Regional development and migration in the Lower Basin of the Zambezi River. The importance of property rights

Globalization is associated with pressures and conflicts over natural resources, with migration, urbanization and development. The analyzes these phenomena focusing the Lower Basin of the Zambezi River in Mozambique where external demand over natural resources have been associated with huge projects on transport infrastructures, coal mining and agroforestry, somehow correlated with recurring conflicts. The approach proposes and uses a regional development model that highlights the impacts of the spatial allocation of property rights on income and migration. Results show the importance of resources ownership in the spatial profile of development and social unrest.     

Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans

While equity has been an important consideration for transportation planning agencies in the U.S. following the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI specifically) and the subsequent Department of Transportation directives, there is little guidance on how to assess the distribution of benefits generated by transport investment programs. As a result, the distribution of these benefits has received relatively little attention in transportation planning, compared to transport-related burdens. Drawing on philosophies of social justice, we present an equity assessment of the distribution of accessibility in order to define the rate of “access poverty” among the population. We then apply this analysis to regional transportation plan scenarios from the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on measures of differences between public transit and automobile access. The analysis shows that virtually all neighborhoods suffer from substantial gaps between car and public transport-based accessibility, but that the two proposed transportation investment programs reduce access poverty compared to the “no project” scenario. We also investigate how access and access poverty rates vary by demographic groups and map low-income communities within access impoverished areas, which could be the subject of further focused investments.     

Assessing land use plan implementation: Bridging the performance-conformance divide

The assessment of land use plan implementation is a contentious issue. The debate centers on whether the crucial evaluation element is conformance of development to plan directives or alternatively, plan performance, i.e. the degree to which the plan is actually used. An analytic framework combining both conformance and performance in the evaluation of (regional) land use plans is applied to the case of the Central District Plan in Israel. Qualitative and quantitative simulation methods are exploited. Qualitative analysis reveals that both performance and conformance are greater than indicated by non-contextualized, numeric evaluations. Additionally, high conformance does not necessarily imply good plan performance. Quantitative simulation suggests that plan performance with respect to land values and densities is initially pronounced as expectations for development are subdued but subsequently tends to wane merging with the counterfactual trend. Findings imply that plan assessment needs to consider the transaction costs of land use re-designation and actors’ perceptions of the probability that plan amendments will be approved. These perceptions differ across actors as a function of the political influence that they wield.     

“融媒体”时代保险业广告预算管理问题探讨

数字技术的发展所带来的媒体形势的变化对保险业的广告预算管理模式形成了较大的冲击.本文分析了保险业广告预算管理的现状,以及在“融媒体”时代背景下保险业广告预算管理所存在的问题,并结合保险业特点及媒体传播环境的变化,预测了保险业广告预算管理的未来发展趋势.     

国家重点科技资源支撑区域创新经济产出的空间差异研究

根据2011-2014年科技部《国家重点科技基础条件资源调查表》以及国家统计年鉴数据,首先,使用赫芬达尔指数定量描述了利用国家重点科技资源进行创新活动的非均衡性。其次,使用网络DEA方法,实证分析了2012-2014年中国(内地)各省份国家重点科技资源对区域创新发展的支撑作用。研究表明,国家重点科技资源对区域创新发展的支撑作用不仅取决于资源创新生产阶段,而且受制于重点科技资源支持下的区域创新发展阶段。重点科技资源的支撑作用还有较大提升空间,70%的省份创新成果转化能力有待提高,且大部分省份的国家重点科技资源未实现优化配置。此外,全国及东部、中部和西部国家重点科技资源对区域创新发展的支撑效率不存在绝对收敛趋势。     

Speculative bubbles or market fundamentals? An investigation of US regional housing markets

This paper investigates the existence of speculative bubbles in the US national and 21 regional housing markets over three decades (1978–2015). A new method for real-time monitoring exuberance in housing markets is proposed. By taking changes in the macroeconomic conditions (such as interest rate, per-capita income, employment, and population growth) into consideration, the new method provides better control for housing market fundamentals and thereby it is expected to significantly reduce the chance of false positive identification. Compared with the method of Phillips et al. (2015a, 2015b), the new approach finds a dramatic reduction in the number of speculative housing markets and shorter bubble episodes in the US. It locates only one bubble episode in the early-to-mid 2000s over the whole sample period in the national housing market. At the regional level, it identifies two periods of speculation: late 1980s and early-to-mid 2000s. The early-to-mid 2000s bubble episode lasts longer and involves 16 metropolitan statistical areas.     

