新疆渭干河库车河绿洲人口-经济-环境耦合协调发展研究

渭干河-库车河绿洲(渭库绿洲)在我国西北干旱区绿洲中具有一定的代表性。文章在阐述人口、经济与环境相互协调发展的机理上,建立渭库绿洲人口-经济-环境耦合协调发展指标体系,并引入耦合协调度模型对该绿洲1995~2012年人口-经济-环境耦合协调进实证分析。研究结果表明:(1)经济综合得分和人口综合得分呈上升趋势且经济综合得分增长速度远大于人口综合得分增长速度,环境综合得分则呈下降趋势。(2)1995~2007年发展类型为经济滞后型,其中仅1995年、2003年、2005年人口发展超前。2008~2009年人口效益滞后,2010~2012年环境效益滞后。(3)耦合协调度呈持续上升的趋势,低水平耦合水平转为颉颃耦合,耦合协调类型经历了由中度失调衰退类-轻度失调衰退类-濒临失调衰退类的转化历程。虽然协调度和耦合协调度都有所改善,但是耦合协调程度都较低。通过对人口-经济-环境耦合协调的研究以期为提高绿洲发展质量、协调区域经济发展与绿洲生态环境的保护提供参考。     

海南城镇化与生态环境耦合协调发展分析

基于2005-2015年海南省城镇化水平和生态环境发展的数据,利用耦合协调度模型分析了海南省城镇化与生态环境耦合协调状态的演变过程,结果显示:海南省城镇化水平呈现不断上升趋势,但生态环境综合指数变化却出现波动,城镇化水平的提升快于生态环境质量的改善,海南省由城镇化滞后型转变为生态环境滞后型;城镇化与生态环境耦合协调关系从中度失调发展到初级协调发展阶段.海南今后的发展要更加注重环境保护,使城镇化与生态环境协调发展.     

乌兰察布市生态环境与社会经济协调发展关系研究

通过阐明城市生态环境与社会经济之间的相互影响、相互依存和相互胁迫的关系,构建城市生态环境与社会经济协调发展评价指标体系,利用城市生态环境与社会经济协调发展度相关的定量评价模型,对乌兰察布市近年来的城市生态环境与社会经济协调度的动态变化进行了初步分析。结果表明,2003—2012年生态环境与社会经济协调发展类型由中度失调衰退型转变为良好协调发展型,城市生态环境综合效益、社会经济综合效益、综合评价指数、协调度和协调发展度都呈增长趋势,体现为生态环境与社会经济协同良好发展。     

区位资源禀赋视角下宁德市港城协调发展的路径研究

宁德市港城协调发展具有优越的区位优势和资源禀赋。但长期以来由于发展规划不科学、交通网络不完善、城市规模小、市场发育不成熟等原因,致使区位资源优势被压抑,港城协调发展严重滞后。宁德市港城协调发展的战略要点应着眼于统筹规划港口发展、完善基础设施网络、发展壮大临港工业、培育市场主导职能等方面。     

国家高新区与城市经济效率的时空耦合协调研究

国家高新区是区域经济创新驱动发展的核心载体,其与所在城市的互动协调发展对于建设创新型城市乃至创新型国家意义重大。运用熵值法、DEA模型和耦合协调度模型,测算了2008-2014年54个国家高新区发展水平、所在城市经济效率以及两者的耦合度与协调度,并对国家高新区和母城经济效率耦合协调的时空演变特征进行了分析,探讨了耦合协调度的影响因素。结果显示：①从时间维度看,国家高新区与母城经济效率耦合度呈现明显上升趋势,从磨合提升到高水平耦合,协调度增长缓慢,整体处于中度协调阶段;②从空间维度看,北京、上海等7个城市实现高度协调发展,绵阳、保定等5个城市处于低度协调发展状态,哈尔滨、无锡等26个城市陷入中度协调发展区间,跃迁趋势不明显;③从影响因素看,国家高新区经济规模、效益质量、创新能力以及城市经济效率对协调度的影响均显著为正。     

