Foreign aid preferences and perceptions in donor countries

We present original survey data on preferences for foreign aid in 24 donor countries from 2005 to 2008. On publicly-funded foreign aid (Official Development Assistance, or ODA), we find patterns that are consistent with a standard model of democratic policy formation, in which donations are treated as a pure public good. Controlling for perceptions of current ODA, we show that individual preferences for ODA are (i) negatively correlated with relative income within a country-year; and (ii) positively correlated with inequality at the country level. We extend the analysis to explain variation in the gap between desired aid and actual ODA, arguing that lobbying by high-income special interest groups can divert resources away from the median voter’s preferred level of aid. Consistent with this, we observe that ODA is significantly lower where policymakers are more susceptible to lobbying. Finally, we present a novel test of competing “crowding out” hypotheses. Self-reported private aid donations are negatively correlated with actual ODA, and positively correlated with perceived ODA. This finding is consistent with an emerging argument in the literature, whereby ODA crowds out private aid by enabling charities to forego fundraising activities and crowds in private aid through a signaling channel.     

‘Market failure’ arguments are a poor guide to policy

‘Market failure’ is frequently offered as a justification for government intervention in the economy. Proponents of interventions can point to almost limitless examples of markets which do not meet all the criteria for Pareto optimality and argue that government taxation, subsidies or regulation can perfect them, maximising social welfare. But comparing market outcomes with an unattainable and unidentifiable ideal is not useful in a world of imperfect knowledge and government failure. It is better to compare market outcomes against realistic alternatives. Furthermore, even within the market failure paradigm, concepts such as ‘public goods’ and ‘negative externalities’ are routinely misunderstood and inconsistently applied. This leads to predictably poor policy outcomes.     

海南省旅游业发展对经济增长的拉动效应研究

[目的]海南当前处于国际旅游岛建设和全面建成小康社会的关键时期,旅游业作为海南省的主导产业对海南经济发展的支撑作用显著增强,在此形势下,分析旅游业发展对海南经济增长的拉动效应,有利于为进一步提升旅游业对海南区域经济发展的影响,促进区域经济发展和经济结构转型,提出科学可行的对策和建议。[方法]文章从时间和空间两个维度,运用旅游业依存度、贡献率和拉动率3个指标,以旅游收入与地区生产总值等统计指标为基础,探讨了海南省旅游业对经济增长的拉动效应。[结果]从时间维度来看,海南省旅游业对地区经济增长的拉动作用进一步加大;从空间维度来看,海南省旅游业的拉动效应并不突出;从市(县)域维度来看,海南省各市(县)旅游业对经济增长拉动效应存在空间差异,东部地区拉动效应持续增长,中部地区增长势头迅猛,北部地区增长缓慢。[结论]不断完善海南旅游基础设施与管理体系;要不断细分和规范旅游产品,提升旅游产品的吸引力和复购率,完善营销及咨询服务体系;注意与其他产业的协调发展,加强与周边省份的交流与合作,省内要因地制宜,挖掘各地旅游业发展特色,推动各市(县)均衡发展,以进一步加强海南省旅游支柱产业的作用,并快速实现区域经济跨越式发展。     

Multinational mining enterprises and artisanal small-scale miners: From confrontation to cooperation

In many developing countries, multinational enterprises (MNEs) in mining operate alongside fast-growing communities of informal artisanal, small-scale miners. This has led to direct conflict and competition for mineral resources. This paper introduces the Salience and Institutional Analysis and Design framework as a means to analyze the MNE strategies used to address informal miners across different governance levels in the gold mining sector of Ghana and discusses the implications of these strategies for sustainability. We identify the emergence of a cooperative strategy with informal miners as a sustainable alternative to the political strategy of reliance on the state to protect tenure.     

