The living commons of West Tyrol,Austria: Lessons for land policy and land administration

A right of commoners to pastures existed since the Early Middle Ages in Anglo-Saxon England and the European mainland, including Tyrol in Austria. Lowland commons institutions were largely dissolved by the 19th century; however, in the European Alps contiguous commons remain alive. Some two thousand alpine commons institutions are registered in the Tyrolean parcel cadaster and land registry. A specific study of West-Tyrolean commons (known as Agrargemeinschaft or AGMs), framed by Ostrom's design principles is presented. General lessons for land policy and land administration are extracted. An interview period was split between the Inn valley and the Ötztal. Roughly half are considered independent: others are regulated by the Tyrolean Agricultural Authority. Some AGMs hold the full bundle of land rights: others only hold pastoral and forestry rights. AGMs consisted either of a single cadastral parcel or several contiguous parcels. In the Inn valley villages the pastoral commons were owned by the municipalities, while in the researched Ötztal, AGMs are frequently the full owners of the commons. AGM membership ranges between 5 and 60 farm households. The number of livestock units pastured was in most cases stipulated in approved regulations. Alpine commons larger than 200 ha are also hunting-zones: revenue is collected from the lease of hunting rights. Most of the alpine commons are designated and used as ski-zones. Upper portions of two alpine commons in the Ötztal are state protected natural areas. The number of farms with pastoral rights is declining at District and State level. Key lessons for land policy and land administration include: Ostrom's design principles being a precondition rather than a panacea; commons institutions requiring one clear ownership party; both public and collective ownership producing success; publically owned commons requiring a local representative; small membership numbers being preferable; small shareholdings not being preferable; decentralized governance being beneficial; internal democratic elections being beneficial; internal boundary records being superfluous; explicit sanctions being superfluous; mixed economies being acceptable; and geography being a significant influence on the longevity of pastoral commons.     

Economic contribution of essential air service flights on small and remote communities

The Essential Air Service Program (EAS) has attracted considerable criticism and has been a target for either modification or complete termination almost since its inception through the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978. Although its opponents emphasize the program's inefficiency, its supporters claim that the program is crucial to accessing small and remote communities, which helps them develop economically and socially. This paper demonstrates the economic contributions of EAS flights to small and remote communities. Using a two-stage least squares estimation, the major findings indicate that a 1% increase in air passenger traffic in EAS airports with a minimum annual air passenger traffic of 1000 likely leads to a 0.12% increase in per capita income of the community served by that airport. Our results also suggest that EAS communities that are able to sustain their subsidized flights experienced higher per capita income growth in the 1999–2011 period than did ex-EAS communities that lost their flights as a result of non-eligibility.     

Quota prices as indicators of comparative advantage in supply‐managed industries

The Canadian dairy, egg, broiler, and turkey industries operate under supply management, a policy regime that sets product prices and allocates production among provinces and ultimately among farms through quotas. The Canadian Farm Products Agencies Act requires that comparative advantage be used to guide the allocation of new quota when increases in consumer demand necessitate increased production. This requirement, however, has not been met in practice. We develop a proposal by Meilke to use quota prices as measures of comparative advantage. We evaluate the quota price approach and other proposed methods, from a Hayekian and Coasean market process perspective. We conclude that quota prices offer an economically justifiable indicator of provincial comparative advantage. We develop an individual‐level general equilibrium model of quota exchange to illustrate the informational content of quota prices as indicators of comparative advantage. We also discuss potential practical challenges of using quota prices as indicators of comparative advantage.     

A saddlepoint approximation to the distribution of the sum of independent non‐identically uniform random variables

Calculating the probability of the corresponding significance point is important for finite sample sizes. However, it is difficult to evaluate this probability when the sample sizes are moderate to large. Under these circumstances, consideration of a more accurate approximation for the distribution function is extremely important. Herein, we performed a saddlepoint approximation in the upper tails for the distribution of the sum of independent non‐identically uniform random variables under finite sample sizes. Saddlepoint approximation results were compared with those for a normal approximation. Additionally, the order of errors of the saddlepoint approximation was derived. © 2014 The Authors. Statistica Neerlandica © 2014 VVS.     

Solvability of perturbation solutions in DSGE models

We prove that the undetermined Taylor series coefficients of local approximations to the policy function of arbitrary order in a wide class of discrete time dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are solvable by standard DSGE perturbation methods under regularity and saddle point stability assumptions on first order approximations. Extending the approach to nonstationary models, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for solvability, as well as an example in the neoclassical growth model where solvability fails. Finally, we eliminate the assumption of solvability needed for the local existence theorem of perturbation solutions, complete the proof that the policy function is invariant to first order changes in risk, and attribute the loss of numerical accuracy in progressively higher order terms to the compounding of errors from the first order transition matrix.     

