Supply‐ versus Demand‐Side Policies in the Presence of Carbon Leakage and the Green Paradox

We consider a climate coalition that seeks to reduce global emissions in the presence of carbon leakage and resource exhaustibility. We show that a credible announcement of future unilateral supply‐side policies delays foreign emissions, and we derive the optimal combination of consumer taxes and producer taxes when we consider leakages from free riders, both within periods and across periods. The tax shares generally differ over time. A decline in the present value of the social cost of carbon over time supports a time path where the consumers’ tax share of the total carbon tax also declines over time. We illustrate our findings with a numerical model.     

Assessing cost‐effectiveness when environmental benefits are bundled: agricultural water management in Great Barrier Reef catchments

Using economic analysis to prioritise improvements in environmental conditions is particularly difficult when multiple benefits are involved. This includes ‘bundling’ issues in agricultural pollution management, where a change in management action or farming systems generates multiple improvements, such as reductions in more than one pollutant. In this study, we conceptualise and compare two different approaches to analysing cost‐effectiveness when varying bundles of benefits are generated for a single project investment. Each approach requires data to be transformed in some way to allow the analysis to proceed. The index approach requires the transformation on the benefits side so that the effects of multiple pollutant changes can be combined into a measure for each project which can then be compared to costs. By comparison, the disaggregation approach requires the transformation on the costs side where costs for each project have to be apportioned across the different pollutants involved. The paper provides novel insights with an application to agricultural water quality improvements into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, demonstrating that while both approaches are effective in prioritising projects by cost‐effectiveness, the disaggregation approach provides more insightful results and values that may be relevant for use as upper value guidelines in future project selection.     

Neither an Authentic Product nor a Counterfeit: The Growing Popularity of Shanzhai Products in Global Markets

Counterfeits have been a longstanding concern to global brand manufactures. However, recently, a new product category that partly imitates and partly innovates under the term shanzhai has entered into market. Shanzhai products mimic original leading brands through visual or functional similarities and may also provide additional features. Given this new copycat phenomenon, our study for the first time conceptually distinguishes shanzhai products from counterfeits, theoretically compares the values of consumers choosing shanzhai products versus counterfeits, and empirically tests such differences in one integrative model. Specifically, shanzhai buyers value product functional benefits more than counterfeit buyers, while counterfeit buyers value status consumption, yet experience less self‐clarity than shanzhai buyers. Our findings offer important implications for imitative innovation literature as well as for practitioners.     

Food fraud: economic insights into the dark side of incentives

In this review, we contextualise the articles in this special issue, relating them to existing food fraud research, and identify food fraud research trends, challenges and priorities for the near term. We accomplish these aims through a comprehensive review of research by food scientists, economists, other social scientists, legal experts, government research groups and international trade organisations. Existing food fraud research is heavily weighted towards food science, packaging and labelling, and legal areas of knowledge discovery. Moving forward, research is needed pertaining to general economic welfare outcomes from food fraud incidences, economic incentives to deter frauds, economic spillovers from fraud incidences to other food products and markets (domestic and international) and further delineation of the effect of different types of food fraud on consumer and producer welfare. The articles in this special issue make significant contributions to understanding of the role of food fraud in consumer decisions, measuring consumer welfare losses from fraud, food fraud spillover effects to other markets and new frameworks for fraud analysis.     

Asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes on the demand for money in Africa

In order to account for currency substitution, the exchange rate is included in the demand for money. More recent studies have demonstrated that exchange rate changes could have asymmetric effects on the demand for money or domestic currency. In this paper, we consider the experiences of 18 African countries and show that in most countries, indeed exchange rate changes have short-run asymmetric effects on the demand for money. However, short-run effects translate to long-run asymmetric effects only in a limited number of African countries.     

松嫩平原北部黑土区水土资源平衡效应研究

研究目的:分析松嫩平原北部黑土区在土地利用和农业气候资源变化条件下的水土资源平衡效应。研究方法:在傅抱璞假设理论的基础上,通过拟合参数ω回归方程求得实际蒸散量,以此来构建水分盈亏模型,分析水土资源平衡效应。研究结果:(1)1985—2015年,松嫩平原北部土地利用表现为湿地面积大幅度减少,水田和旱地面积不断增加;潜在蒸散量和气温具有较为明显的变化趋势,气温以0.27℃/10 a上升,潜在蒸散量以5.15 mm/a下降;(2)经过拟合参数ω方程求得实际蒸散量可以有效反映土地利用状况、地貌特征和土壤属性;(3)1985—2015年间总体的水分亏缺率均值是0.25、0.2、0.31和0.13,而土地利用的影响使严重缺水面积逐年增加,其增加量是总面积的1.59%,约是原有面积的2倍。研究结论:基于傅抱璞理论改进的参数ω能够提高地区实际蒸散量的估算精度,对区域水土平衡评价具有重要意义,为实现区域资源合理利用提供指导。     

自来水供应系统水质风险耦合致因分析

以城市自来水水质事故致因为研究视角,首先识别供水水质风险因素,并从单、双及多因素角度分析供水水质风险因素间的耦合关系,再借助N-K模型对2008—2017年全国所发生的362起城市重大供水水质风险耦合度进行度量。结果表明:城市自来水供应动态系统中,水质风险率随着参与耦合的风险因素的增多而增加;管理因素风险是水质风险的内因,风险管控是规避水质风险的关键;环境因素风险对水质事故的发生起推动作用。     

Peer effects in the diffusion of water‐saving agricultural technologies

We investigate the role of peer effects in the diffusion of an important water‐saving irrigation technology: low energy precise application (LEPA). Using detailed irrigation behavior data for growers in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas covering 1990–2014, we find clear evidence of peer influence in adoption of LEPA, net of environmental factors. Specifically, an additional neighboring LEPA installation within 1 km increases the probability of adoption by about 0.3 percentage points, on average, and this effect diminishes with distance. Our empirical estimates indicate that in the absence of peer effects, LEPA adoption would have been about 10% lower (1,000–1,600 fewer installations) per year. In addition, we find that growers install LEPA in response to higher energy prices.     

基于水权交易和面源污染控制的农户灌溉施肥行为模型

将水权交易和面源污染控制有机结合,以种植面积、农业用水定额、污染物浓度为约束条件,运用边际分析方法建立农户灌溉施肥行为模型,分析水权交易和排污控制对农户行为的影响。结果表明:灌溉用水量与农作物价格成正相关,与交易水价和边际灌溉成本成负相关;一定范围内肥料施用量与农作物价格成正相关,与边际施肥成本或边际环境成本成负相关。模型证明,当农业用水定额内水权可交易时,水市场的存在和水价政策将激励农户减少灌水量,节约用水。     

The impact of conservation tillage on maize yield and input demand: the case of smallholder farmers in north‐west Ethiopia

This study analyses the economics of conservation tillage (CT) with respect to its effect on maize yield and chemical fertiliser, herbicide, and female and male labour demand. We estimate production and input demand functions using seemingly unrelated regressions on plot‐level cross‐sectional farm household data collected in the north‐west of Ethiopia. A two‐step control function is applied to address potential endogeneity bias due to the inclusion of the CT adoption decision as an explanatory variable. Our results show that CT increases maize yield and chemical fertiliser demand. Additionally, the results show that the adoption of CT reduces female and male labour required for crop production. However, this is achieved through the increased use of herbicides, which might have an undesirable health and environmental effects.