Institutional dynamics and access to non-farm employment in rural China, 1950–1996

This article examines non-farm employment in the context of Chinese rural institutional change, based on evidence from discrete-time logistic models for event history analysis using the Life History and Social Change survey. We find the transition to non-farm sector rose rapidly during the Great Leap Forward and market reform, while the Cultural Revolution saw it reach the lowest ebb. While male advantage prevailed exclusively during the Cultural Revolution and early marketization, education possessed a stable positive effect in all historical periods. Although the returns to different kinds of political capital vary along with institutional dynamics, intergenerational reproduction was greatly reduced after the Cultural Revolution.     

川西北高原藏区农村贫困化分异机制探测

[目的]客观揭示农村贫困化地域分异机制,为科学推进川西北高原藏区精准扶贫创新途径、综合战略和认真贯彻落实中央治藏方略提供参考依据。[方法]应用地理探测器模型、GIS空间分析与地统计方法等方法,探测川西北高原藏区贫困村单位面积GDP分异的主导因素,揭示农村贫困化分异机制,提出不同贫困化地域类型的扶贫政策措施。[结果]影响川西北高原藏区农村贫困化分异的主导因素包括到主要交通道路距离、归一化植被指数(NDVI)、土地利用、年均温度和海拔高程等,各因素对贫困村经济发展分异的解释力分别为80. 76%、12. 82%、8. 82%、5. 45%和3. 96%;贫困村经济发展贫困化的分异机制存在明显差异,可归纳为交通区位约束型、自然环境约束型和经济区位约束型等三大类型;农村贫困化驱动机制下的贫困村精准扶贫政策措施亟需因地制宜、科学推进、讲求实效,有序推进精准扶贫战略。[结论]精准扶贫应分类指导、重点突破,尤其加强贫困村交通、水利、公共基础设施建设和特色农牧业产业培植,注重多种扶贫模式的综合集成。     

乡村森林旅游项目规划中哲学元素运用的个案分析——以宜春市月都花溪谷项目为例

以江西省宜春市"月都花溪谷"乡村森林旅游项目规划中哲学元素的应用为个案,结合哲学理论进行分析。结果表明:乡村森林旅游项目规划应有哲学的自觉,根据项目所在地自然和人文资源禀赋,因地制宜地吸收哲学元素,从而打破乡村森林旅游项目同质化和见物不见人的困局,赋予乡村森林旅游项目以特色和灵魂。因此,提出突破森林旅游项目规划中一元化的经济思维定势、以哲学思维唤起人学意义、因地制宜激发内生式哲学文化活性等启发性建议。     

基于AHP-TOPSIS模型的京津冀家政服务人力资源供给质量评价研究

依托已有的研究成果构建了家政服务人力资源供给质量评价指标体系,利用AHP-TOPSIS模型对京津冀家政服务人力资源供给质量进行了评价和排名,并使用障碍度模型分析了员工制、准员工制、培训学校、中介制四种类型家政机构人力资源供给质量的关键制约因素,在此基础上,给出了不同类型家政机构人力资源供给质量改善的针对性建议,为家政服务人力资源供给质量的改善提供参考依据。     

Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

Being Good Parents or Being Good Citizens: Dilemmas and Contradictions of Urban Families in Middle‐Class Enclaves and Mixed Neighbourhoods in Germany

In recent years, cities have become ever more attractive to middle‐class families. On the one hand, middle‐class families tend to withdraw into (often newly built) socially homogeneous middle‐class neighbourhoods. On the other hand, they are also known to move into inner‐city and socially mixed areas, thus triggering processes of gentrification. Academic literature has often denounced these housing choices as being either ‘separatist’ or ‘revanchist’, more broadly categorized as strategies of ‘middle‐class disaffiliation’. Although there is a grain of truth in these interpretations, the reality is certainly more complicated. In our research on middle‐class parents’ housing and neighbourhood choices as well as their patterns of neighbourhood use, carried out in each of the two types of residential area mentioned above, we have only very rarely found an explicit desire to draw boundaries that exclude those ‘beneath’ them. We rather argue that the housing choices and neighbourhood‐related activities of middle‐class family households are heavily influenced by the specific dilemmas the interviewees face as (working) urban parents. While a significant number of respondents worry about the social sustainability, justice and cohesion of urban society, they are also concerned about the future prospects of their children. Many find it difficult to reconcile these conflicting normative demands under the prevailing circumstances.     

Bouncing Back from Extreme Weather Events: Some Preliminary Findings on Resilience Barriers Facing Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much‐debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non‐linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Data-based mechanistic modelling and forecasting globally averaged surface temperature

The main objective of this paper it to model the dynamic relationship between global averaged measures of Total Radiative Forcing (RTF) and surface temperature, measured by the Global Temperature Anomaly (GTA), and then use this model to forecast the GTA. The analysis utilizes the Data-Based Mechanistic (DBM) approach to the modelling and forecasting where, in this application, the unobserved component model includes a novel hybrid Box-Jenkins stochastic model in which the relationship between RTF and GTA is based on a continuous time transfer function (differential equation) model. This model then provides the basis for short term, inter-annual to decadal, forecasting of the GTA, using a transfer function form of the Kalman Filter, which produces a good prediction of the ‘pause’ or ‘levelling’ in the temperature rise over the period 2000 to 2011. This derives in part from the effects of a quasi-periodic component that is modelled and forecast by a Dynamic Harmonic Regression (DHR) relationship and is shown to be correlated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index.     

水利建设市场主体信用评价指标体系改进——以施工单位为例

针对现行水利建设市场主体信用评价指标体系,以施工单位为例,在比较分析已有信用评价结果的基础上,采用问卷调查统计方法,得到市场主体对现有评价指标的认同度,并分析不同指标认同度差异的原因,进而提出删除门户网站及平台信息、固定资产占总资产比例及施工年产值等认同度低的指标,提高管理层素质、人员素质及管理制度等认同度高的指标的权重。     

Inequality and entrepreneurial thresholds

We explore the relationship between inequality and entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a largescale survey of the economic conditions of individuals across India, we develop a number of dimensions of inequality to explore empirically how inequality interacts with entrepreneurship, operationalized as self-employment or as employing other people. We find compelling evidence that there are thresholds to becoming self-employed, and even more so to assembling the combinations of resources and personal attributes required to become an employer. Greater inequality leaves more people unable to make the transition to self-employment, leaving casual laboring as the occupation of necessity. At the same time, inequality increases the number of employers in a society, by concentrating resources - particularly land and finance - enough for significant numbers of people to be able to cross this higher threshold. Lastly, greater differentiation into social or religious groups curtails the ability to cross either entrepreneurial threshold, presumably by limiting the extent and benefits of social networks of value for entrepreneurship.