云南省财政支农对农民收入动态冲击效应分析

运用1978~2005年云南省的相关时间序列数据,采用Granger因果关系检验和SVAR模型的脉冲响应函数方法,分别从财政支农总量和结构两方面分析了云南省财政支农与农民收入的关系。实证分析结果表明:云南省财政支农总量没有形成农民收入增长的关键因素,主要是由于财政支农中的农业科技三项费用和农业基本建设支出正向冲击对农民收入均具有正的长期效应,但其支出比重较低;而财政支农中的支农支出正向冲击对农民收入产生效应不明显,但其支出比重较高。     

试析"国家与社会关系"理论视野下的"三农问题"

西方近代开创的政治国家与市民社会理论中不同流派在理论基础、逻辑进展和价值选择等方面的共性,提供了研究国家与社会关系变迁这一共同理论分析框架。分析和探究解决“三农”问题的先决条件和最终取向,对现有理论和观点提出新的评价,深层次解决“三农”问题应从强化国家对农民利益的保证、促进市民社会的构建和土地产权的市场化入手。     

Protecting agricultural accounting in the UK

This paper examines a particular accounting practice prevalent in the UK agriculture industry and reveals the ‘canopy of legitimations’ that appears to protect the practice and make it highly resistant to change. Agricultural gross margin accounting was innovated through Government sponsored agricultural extension programmes in the post-war period in Britain. The practice is not maintained primarily by farmers but rather by actors within Government agencies and agricultural service industries (including management consultants). New Institutionalism in Sociology (NIS) is used as a theoretical framework, and extended to consider the concept of legitimation as a reflexive process. Although the context is specifically UK agriculture, the theme of the protection of accounting methods by Government and other advisors is of more universal interest. The paper adds to the very few studies in the accounting literature that consider the agriculture and food industries.     

Agricultural and monetary shocks before the great depression: A graph-theoretic causal investigation

This paper uses graph-theoretic methods to investigate the causal relationships between agriculture, money, interest rates, prices, and real GDP in 12 countries during the years 1869–1929. We find that agricultural production directly and indirectly causes real GDP in two-thirds of the cases. Monetary shocks also play an important causal role in about half the cases, but unlike agriculture, the causal links are usually indirect through other variables to real GDP. The direct causal link between money and prices is also particularly strong. Between 1869 and 1929, money causes prices in nearly all of the countries in the sample.     

Protected areas, wildlife conservation, and local welfare

The establishment and expansion of protected areas in Africa have been motivated by the aspiration of increased wildlife abundance. However, during the past decades, this practice has been subject to a massive debate. While some claim that protected areas have failed in preserving African wildlife, others claim that existing protected areas are successful. This paper adds to this debate by presenting a bio-economic analysis of protected area expansion. The model considers a hunter-agrarian community located on the border of a protected area. An expansion of the protected area means less land for agricultural cultivation and hunting. Depending on the economic conditions of these activities, the model demonstrates that protected area expansion may reduce the degree of wildlife conservation. In addition, it may reduce the welfare of the local people.     

From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution

Abstract.  This article reviews the main theories about the prehistoric shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The transition, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth. The article provides a brief historical survey of the leading hypotheses concerning the rise of agriculture proposed in the archaeological and anthropological literature. It then turns to a more detailed review of the theories put forth in the economic literature.     

Protectionary bias in agriculture: A pure economic argument

Empirical evidence suggests that the agricultural sector in the developed countries has enjoyed a greater degree of protection than the import-competing manufacturing sectors. Usually this is attributed to strong farm lobbies and hence on political factors. We provide a theoretical model and a possible explanation of this phenomenon based on purely economic arguments. Two importables are accommodated in a three-good three-factor model of trade and production, one is a labor-intensive manufacturing good and the other is an agricultural commodity. This captures the trade pattern of a typical industrialized country with an agricultural sector such as Europe and the USA. We show that uniform tariffs in agriculture and labor-intensive manufacturing will definitely hurt the land owners in real terms and may reduce their absolute return. Hence, if there has to be protection, it has to be biased in favor of agriculture.     

发展生态农业 促进新农村建设

在阐释社会主义新农村建设科学内涵的基础上,分析了新农村建设中的存在的四类环境问题。深入诠释了生态农业与新农村建设的相互关系,并从培育全社会的生态文化意识、形成大农业的生态农业发展机制、建立多元化的投入机制、创新生态农业的科技推广机制和建设因地制宜的生态农业模式五个层面提出了发展生态农业的对策建议。     

China＇s Agricultural Trade Deficit Falls 67.2% in Jan-May

China＇s trade deficit in agricultural products dropped to US$ 490 million in the first five months, down 67.2% from the same period last year as export growth ＇outpaced imports, according to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture.     

Simulating soil fertility and poverty dynamics in Uganda: A bio-economic multi-agent systems approach

Declining soil fertility and increasing rural poverty are major problems facing sub-Saharan agriculture. Bio-economic modeling has been used to analyze the complex interaction between ecological sustainability and rural poverty as well as to explore policy options promoting sustainable development. This paper shows that these models can be further advanced by adopting an agent-based modeling approach. This gives a more realistic representation of diversity in socioeconomic and biophysical terms, allows local interaction between households, and can yield an ex-ante assessment of the distributional consequences of policy intervention. This paper describes the modeling approach and illustrates it with an empirical application to two village communities in the Lake Victoria Crescent of Uganda. It is shown how the model system can be calibrated with and validated against empirical data. The model is used to analyze the potential effect of short-term credit, mineral fertilizer, and improved maize seed on poverty and sustainability. Simulation results suggest substantial reductions in poverty although the incidence of poverty would remain high and these innovations alone would have little effect on the long-term ecological sustainability of the system.