Blocking,attracting, imposing,and aligning: The utility of ASEAN forest and environmental regime policies for strong member states

International institutions, including ‘global regimes’ and ‘regional regimes’, address an increasing number of environmental issues. While in the past much attention was given to global regimes, a plethora of regional institutions and organizations (regional regimes) and their environmental policies have recently gained more momentum in political practice and attention in scholarship. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one such regime, and is actively developing its own policies relating to (e.g.) forests and the environment. These policies necessarily have to be useful for the regime’s member states; however, we further argue, that within the member states the regime’s policies especially have to be useful for specific member states’ bureaucracies, because it is they who actually develop the policies on behalf of the member states. Further, this paper aims to analyse the utility of ASEAN’s forest and environmental policy for specific member states and their responsible bureaucracies. Our analytical framework builds on regional regime theory, bureaucratic politics, and concepts of actor’s utility and interests. It differentiates the utility of the regional regime policies into several functions: (i) blocking unpleasant international initiatives, (ii) attracting international political or financial support, (iii) imposing rules on other member states, and (iv) aligning the interests of member states against external political opponents. Our results indicate that ASEAN’s environmental and forest policies serve all four functions. For instance, through ASEAN structures, Indonesia is blocking strict CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) regulation of ramin wood to maintain existing ramin protections and business, and the ASEAN Biodiversity Centre is found to be instrumental in blocking ambitious claims towards biodiversity from international actors. In addition, Malaysia and Singapore have imposed an ASEAN wildfire haze pollution agreement onto other member states in order to protect their directly affected interests in air quality and air traffic. ASEAN is also attracting to its members various international environmental funds in areas including climate change, community-based forestry, and sustainable peatland management. Last, member states under ASEAN actively align their positions in international climate negotiations as well as global forest deliberations to enhance their influence. We conclude that policies developed within regional regimes such as ASEAN are aligned with the interests of stronger member states, and their bureaucracies in particular. It remains unclear, however, how powerful these actors need to be in order to make this customization of regime policies valid for them. The results suggest that not only a potential hegemon, but also second or third powers may have this option. At the same time, member states’ activities do not seem to be conducted by states as unitary actors; instead, issue-specific actions are based on the interests of issue-relevant bureaucracies, which are in charge of representing a given member state in a given field of a regime’s policy.     

发达国家保险监管模式及其启示

本文分析了美国、加拿大、德国、英国、日本这五个国家具有典型代表性的保险监管模式,提出了加强我国保险监管的建议.     

Negotiating climate change responses: Regional and local perspectives on transport and coastal zone planning in South Sweden

Putting climate change policy-integration into practice is challenged by problems of institutional misfit, due to, inter alia, deficient vertical administrative interplay. While most focus within the field of climate change research has targeted the national–local interplay, less is known about the interface of regional and local perspectives. Here, the aim is to study that interface with a specific focus on the relation between regional and local spatial planning actors, through a case-study of transport and coastal zone management in a Swedish municipality. The article is based on interviews (focus group and single in-depth) and official planning documents. The material reveals a tricky planning situation, replete with conflict. In practice, various institutional frameworks, claims and ambitions collide. The attempts to steer the local spatial planning initiatives from the regional level led to conflicts, which in turn seems to have hampered the overall work for climate change management through spatial planning. Furthermore, there are few traces of prospects of a smooth vertical institutional interplay able to support the overall aims related to integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation in spatial planning.     

Tourism and regional income inequality: Evidence from China

This study examines the role of tourism development in reducing regional income inequality in China. First, the theoretical foundation for how tourism affects regional income inequality is discussed. Second, based on the conditional convergence framework, this study proposes a spatiotemporal autoregressive model to capture spatial and temporal dependence as well as spatial heterogeneity. Tourism development is introduced as a conditional convergence factor in an attempt to examine whether the convergence speed is accelerated by regional tourism development. Third, the effects of international and domestic tourism in narrowing regional inequality are compared both globally and locally. The empirical results indicate that tourism development contributes significantly to the reduction of regional inequality, with domestic tourism making a greater contribution than international tourism.