The nature of trade,global production fragmentation and inflationary dynamics: Cross-country evidence

This study investigates under which circumstances trade has impact on inflation dynamics by examining the independent effects of trade intensity, intra-industry trade and trade on value added. Trade in goods is decomposed into consumption (final) goods and intermediate inputs to deepen the assessment of the role of the globalisation of production activities on inflation dynamics. Open-economy new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) analyses suggest that inflation is sensitive to domestic factors and that the relevance of external factors changes with respect to the nature of trade, country groups and time. Vertical intra-industry trade in intermediate inputs and value-added trade play important role, whereas final goods trade has no statistically significant effect on inflation dynamics.     

分宜县土地细碎化的中观尺度研究

研究目的:借鉴土地格局领域的研究思路,在中观尺度上研究土地细碎化,以期在研究方法、数据获取等方面寻求突破,并利用2004年分宜县遥感影像解译的土地利用矢量对10个乡镇土地利用细碎化进行研究。研究方法:文献资料法,景观格局指数法,聚类分析法。研究结果:在中观尺度上研究土地细碎化问题,得到与微观尺度研究截然不同的结论——低山区土地细碎化程度最低,其次是平原区,而丘陵区的土地破碎化程度最高。研究结论:分宜县各乡镇土地利用细碎度指标的聚类结果空间分布规律特征十分显著。     

Towards sustainable rural development in Central and Eastern Europe: Applying land consolidation

Over the past twenty years, social and economic decline in rural areas has intensified in the Central and Eastern European countries. A precondition for the reversal of this decline is the implementation of new policies in relation to the fundamentals of land ownership and management. In addition to addressing the problems of land ownership fragmentation, these should include measures to improve agricultural production and employment, taxation policy, and legislation to protect land ownership rights, within the context of acknowledging environmental and sustainability considerations. In Europe, the requirement for readjusting unfavourable land fragmentation and promoting the appropriate use of land combining with positive environmental solutions is expected to create new sustainable land management systems. The consolidation of land ownerships may be an effective and active land management instrument which not only addresses the problems of land fragmentation, but also, if applied sensitively, may be an instrument for delivering sustainable rural development in a wider context. The aim of this research is to investigate land consolidation as an essential tool to create sustainable rural areas in Lithuania.     

河南省农业适度规模经营:现状、问题与对策探讨

发展农业适度规模经营是在家庭承包经营基础上实现新型农业现代化的重要途径。文章作者在调查问卷的基础上,运用描述性统计方法分析了河南省农业适度规模经营的现状,指出小规模的、细碎化的土地经营仍是河南省农业生产经营和土地利用的主要特征,通过剖析农业适度规模经营过程中存在的问题,探讨了河南省推动农业适度规模经营的对策建议。     

The need for a strategic approach on the railways to the management of the vehicle–track interface

Network Rail's decision in 2003 to bring track maintenance back in-house was long-overdue recognition that responsibility for safety on Britain's railways cannot be abdicated – but there was more to it than that. The accidents at Hatfield and Potter's Bar (both in Hertfordshire, UK), in particular, had exposed very vividly how privatisation had encouraged each now separated and competing part of the industry to operate in its own interests: records, data and expertise were fragmented, and track and train operators alike each sought to minimise their individual costs in isolation. This paper argues from a systems analysis perspective that, on vehicle and track maintenance at least, the overall costs to the industry are in such circumstances likely to be higher than if the various parties were to work together towards minimising total track and train maintenance costs between them. Far from increasing efficiency, privatisation had the effect of reducing it.     

Reducing land fragmentation to curb cropland abandonment: Evidence from rural China

Reducing land fragmentation can theoretically curb cropland abandonment, thus ensuring food security. However, few studies have quantified this relationship using large-scale survey data at the household level. This study adopts a two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) model to examine the effect of land fragmentation on cropland abandonment using nationally representative panel data from the China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS). The panel data set contains 15,138 households across 29 provinces in 2017 and 2019. We find that land fragmentation has a significant and positive relationship with cropland abandonment. The mechanism analysis reveals that this relationship is due to high labor costs and difficulties in renting out the fragmented land. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that farmers with poor human capital and those living in non-plain areas are at a higher risk of abandoning their cropland due to land fragmentation. Furthermore, the association between land fragmentation and cropland abandonment tends to vary across different land rent-in scenarios. For instance, an increase in the number of plots in the case of land rent-in is not necessarily associated with cropland abandonment. These findings are conducive to correcting the underestimation of the role of land fragmentation in cropland abandonment, and their implications may be extended to various countries.     

生产分割、周期协同与主要贸易伙伴的关联:1995～2008年

利用中国与17个主要贸易伙伴国1995～2008年的投入产出表和分行业双边进出口贸易数据,测算不同时期的双边生产分割程度。然后基于动态面板数据模型,综合分析了影响国际经济周期协同的决定性因素。研究发现,贸易在影响中国与主要贸易伙伴国的国际经济周期协同中存在两种不同方向的作用机制:以双边生产分割程度度量的互补品贸易对经济周期协同存在正向影响,而以双边贸易强度指标度量的替代品贸易对经济周期协同存在负向影响。同时研究还表明,双边金融整合程度对国际经济周期协同有正向影响,而产业结构相似性对国际经济周期协同的影响并不显著。     

Coping with functional collective action dilemma: functional fragmentation and administrative integration

ABSTRACT

Functional fragmentation among city departments has been a critical public administration problem in practice and theory. This paper investigates the political and administrative motivations for the reform from functionally fragmented water governance model towards an integrative agency design. Drawing on the Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework and the literature on bureaucratic structures, we hypothesize that cities’ decisions for administrative reform are influenced by different types of transactions costs incurred in the negotiation process among local agencies. Empirical results of this study provide strong support for the transaction cost hypotheses on the roles of bargaining cost, enforcement cost, and information cost.     

Bank lending margins in the euro area: Funding conditions,fragmentation and ECB's policies

In this paper we study the determinants of lending margins paid by euro‐area corporates for their bank loans. Across two separate groups of countries (distressed and non‐distressed) we examine whether lending margins have been affected by structural changes in the banking sector, the credit and liquidity position of banks and the costs of funding in the corporate and sovereign bond markets. The role of ECB policies with respect to narrowing down the fragmentation in the bank lending channel is also investigated through a structural panel VAR model for the period 2003:1 to 2014:12.     

Ethnic fragmentation,public good provision and inequality in India, 1988–2012

We study how ethnic fragmentation in Indian districts influences the distribution of consumption, both overall and between social groups. In the absence of systematic evidence on inequality between social groups (horizontal inequality) during the sample period, we construct estimates of horizontal and overall inequality, and find that horizontal inequality is a small proportion of overall inequality, as well as that both overall and horizontal inequality have increased over time. Our empirical results indicate that more fragmented districts have higher inequality, but the relationship between fragmentation and horizontal inequality is weak. Additionally, we show that fragmentation increases inequality by lowering public good provision.