Impact of the Sloping Land Conversion Program on rural household income: An integrated estimation

The objective of this study is to identify the pathways of the potential impacts of the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) on household income and quantify these impacts along the identified pathways. We fulfill this objective by developing an integrated analytic framework and using data collected from Wuqi county of Shaanxi for the period 2004–2010. This integrated analytic framework enables us to formulate a structural equation model for testing hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect impacts of the SLCP. It is found that the direct effect of the SLCP on household income is positive but very small and insignificant, suggesting that retiring cropland has, at least, not reduced income from farming. Moreover, the SLCP has had a much higher and even increasing indirect impact on household income through promoting labor transfer and relaxing liquidity constraints. Overall, the SLCP's total impact on household income ranged from 3% in 2004 to 9% in 2010 excluding the insignificant direct impact. The research and policy implications of our work are discussed.     

Does personal background influence a finance minister to cook the books? An investigation of creative accounting in Swiss cantons

This article aims to identify the factors influencing the use of creative accounting in the public sector. Its distinctive feature is that it sheds light on creative accounting when used, not to hide public deficits, but to conceal surpluses. It especially explores the impact of the finance minister’s (FM)’s background on the phenomenon. We take advantage of the quasi-experimental settings of the Swiss cantons in which the financial management act sets out the possibility of implementing certain accounting gimmicks, including mainly additional ‘depreciation’ charges. These charges, which are depreciations in name only, enable the FM to artificially inflate expenses, thus increasing the deficit or reducing the surplus. Our panel data set of the 26 cantons over the period 1980–2012 includes a new data set of creative accounting and of 116 cantonal FMs. Our results indicate that the FMs cook the books irrespective of their personal or ideological background with the exception that trained economists tend to apply creative accounting more. Additionally, stringent fiscal rules urge FMs towards more surplus-hiding accounting.     

How should Engel's law be formulated?

Engel's law expresses a “negative stochastic association” of income and the proportion of income that is spent on food. However, there are many quite different notions of “negative stochastic association” and consequently there are different ways of defining Engel's law. We relate these different concepts to Engel's original statistical analysis and show that one must give credit to Engel for the first non-parametric statistical analysis of budget-data.     

Environmental Analysis of Packaging for Soft Drinks Using the Life Cycle Assessment Methodology

The knowledge of a product＇s life cycle is the first step on the search of sustainable development. The life cycle assessment （LCA） is an important method because it allows an environment accounting, where the extraction of natural resources and energy of the nature are considered and the ＂returns＂ to the same one and allows in evaluating relative potential the environment impacts generated. The present work had as objective to make an analysis of material and energy flows of the life cycle of three types of packaging for soft drinks： glass bottles of 390 mL, aluminum cans of 350 mL, and bottles of PET of 2,000 mL. The study considered processes since the extraction of raw materials for production of the packaging until the stages of recycling, after the consumption of the soft drink. For the research, an inventory analysis followed the LCA methodology. The main critical points of generation of negative environmental impact during the life cycle of each packaging had been the identified and quantified data in this study. The consumption of natural resources like water and other raw materials and energy, the generation of atmospheric emissions, solid wastes and wastewaters had been the analyzed categories. The results showed that, in accordance with the scenes and defined variables, the most important conclusion was that the bottle of glass presented a less favorable scene to the environment in comparison with other packaging.     

Borrowing constraints,parental altruism and welfare

This paper investigates the welfare impact of a borrowing constraint that does not allow children to borrow against future income. In an overlapping-generations model with altruistic parents, the inability to borrow increases children’s savings and parental transfers, raising children’s welfare as well as average welfare in the short-run and in the long-run.Additionally, the borrowing constraint raises aggregate savings and, hence, physical capital. Consequently, when prices are flexible, the positive welfare impact of the constraint is higher.     

我国小企业的紧融资约束

紧融资约束是我国大多数小企业进一步发展所面临的瓶颈问题。其直接原因是信贷配给制下国有银行的自利性歧视,如企业规模歧视、治理结构歧视、所有权歧视、资金需求歧视和交易费用歧视等。其根本原因是我国的金融抑制和金融发展的水平偏低。重要的是,金融抑制往往是金融不发达的重要原因。因此,解决的办法主要有加强信用评价与管理、发展信用担保业、加强对国有银行贷款行为的规制、放松对民间融资的规制和在银行业中引入私人小银行等。其中,第三条措施是根源于国有银行的企业性质的,也是可以立即执行并在短期内见效的解决办法。     

Will FinTech make regional banks superfluous for small firm finance? Observations from soft information-based lending in Germany

Regional banks have a competitive advantage in that short distances to clients enable the use of soft information for superior lending decisions. If the ambition of FinTech start-ups to create superior screening and monitoring technologies materialises, this advantage would be diminished and regional banks would become superfluous for small firm finance. To explore this claim, the paper in hand analyses qualitative empirical data about the lending processes and rating system use of regional German savings banks. In essence, the results from participant observation and interviews clarify the importance of “real” soft information for critical lending decisions. The context specificity and limited verifiability of “real” soft information hamper it from being hardened through the use of rating systems and other bank-ICT. Though FinTech's scoring technologies may overcome the first limitation, it appears likely that in the course of scoring development “real” soft information will be systematically crowded out due to the manipulation problem. The paper expects improved access to finance for SMEs if FinTech solutions overcome both limitations of “real” soft information use, or if peer-to-peer lending and regional banks coexist. Deteriorated access to finance is expected if FinTech companies displace the relationship banking of regional banks due to enhanced competition, without preserving the advantages of “real” soft information with superior screening and monitoring technologies. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to prevent deteriorated access to finance for small firms by promoting fair competition and FinTech innovations.     

中小企业全面预算管理存在的问题与对策

在经济全球化的背景下,大部分企业都面临着巨大的竞争压力,尤其对于中小企业来说,在复杂环境下保持稳定发展更是一种挑战。构建全面预算管理体系是企业提升市场竞争力的重要手段,虽然预算管理流程通常只分为预算编制、预算执行控制、预算考核三大环节,但我国中小企业的全面预算管理还存在诸多问题。论文据此进行分析并提出解决对策。     

New development: Fiscal reform in South Korea: looking back and moving forward

ABSTRACT

At first glance, it seems that South Korea’s three fiscal systems (mid-term expenditure framework, top-down budgeting, and performance management) function well. However, each fiscal system operates separately and they are inefficient because they follow past practices. This article explains what the problems are and how to overcome them.     

浅析软煤层中顶层综采工作面回采初期技术管理

目前正处于煤炭行业的寒潮时期,各地煤炭企业亏损严重。为了响应国家的安全生产方针,煤炭企业在该时期生产过程中安全方面更不敢出一丝的问题。由于综采工艺相比其他采煤工艺而言大大提高了施工人员的安全系数。所以,综采工艺往往是工作面回采的首选。河南能源化工集团焦煤公司中马村矿同样采用了综采工艺对211021工作面进行回采。211021综采工作面为顶层工作面,并且所采煤层煤质较软,初采初放期间遇到了三条断层。下面就211021综采工作面回采初期的技术管理进行简要的分析总结。