ niedrigen Niveau feststellbar.Dabei soll die Entwicklung der Produktionsfaktoren Arbeit und Kapital entsprechend dem Ansatz vonDenison (1967) Aufschluß geben, inwieweit Änderungen bzw. unterschiedliche Entwicklungen des Faktoreinsatzes die Divergenzen in den Wachstumsraten der Outputs erklären können. Zu diesem Zweck werden Arbeits- und Kapitaleinsatzindizes berechnet, in denen verschiedene Qualitätsänderungen nach Möglichkeit schon berücksichtigt sind, und mit ihren relativen durchschnittlichen Einkommensanteilen gewichtet zu einem gesamten Inputindex addiert.

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We are indebted toH. Gutierrez-Rieger, M. Kager, E. Nowotny, G. Orosel, I. Schmoranz, and a referee for helpful comments and suggestions at various stages of our research. Special thanks go toA. Rahman who has authorized us to produce this short presentation of our joint research.     

The outsourcing productivity paradox: total outsourcing, organisational innovation, and long run productivity growth

A growing number of empirical studies find a relationship between the outsourcing of activities and a long term loss of firm productivity growth. The paper addresses this outsourcing productivity paradox by examining the connection between total outsourcing and organisational innovation. We present a model of organisational innovation in which managers raise productive efficiency by identifying organisational architectures that more effectively integrate value-adding activities and administrative routines. As part of this process, managers can internally or externally source an activity. Simulations of the model show that large scale outsourcing restricts the scope for future organisational innovation, leading to lower productivity growth. The findings accord with the empirical data and provide a salutary warning for managers and policy-makers about the long term implications of total outsourcing.

The agricultural basis of comparative development

This article shows, in a two-sector Malthusian model of endogenous population growth, that output per capita, population density, and industrialization depend upon the labor intensity of agricultural production. Because the diminishing returns to labor are less pronounced, high labor intensity (as in rice production) leads not only to a larger population density but also to lower output per capita and a larger share of labor in agriculture. Agronomic and historical evidence confirm that there are distinct, inherent differences between rice and wheat production. A calibration of the model shows that a relatively small difference in labor intensity in agriculture can account for a large portion of the observed differences in industrialization, output per capita, and labor productivity between Asia and Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution. Significantly, these differences can be explained even though sector-level total factor productivity levels and the efficiency of factor markets are held constant in the two regions.