区域经济发展不平衡与土地违法：基于地方政府经济增长激励的视角

研究目的:探究地方政府经济增长激励背景下,区域经济发展不平衡对土地违法行为的影响。研究方法:基于经济和社会科学领域有关发展不平衡及其影响效应的理论观点,结合中国特定的地方政府经济增长激励机制,以及土地利用与管理实际,探讨区域经济发展不平衡对土地违法行为的影响机理,并通过构建计量经济模型进行相应的实证检验。研究结果:区域内部经济发展差异的扩大确实会导致更多土地违法案件的产生和违法用地规模的增加;另外,在不同经济发展地区,区域内部经济发展差异变化对土地违法的具体影响有所不同。发达地区内部经济发展差异的扩大对土地违法的影响主要表现在违法面积上,而欠发达地区内部经济发展差异的扩大对土地违法的影响则主要表现在违法案件数上。研究结论:区域经济发展不平衡是导致土地违法行为的重要因素之一,促进和实现地区间的均衡发展有助于减少土地违法现象。     

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.     

Risk assessment for public–private partnership projects: using a fuzzy analytic hierarchical process method and expert opinion in China

Public–private partnerships (PPP) have been widely used in China to procure public facilities and services. Complicated problems in PPP projects in China arise because of a variety of risk factors. A proper risk assessment model is needed to identify risks and provide risk response strategies for future Chinese PPP projects. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) method provides the ability to solve complex risk assessment of PPP projects. Current risk assessment models are limited to PPP projects in specific countries and do not consider unique risks in China, especially political, economic, social, and legal risks. This paper designed a risk evaluation index system for PPP projects based on the Delphi expert investigation method, and then established an optimized risk evaluation model for PPP projects in China using the F-AHP method. The risks identified are confirmed by interviewing experts from Chinese local government departments, private enterprise, third-party intermediary consulting and regulatory agencies, and academic organizations. The results show that the risks that ranked among the top ten are closely related to China’s political and economic policies and relationships among stakeholders. It can be concluded that government authorities play a critical role in providing a favorable political, social, and economic environment and an effective institutional framework for PPP projects. Furthermore, it is also important to deal with relationships among stakeholders based on the public–private ‘win–win’ principle. This study provides risk response strategies, addressing key issues from eight aspects: an impeccable legal and regulatory framework; a central coordinating and regulating PPP authority; supportive governmental authorities; institutional capacity-building; favorable economic conditions and viability; community, partner, and moral accountability; clear division of responsibilities through contracts; and effective advisory management. These effective measures may be useful in reducing the adverse effects of risk for PPP projects in China.     

Copyright: a systemic marketplace icon

This article argues that copyright is a systemic marketplace icon because of the breadth of its effects on market operations. Copyright determines how intellectual property rights for creative work are allocated between the different actors involved in production and consumption, and must balance the civic priority of public access to creative work with the market-driven principle of rewarding private interests for their effort. This duality tends to polarise opinion about its implementation by rights holders, because very different ideological assumptions underpin civic and market objectives. Copyright discourses reveal how these ideological struggles play out among interested parties, who use the concept of copyright to make arguments about how markets should be structured, how creative work should be exchanged, and how consumers should behave. In the process, copyright is constructed, explained, branded and promoted as an object to which market actors must orient themselves if they wish to conduct themselves appropriately, and as a rationale for material changes to market structures. At the same time, copyright discourses reveal the implications of copyright, which invoke both the market and democracy, for the quality of democracy, the circulation of creativity, and the availability of public knowledge, and help explain why ideological struggles over copyright are so difficult to resolve.     

Street-level new public governances in integrated services-as-a-system

The paper explores the emergence of street-level public service integration in eight cities, in five countries using a new framework: services-as-a-system to explore new public governances in health and social care integration. Data is analysed from eight cities in six countries (Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, UK, and USA) gathered in over 100 semi-structured interviews with key agents. We show that whilst culture and context shape the form and processes of governances there are underlying processual drivers of new public governances, in particular where users are involved in the co-design and co-production of integrated services.     

The Impact of Public Expenditure and International Trade on Agricultural Productivity in China

The “industry nurturing agriculture” reforms and World Trade Organization accession led to dramatic growth in public expenditure and international trade in China’s agricultural sector. This article aims to estimate the effects of public expenditure and trade on agricultural productivity in China for 2004–2015. A semi-parametric production function with shape constraints is introduced to derive more accurate productivity before the productivity determinants are analyzed with an emphasis on public expenditure and trade. The empirical result shows that public expenditure and exports can effectively improve agricultural productivity, while imports have no significant effects. Policy implications are discussed in the context of supply-side reforms.