What is the policy improvement of China’s land consolidation? Evidence from completed land consolidation projects in Shaanxi Province

Land consolidation plays an important role in increasing cultivated land, improving cultivated land quality and the ecological environment, and promoting the coordinated development of urban and rural areas. However, under the conditions of three decades of land consolidation being conducted and changing urban–rural human–land relationship, the areas of improvement in the land consolidation policy of China must be studied. This article analyzes the implementation and distribution characteristics of the land consolidation project completed in Shaanxi Province in 2018. Results show that land consolidation projects in Shaanxi are mainly land reclamation projects, cropland consolidation projects, and high-standard cropland consolidation projects. The increased cultivated land is mainly from land reclamation projects and cropland consolidation projects. The land consolidation projects in Aeolian Plateau Area, Loess Plateau Area, and Da Ba Mountain Area are mainly land reclamation projects. The land reclamation projects in Guan Zhong Plain Area and Qing Ling Mountain Area account for a large proportion. The spatial distribution of rural settlement consolidation projects, and rural settlement consolidation and land reclamation projects are mainly located in Guan Zhong Plain Area and distributed in the boundary area of Guan Zhong Plain Area and Loess Plateau Area. According to the characteristics of land consolidation projects and the changes of urban–rural human–land relationship, China should be prudent in or stop advancing land reclamation to increase cultivated land; cropland consolidation and high-standard cropland construction are vital ways to achieve China’s food security; and rural settlement consolidation should be carefully conducted in remote areas under the background of urbanization.     

The Great Recession,Austerity and Inequality: Lessons from Ireland

The advent of the Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and its effects. We examine how the distribution of income in Ireland—a country which experienced one of the most severe economic contractions—has evolved over the years 2008 to 2013. Standard cross‐sectional analysis of the income distribution shows broad stability in the Gini coefficient and in decile shares, with one main exception: the share of the bottom decile fell sharply, with the largest fall in average incomes being for that group. Longitudinal analysis shows that the falls in the average income for the bottom decile were not due to decreasing income for those remaining in the bottom decile, but to falls in income from those initially located in higher deciles. The extent of redistribution through taxes and transfers increased strongly, as measured by the Reynolds‐Smolensky index, which rose from 0.20 before the onset of the crisis to 0.27 in 2013. Analysis indicates that about three‐quarters of this increased redistribution is due to automatic stabilisers and one‐quarter to discretionary policy changes.     

A practical road map for assessing cyber risk

The increase in interconnectivity and developments in technology have caused cyber security to become a universal concern. This paper highlights the dangers of the evolution of cyber risk, the challenges of quantifying the impact of cyber-attacks and the feasibility of the traditional actuarial methodologies for quantifying cyber losses. In this paper, we present a practical roadmap for assessing cyber risk, a roadmap that emphasizes the importance of developing a company and culture-specific risk and resilience model. We develop a structure for a Bayesian network to model the financial loss as a function of the key drivers of risk and resilience. We use qualitative scorecard assessment to determine the level of cyber risk exposure and evaluate the effectiveness of resilience efforts in the organization. We highlight the importance of capitalizing on the knowledge of experts within the organization and discuss methods for aggregating multiple assessments. From an enterprise risk management perspective, impact on value should be the primary concern of managers. This paper uses a value-centric/reputational approach to risk management rather than a regulatory/capital-centric approach to risk.     

Bidding for Firms with Unknown Characteristics

When a region successfully attracts a firm by offering subsidies, the firm often commits itself to performance targets in terms of employment. In this paper, we interpret these firm‐specific targets as a consequence of incomplete information. We analyze a model of two regions that compete for a firm, assuming that the firm's productivity is ex ante unknown. We show that performance targets often induce overemployment in high‐productivity firms, and that tax credits are often superior to lump‐sum payments. Moreover, when regions differ in wage rates, the low‐wage region wins the bid and has a higher surplus than under complete information. Finally, we show that, under incomplete information, bidding might not lead to efficient firm location.     

