农村政策金融功能定位与结构特征探讨——外国案例的实证分析

文章针对"市场失灵"说的不足,提出了基于农业、农村经济"弱势性"的分析框架,并对美国、日本和印度进行了实证分析。美国农村政策金融的结构特征主要源于农业的一般弱势性,日本主要源于"小农户"的弱势性,而印度复杂的农村政策金融结构的形成则源于包括"人多地少"、农户结构、城乡二元经济结构等在内的多重"弱势集合"。结论:一国农业、农村经济的"弱势性"既决定着其农村政策金融功能定位的演变,又决定着其结构特征。     

Consumer vulnerability and complaint handling: Challenges,opportunities and dispute system design

Effectively designed complaint handling systems play a key role in enabling vulnerable consumers to complain and obtain redress. This article examines current research into consumer vulnerability, highlighting its multidimensional and expansive nature. Contemporary understandings of consumer vulnerability recognize that the interaction between a wide range of market and consumer characteristics can combine to place any individual at risk of vulnerability. While this broad definition of consumer vulnerability reflects the complex reality of consumers’ experiences, it poses a key challenge for designers of complaint handling systems: how can they identify and respond to an issue which can potentially affect everyone? Drawing on current research and practice in the United Kingdom and Australia, the article analyses the impact of consumer vulnerability on third party dispute resolution schemes and considers the role these complaint handling organizations can play in supporting their complainants. Third party complaint handling organizations, including a range of Alternative Dispute Resolution services such as ombudsman organizations, can play a key role in increasing access to justice for vulnerable consumer groups and provide specific assistance for individual complainants during the process. It is an opportune time to review whether the needs of consumers at risk of vulnerability are being met within complaint processes and the extent to which third party complaint handlers support those who are most vulnerable to seek redress. Empowering vulnerable consumers to complain presents specific challenges. The article discusses the application of a new model of consumer dispute system design to show how complaint handling organizations can meet the needs of the most vulnerable consumers throughout the process.     

A framework for selection of strategy for management of security measures

In this paper, we present and discuss a framework for security risk management, focusing on the selection of a management strategy for decision-making on security measures in particular. The framework provides guidance on the selection of a suitable type of management strategy for various types of decision-making contexts. An Information and Communication Technology case study is used to illustrate the practical implications of the framework.     

Labour migration as a way to escape from employment vulnerability? Evidence from the European Union

Free Movement of people is a fundamental principle of the European Union (EU). In a context of strong divergence in employment and working conditions among EU member states, migration can be seen as a way to increase employment opportunities but also to escape from poor working conditions at home. In this article, we focus on the possible influence of employment vulnerability by comparing its individual level among migrants and native workers in EU countries. We implement propensity score matching methods using data from the European Social Survey (2008) and indexes of employment vulnerability proposed by Bazillier et al. (2014). Overall, we show that migrants face the same level of employment vulnerability than natives, all other things being equal. But there are strong differences by skill-level. Low-skilled migrants have a lower level of vulnerability mainly because of a lower level of employer vulnerability while high-skilled migrants face a higher level of vulnerability, because of a higher level of job vulnerability.     

Structural vulnerability and resilience to currency crisis: Foreign currency debt versus export

Is there any factor that is not analyzed in the literature but is important for preventing currency crises? I argue that exports are an important factor to prevent currency crises that has not been frequently analyzed in the existing theoretical literature. Using the third generation model of currency crises, I derive a simple and intuitive formula that captures an economy’s structural vulnerability characterized by the elasticity of exports and repayments for foreign currency denominated debt. I graphically show that the possibility of currency crisis equilibrium depends on this structural vulnerability and also analyze how this vulnerability impacts the effectiveness of monetary policy response.     

Transboundary resilience: the case of social-hydrological systems facing water scarcity or drought

‘Transboundary Risk’ and its management are widely acknowledged concepts, real-world problems and policy challenges preoccupying the fields of geography, sociology, political science, management and disaster studies. Up to the present, the notion of ‘boundary’ in the study and management of transboundary risks principally refers to national borders, whereas other important boundaries, such as the physical boundaries of drainage basins, the boundaries of social-ecological systems (SESs) or the lines separating public from private space, are rarely considered with respect to their penetration by risk dynamics. Resilience has been acknowledged in the case of SESs as an operation appealing to various spatial and temporal scales for access to vital resources. However, the spatio-temporal boundaries which are surpassed or penetrated in the process of transition from one scale to another is an unexplored issue. The authors focus their attention on a specific type of SESs, the social-hydrological systems (SHSs), facing the stress (risk) of water scarcity or drought, and assume that resilience of SHSs may be a process of attraction of water resources from other, probably distant SHSs. This type of resilience which transfers vulnerability might be termed trans-boundary resilience because it necessitates the breaking of boundaries and the spatial transformation of SHSs. This view considers resilience as a transboundary and trans-scalar dynamic process facilitating resource transfer and unveils its spatial dimension as well as its ethical and normative aspects. These assumptions are empirically confirmed in a range of water scarcity and drought problems, which are the following: (a) cities relying on water transfer from distant river basins; (b) agricultural populations and holdings facing drought and relying on a shared aquifer; and (c) arid islands. Whether this type of resilience is valid in other SES cases and other types of risk, is a matter of future research.     

城市老旧房屋的安全问题及破解方略——以上海市为例

对上海市老旧房屋的安全状况进行了实证调查,分析了老旧房屋面临的风险因素和脆弱性特性,研究了城市老旧房屋的安全问题。认为要解决这些问题,需要进一步完善房屋安全管理的法规标准、建立老旧房屋安全综合管理体系、建立财政补助机制、引入老旧房屋保险、建立民众参与和社会管理的长效机制。     

Computers,Input-Output,and the Future

While all regions are exposed to natural hazards, most disasters (such as droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, slides, storms, volcanoes and wildfires) tend to occur in developing regions. Underdeveloped countries and poor people concentrate the un-natural impact of natural hazards, deepening the existent inequalities within and across countries. The paper analyzes the empirical evidence on the incidence of disasters and maps worldwide disaster risks, to then assess the factors as to why disaster risk concentrates on certain people, areas and countries. It uses a conceptual framework on the links among risk, vulnerability, and impacts to understand the multi-dimensionality of disaster effects and the increasing challenges that countries have to overcome in the face of climate change.