资源型城市发展过程中产城融合生态化动态耦合协调发展研究

随着资源型城市发展阶段的不断推进,产业、城市和生态环境之间相互影响的问题也频频出现。文章从产业经济发展、城市建设水平、生态化水平出发构建了产城融合生态化动态耦合指标体系,以13个典型资源型城市为研究对象,运用耦合协调度模型研究三者之间的耦合关系。结果表明:资源型城市产城融合生态化耦合协调度处于良好耦合和初级协调的水平,离优质耦合相差较远;产业经济、城市建设、生态环境之间的耦合度和资源禀赋存在着不可分割的关系;产业经济与生态化发展水平呈正相关的关系,与城镇化水平呈负向关系。最后从产业、城市、人的发展等方面围绕生态化建设提出了切实可行的对策。     

中原城市群9市城镇化与生态环境耦合协调关系

以中原城市群9市为例,基于耦合协调度模型,首先评价了其城镇化和生态环境的相互影响程度,并将其划分几种类型,其次研究了中原城市群内部9市的城镇化与生态环境耦合协调关系。结果表明:1中原城市群9市城镇化与生态环境的总体协调发展水平偏低,除郑州外,其余8市城镇化水平均滞后于生态环境水平;2依据耦合协调度测算结果,中原城市群9市的城镇化与生态环境耦合协调关系被划分为3种发展类型,即"城镇化与生态环境良好协调发展,生态环境滞后型"、"城镇化与生态环境中度协调发展,城镇化滞后型"、"城镇化与生态环境低度协调发展,城镇化滞后型"。     

经济-环境协调发展的演变及其地区差异分析

为定量探索各省区经济与环境协调发展演变规律,运用面板数据对1996年以来各省区经济--环境协调度进行了研究.结果发现:①协调度经历了先下降后上升的"U"型曲线过程,但总体上大幅提高,全国平均水平由0.399上升到0.617,经济-环境协凋发展历程受经济发展影响较大;②协调度在地域格局上呈现出东部、中部、西部依次递减的趋势,并且三大地区之间的差距在扩大;③经济是促进协调发展的主要因素,其贡献接近于环境对协调发展贡献的2倍,在经济系统内部,经济发展因素的贡献义要大于经济存量因素;④协调发展的所有障碍性因素均来自环境系统,但是制约作用并不明显;⑤经济-环境协调度与塞尔指数的变动呈较为明显的负相关性.即经济-环境协调发展程度越高,地区差异性越小;⑥经济-环境协调发展水平的区域差异主要表现在地带间的差异,对总体差异的贡献度为62.6%,而三大地带内部各省份的建设水平相对均衡.     

重庆都市区环境与经济协调发展演进分析及对策探讨

城市是一个经济—社会—自然复合系统,城市环境是城市经济社会持续发展的支持系统。以重庆都市区为例,借助软件SPSS11.0,应用主成分分析方法选取表征环境、经济系统效益的指标并建立协调发展评判的指标体系,利用主成分载荷进行指标权重赋值,并根据离差分析原理建立协调发展度模型。运算结果显示,1996—2002年重庆都市区环境与经济协调发展类型呈现由勉强协调经济滞后型到初级协调经济滞后型到中级协调经济滞后型的演化轨迹,最后提出了经济和环境持续协调发展的对策。     

资源型城市发展系统耦合协调研究——以武安市为例

资源型城市转型势在必行,文章旨在分析资源型城市发展系统"经济-社会-生态"的耦合关系,为城市协调发展提供参考借鉴。以武安市为研究区,构建评价指标体系,运用耦合协调度模型分析现状,以灰色GM(1,1)模型预测未来趋势。结果表明:(1)2007年武安市耦合协调度为中度失调,2008—2010年好转至轻度失调,2011—2014年除2013外均处于濒临协调,经济发展、环境恶化、社会响应敏感反映出城市发展系统三大组分的协调共进。(2)灰色模型预测当地2015—2019年仍将处于濒临失调,耦合协调水平提升迟缓,表明资源型城市发展系统各组分间虽然耦合更紧密,但协调水平提升空间仍较大。(3)资源型城市要强化"经济-社会-生态"相协调的发展观念,实现可持续增长。     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Planned adaptation in risk regulation: An initial survey of US environmental, health, and safety regulation

In principle, we want regulatory programs to be based on current realities, as reflected for example in the best knowledge of relevant experts. That would imply that old rules now on the books should be consistent with today's knowledge base, not just what was known when a rule or standard was originally set. This paper reports on a survey of US programs, examining how often existing rules are actually updated in light of better knowledge, and identifies five programs that attempt to make policy routinely adaptive. These programs exhibit what we term Planned Adaptation: they both revise rules when relevant new knowledge appears, and take steps to produce such improved knowledge. While Planned Adaptation is rare, it is used in several nationally prominent programs, including air pollution, airplane safety, and drug safety. Planned Adaptation is a policy tool that deserves more attention.     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