Tales from tails: On the empirical distributions of forecasting errors and their implication to risk

When evaluating the performances of time series extrapolation methods, both researchers and practitioners typically focus on the average or median performance according to some specific error metric, such as the absolute error or the absolute percentage error. However, from a risk-assessment point of view, it is far more important to evaluate the distributions of such errors, and especially their tails. For instance, a lack of normality and symmetry in error distributions can have significant implications for decision making, such as in stock control. Moreover, frequently these distributions can only be constructed empirically, as they may be the result of a computationally-intensive non-parametric approach, such as an artificial neural network. This study proposes an approach for evaluating the empirical distributions of forecasting methods and uses it to assess eleven popular time series extrapolation approaches across two different datasets (M3 and ForeDeCk). The results highlight some very interesting tales from the tails.     

森林食品产业减贫的作用机理及效应分析

首先,介绍森林食品产业减贫的作用机理,主要包括解决资源落后与发展滞后的矛盾;促进贫困地区收入增长;注重多方交流互动。其次,将森林食品产业的减贫效应分为社会减贫效应、经济减贫效应、生态减贫效应这3个部分。最后,提出加强基础设施建设与品牌宣传;增加产业联动效应;持续带动地区增收等建议,以期为政府相关部门制定政策提供决策依据。     

基于个性化的江西省乡村旅游空间分布及评价

［目的］通过对个性化的江西省乡村旅游区的空间分布进行研究，并对个性化的红色旅游资源进行评价，以期对乡村旅游的发展提供新的思考路径，建立具有个性化的乡村旅游体系。［方法］运用GIS102操作平台对江西省119个红色乡村旅游区的空间分布情况进行研究，通过计算最临近点指数、地理集中指数和核密度计算分析其空间分布特征。以资源要素价值、开发价值和社会效益组成评价层，下分14个指标，对江西省红色旅游资源进行评价研究。［结果］(1)江西省红色旅游区分布类型为集聚型，分布不均衡； (2)在评价准则层中，旅游资源要素价值权重最大，为0647 9，其次为社会效应，权重为0229 9，开发条件权重最低，为0122 2； (3)指标层权重排名前三位的依次为资源完整性、教育性和组织管理，权重值分别为0162 0,0116 5和0111 7。［结论］江西省乡村红色旅游区数量较多，但整体呈集聚型分布特点； 旅游资源要素价值权重最高，且整体资源禀赋较强，社会带动效应明显，具有极强的开发价值。     

宏观审慎政策、经济周期与银行风险承担*

本文基于中国227家商业银行2005－2016年非平衡面板数据，实证检验中国宏观审慎政策实施对于银行风险承担的影响。结果表明：宏观审慎政策增强会在一定程度上抑制银行风险承担，而且这种显著的负向关系并不随着银行风险代理变量、经营辐射范围以及是否有外资入股等条件的改变而发生变化。经济周期会对宏观审慎政策的有效性产生非对称性影响，即相比在经济上行时期，在经济下行时期的宏观审慎政策对银行风险承担的抑制作用更强且更为显著。就可能的影响机制而言，本文发现宏观审慎政策通过提高银行盈利能力，从而降低银行风险承担。       

Where to donate: The geographical distribution of corporate philanthropy in China

An emerging body of literature has demonstrated that corporate philanthropy can be an important part of a company’s business strategy. However, we know relatively little about how companies allocate philanthropic resources to achieve their strategic targets. Using geographical distribution data on corporate philanthropy in China from 2009 to 2016, we provide robust evidence of companies’ revenue-driven regional favoritism. Specifically, companies donate more to regions where they obtain revenue than to other regions. Further evidence suggests that this revenue-driven regional favoritism may have both reputational and political motivations. Further analysis suggests that China’s targeted poverty alleviation policy has compromised revenue-driven regional favoritism while increasing the amount of money donated to poor regions. Overall, we enrich understanding of decision-making on corporate philanthropy. We also demonstrate that companies can use the geographical distribution of corporate philanthropy strategically to obtain consumer and government favor in regions where they operate. The results also provide evidence at the micro company level of the effect of China’s implementation of a targeted poverty alleviation policy.