Forecast combinations under structural break uncertainty

This paper proposes two new weighting schemes that average forecasts based on different estimation windows in order to account for possible structural change. The first scheme weights the forecasts according to the values of reversed ordered CUSUM (ROC) test statistics, while the second weighting method simply assigns heavier weights to forecasts that use more recent information. Simulation results show that, when structural breaks are present, forecasts based on the first weighting scheme outperform those based on a procedure that simply uses ROC tests to choose and forecast from a single post-break estimation window. Combination forecasts based on our second weighting scheme outperform equally weighted combination forecasts. An empirical application based on a NAIRU Phillips curve model for the G7 countries illustrates these findings, and also shows that combination forecasts can outperform the random walk forecasting model.     

美国奥巴马总统“气候行动计划”解读

2013年6月,美国总统奥巴马在华盛顿乔治城大学发表关于应对气候变化的讲话,发布了"总统气候行动计划",重申到2020年美国实现在2005年基础上减排温室气体17%的承诺,并从减少温室气体排放、应对气候变化的不利影响和领导国际合作三个方面系统阐释了美国联邦政府将采取的一系列举措,这是迄今为止美国政府最全面综合的气候政策。通过分析和梳理该"气候行动计划"推出的背景、主要内容以及美国各界的反应等,指出了该计划的实质和存在的一些问题,包括在实施范围、执行力度、持续性和有效性等方面的局限性。     

Philanthropic giving of China’s hotel firms: The roles of state ownership,corporate misconduct and executive remuneration

This study utilizes value enhancement theory, agency cost theory and crisis management theory to scrutinize the philanthropic giving (PG) of China’s listed hotel companies from 2003 to 2018. The results of dynamic panel regression tests reveal that state ownership (company character), corporate misconduct (crisis management determinant) and executive remuneration (agency cost determinant) are influential factors in hotel firms’ PG, but none of the value enhancement determinants can explain PG. Specifically, state ownership is negatively correlated with PG, reflecting low PG in government dominated hotel firms in China. PG is negatively associated with executive remuneration, indicating that hotel managers care more about self-interest than social responsibility. PG is also positively related to corporate misconduct, suggesting that hotel firms use philanthropy to manage a crisis. Finally, the lagged PG has a positive effect on PG, implying that PG is intended to avoid damage to social image and reputation of China’s hotel firms.     

Non-technical skills for managing risk and performance in financial trading

Recent large-scale failures in financial institutions have been found to be caused, in-part, by human factors-related issues in financial trading. In other environments where risk management and performance are intertwined, a human factors approach is often adopted to understand how the ‘non-technical skills (NTS)’ (leadership (LD), decision-making (DM), situation awareness (SA), teamwork) of organisational actors influence outcomes. Yet, to date, there has been minimal application of human factors research in financial trading. This study (i) identifies ‘real-world’ (i.e. non-laboratory) research studies investigating the NTS important for performance in financial trading, (ii) examines and synthesises data on the NTS found to underpin good or poor performance and (iii) considers the quality and coverage of research investigating NTS in financial trading, and identifies potential areas for future research. Nineteen studies were identified through a systematic literature search and then content-analysed for associations between NTS and performance in financial trading. The review found a range of decision-making (e.g. heuristics and biases, intuitive DM, emotional regulation) and LD skills (e.g. setting standards, monitoring behaviour, encouraging speaking-up) to have been identified as important for managing risk and performance in financial trading environments. Furthermore, SA (e.g. information search and assessment strategies, vigilance, identifying ‘noise’ data) and teamwork (e.g. avoiding ‘role’ conflict, communication between traders) were found to be important, yet remain less explored within the literature, and should be the focus of future research. NTS appear essential for effective risk management within the financial sector, yet further field research is required to examine the context-relevant behaviours that underpin safe activity. This will facilitate the development of evidence-based systems for assessing and training NTS competencies.     

3s技术在基本农田调查清理中的应用——以重庆市巫山县为例

划定永久基本农田是实现耕地保护目标的重要手段,为做好永久基本农田调整完善工作需要对基本农田现状进行调查清理,以重庆市巫山县为例,提供基于3S技术支撑的技术方法和工作思路。结果表明,以3S技术手段进行基本农田现状调查清理,能快速、准确查清基本农田现状数据中不符合基本农田划定要求的地类,能满足基本农田动态监测的需要,将更好地在基本农田划定与保护中得以应用。