The greenhouse effect: Damages,costs and abatement

The buildup of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — CO₂ in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the full range of possible non-linear synergistic effects. In the most favorable (although not necessarily likely) case (of slow-paced climate change), however, it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. In the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance, making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible. We tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate-induced damages at $30 to $35 per ton of CO₂ equivalent, worldwide, with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea-level rise. The non-quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded.The costs and benefits of (1) reducing CFC use and (2) reducing fossil fuel consumption, as a means of abatement, are considered in some detail. This strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers. The indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil-fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from $20 to $60 per ton of CO₂ eliminated. In addition, there is good evidence that modest (e.g. 25%) reductions in CO₂ emissions may be achievable by the U.S. (and, by implication, for other countries) by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits (savings) to energy consumers of the order of $50 per ton of CO₂ saved. A higher level of overall emissions reduction — possibly approaching 50% — could probably be achieved, at little or not net cost, by taking advantage of these savings.We suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction (or a carbon tax) as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and CO₂ emissions. To minimize the economic burden (and create a political constituency in support of the approach) we suggest the substitution of resource-based taxes in general for other types of taxes (on labor, income, real estate, or trade) that are now the main sources of government revenue. While it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources, we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy-making. In fact, we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles, and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria.During the academic year 1989–90 Dr. Ayres was at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.During the summer of 1989 Mr. Walter was a member of the Young Scientists' Summer Program at IIASA.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: TRACING THE FLOW OF BASIC RESEARCH THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND TRADE

This paper describes flows of basic research through the US economy during the late 20th century. In addition, the paper studies the effect of the flows on scientific papers in industries and fields. This article differs from others in its use of measures of science rather than technology. Together, its results present a picture of the structure of basic research flows in a modern, science-intensive economy. Basic research flows are large within petrochemicals and drugs, and within software and communications. Flows of chemistry, physics, and engineering are common throughout all industries – biology and medicine are almost confined to petrochemicals and drugs; and computer science is nearly as restricted to software and communications. In general, basic research flows are more concentrated within scientific fields than within industries. Our findings concerning the production of scientific papers indicate that the effect of a 1% change in academic R&D spillovers significantly exceeds that of industrial spillovers. In addition, within-field effects exceed effects between-fields, while within- and between-industry effects are roughly equal. It follows that scientific fields limit basic research flows more than industries do, perhaps because large firms implicitly span a range of industries.     

Valuing Mangrove-Fishery Linkages – A Case Study of Campeche, Mexico

This paper explores the value of mangrove systems as a breeding and nursery habitat for off-shore fisheries, focusing on mangrove-shrimp production linkages in Campeche State, Mexico. We develop an open access fishery model to account explicitly for the effect of mangrove area on carrying capacity and thus production. From the long-run equilibrium conditions of the model we are able to establish the key parameters determining the comparative static effects of a change in mangrove area on this equilibrium. We then estimate empirically the effects of changes in mangrove area in the Laguna de Terminos on the production and value of shrimp harvests in Campeche over 1980–90. Our findings suggest that mangroves are an important and essential input into the Campeche shrimp fishery, but that the low levels of deforestation between 1980 and 1990 mean that the resulting losses to the shrimp fishery are still comparatively small. Over-exploitation of the fishery due to open access conditions remains the more pervasive threat, and without better management any long-run benefits of protecting mangrove habitat are likely to be dissipated.     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

An Economic Analysis and Simulation of Woodfuel Management in the Sahel

This paper presents an economic framework and a computationalmethodology for assessing the evolution of woodfuel supply costsand the spatial distribution of biomass in a Sahelian woodlandsetting. Spatial data on standing stock and the costs oftransport to market are used to construct a supply curve for fuelto a fuel-consuming location. Given an exogenously specifieddemand, the model simulates, period by period, the extraction,regeneration, and transport of wood fuels. The model is appliedto evaluate the benefits and ecological impacts of scenarios forwoodland management around the city of N'Djamena, Chad.