The Impact of Farmland Transfers on Agricultural Investment in China: A Perspective of Transaction Cost Economics

There is growing concern that farmland transfers lead to less agricultural investment, which may adversely affect agricultural productivity growth in China. Prior research has primarily focused on the differences between owned cultivated land and rented plots, but little is known about how farmland transfers between relatives, which are popular in rural China, specifically affect agricultural investment. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework of transaction cost economics to compare different contracting strategies in China's farmland rental markets. As farmland rental markets in China are immature, land transfer between relatives establishes bilateral governance, which has the advantage of addressing the opportunistic activities of both parties and can ultimately increase investment by tenants. Based on data from two waves of household surveys, we empirically examine the impact of bilateral governance on the application of organic fertilizer, an indicator for agricultural investment. Our findings show that apart from economic factors, kinship is important to the functioning of farmland rental markets in rural areas.     

Financing Renewable Energy Projects in Major Emerging Market Economies: Evidence in the Perspective of Sustainable Economic Development

This research paper aims to explore the role of FDI inflows and stock market development on the promotion of renewable energy consumption. Furthermore, study investigates the effect of renewable energy consumption on CO₂ emissions and economic output across a panel of Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. Study utilizes annual data from 1990 to 2012 and employs various robust panel econometric techniques. The findings confirm that both FDI inflows and stock market development play an important role in promoting renewable energy consumption. The results also reveal that renewable energy consumption helps to mitigate the growth of CO₂ emissions and promotes economic development.     

Opportunities and pitfalls for researchers to contribute to the design of evidence-based agricultural policies: lessons from Uganda

Agricultural policies in sub-Saharan Africa have paid insufficient attention to sustainable intensification. In Uganda, agricultural productivity has stagnated with aggregate increases in crop production being attributed to expansion of cultivated land area. To enhance sustainable crop intensification, the Ugandan Government collaborated with stakeholders to develop agricultural policies using an evidence-based approach. Previously, evidence-based decision-making tended to focus on the evidence base rather than evidence and its interactions within the broader policy context. We identify opportunities and pitfalls to strengthen science engagement in agricultural policy design by analysing the types of evidence required, and how it was shared and used during policy development. Qualitative tools captured stakeholders' perspectives of agricultural policies and their status in the policy cycle. Subsequent multi-level studies identified crop growth constraints and quantified yield gaps which were used to compute the economic analyses of policy options that subsequently contributed to sub-national program planning. The study identified a need to generate relevant evidence within a short time 'window' to influence policy design, power influence by different stakeholders and quality of stakeholder interaction. Opportunities for evidence integration surfaced at random phases of policy development due to researchers’ ’embededness’ within co-management and coordination structures.     

Regional disparity of embedded carbon footprint and its sources in China: a consumption perspective

Carbon emission reduction could be achieved through extensive cooperation between relevant groups such as businesses, governments and consumers. Generally, carbon emissions stem from consumer behaviour. To tackle the increasingly serious energy crisis and climate change in China, it is thus vital to control carbon emissions generated by the country's urban consumers. From a consumption perspective, we utilize a self-organizing feature map model to analyse the spatial differentiation of per capita embedded carbon footprint (ECF) in urban China. We found that the spatial differentiation is significant with the per capita ECF of the east coastal area at a high level and that per capita disposable income is the key factor affecting ECF. Based on these findings, potential business opportunities to develop low-carbon products are discussed.     

Socio-technical transition governance and public opinion: The case of passenger transport in Finland

As a governance perspective, transition management views the engagement of a wide variety of stakeholders in policy development as a necessary element in furthering sustainability through enhanced social learning. Yet as a literature it has paid relatively little attention to public consultation on socio-technical change. Here we set transition management in the context of longstanding debates in science and technology studies, technology assessment and deliberative democracy. Empirically, we use national survey data on Finnish public opinion of state support for future transport options. Showing how transport practices and attitudes to transport innovation policy vary with both demography and geography, we argue that these differences have implications for policy legitimacy. We suggest that, both given and despite the practical difficulties of deliberative democracy, use of participative opinion surveying to better understand social groups with needs and interests that differ from national averages, may help to enhance policy legitimacy and hence the success of transition management.     

An analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions profile of airlines flying the Australian international market

International commercial flights (with the exception of flights between countries in European Union including Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein) are currently not subject to greenhouse gas emission reduction regulation. To formulate effective and efficiency policy to manage greenhouse gas emissions from air transport, policy makers need to determine the emissions profiles of all airlines currently flying into their country or region. In this paper, we use 2012 data on airlines' aircraft characteristics, passenger load and cargo load (obtained from statistics reported by Australian Government Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics) to estimate the volume and carbon efficiency on each international route flying to and from Australia. This is the first study to use actual passenger and cargo load data to determine the greenhouse gas (specifically CO₂) efficiency of airlines operating in the Australian international aviation market. Airlines' CO₂ emission profile is dependent on many factors including but not limited to the aircraft used, payload, route taken, weather conditions. Our results reveal that the airlines’ CO₂ emission profile is not only dependent on the aircraft used and the number of passengers but also the amount of cargo on each flight.     

农田污染对粮食生产的影响研究——以四川为例

作为农业生产的根本,农田质量对于粮食生产而言至关重要,因此农田污染的相关防治已经成为我国农业可持续发展、农产品安全以及我国生态环境保护的重要措施。目前我国农田污染主要特征为农田污染物成分复杂,农田污染程度不断扩大。同时由于农田污染导致土壤肥力下降进而导致相关农作物的产量以及品质不断下降。文章以四川省为例,探究农田污染对粮食生产的影响,结果发现,目前四川省农田污染主要来源于农药化肥的不合理使用,水体以及土壤受工业废水污染严重,畜牧业废弃物污染等。农田污染导致可耕种土地面积不断减少,粮食生产受到严重影响。基于此,该文针对四川省农田污染现状提出农田污染综合立体防控策略,并在此基础上通过合理规划农业生产,减少农药化肥使用量,提高生物防治在病虫害防治当中的比例等措施减少农田污染对粮食生产的影响,以期为我国农田保护以及粮食生产提供一定的理论以及政策依据。     

Voluntary disclosure,greenhouse gas emissions and business performance: Assessing the first decade of reporting

This study explores the empirical relationships between GHG emissions and an extensive range of business performance measures for UK FTSE-350 listed firms over the first decade or so of such reporting. Despite the popular and policy generated environmental imperatives over this period—along with growing evidence of the corporate added-value of having an ‘environmental conscience’, voluntary disclosure of emissions has been slow to adopt by firms. The leading contribution is to present clear evidence of a non-linear relationship, initially increasing with firm performance and then decreasing. An extensive pattern of non-reporting of emissions is also observed over time, and prior literature has introduced questions of endogeneity existing between firm performance and emissions. Steps are taken to ensure confidence/robustness of the results to these concerns. Accordingly, a two-stage (Heckman-type) selection model is used to analyse the emissions-performance nexus conditional upon the firm choosing to report (i.e. treating the choice to report as being endogenously determined with firm performance). From this—in addition to confirming the robustness of the non-linear relationship—it can be observed that the decision to report emissions is not directly influenced by wider social/governance disclosure attitudes of a firm, thus suggesting that firms disassociate environmental responsibility from social responsibility.     

农村电子商务发展与农村富余劳动力安置问题研究

随着中国城镇化进程不断推进,农村现代化加速运行,尤其是中国农村土地制度产生了重大的变革,中国农村需要面对的剩余劳动力转移与安置问题愈发严重。怎么将这些劳动力从农业转移到其它生产部门,在安置劳动力保证社会平稳过渡的同时,实现农村经济长期可持续发展,是我国在实现农业现代化与新型城市化中必须要解决的问题。文章为研究我国的富余劳动力安置问题,从中国农村土地流转改革与新型城镇化发展这一重要现实背景出发,分析目前与未来中国产生大量农村富余劳动力的转移安置与可持续发展的前景,在产业不断优化转移的大趋势下以农村电商的发展为突破口,从目前我国农村电子商务的现状、问题以及农村电商的发展出路进行了分析,得出农村电商将成为中国农村剩余劳动力的重要安置路径之一。