What to do with mushroom pickers in my forest? Policy tools from the landowners’ perspective

Wild mushroom picking is a growing recreational and commercial activity. In Spain, wild mushrooms legally belong to the landowner, who seldom benefits from trade in mushrooms or from their recreational value. Cultural aspects (tradition, picker-related harms) and economic aspects (costly forestry works, income opportunities) constitute elements of the debate on how to deal with mushroom picking. Through a survey of private forest owners in Catalonia (north-eastern Spain), this paper examines their experiences with mushroom pickers, the factors shaping their related policy preferences and their willingness to engage in mushroom reserves.The results show broad support for introducing mushroom picking norms. A regulation would allow outsider pickers to enter private land, but only under certain conditions, i.e. to comply with socio-ecological rules of the area. Among respondents who support the regulation, active land owners who report instances of picker-related harm (both tangible and intangible) tend to support the establishment of a fee system which could be reinvested into forest management. That is also the position of the respondents who perceive mushrooms as a private right, i.e. they believe to have a legitimate right to exclude outsider pickers and, eventually, to raise revenues from that asset. On the contrary, forest owners who conceive mushroom picking as a free-access activity prefer neither to regulate it nor to charge fees. The option to establish a mushroom picking reserve depends on the landholder being a fee-supporter and perceiving instances of harm. Harm, instead, is mainly determined by the perception of congestion of pickers, which in turn is determined by the mushroom productivity of their forest, their level of privacy protection and their involvement to the primary sector. These findings help policymakers to better understand the logic and sensitivities of forest owners in view of designing mushroom picking policies that can effectively solve picker-landowner conflicts.     

Small-sample Properties of Panel Spatial Autoregressive Models: Comparison of the Bayesian and Maximum Likelihood Methods

Abstract

This article considers autoregressive (SAR) models. We method to estimate the parameters of likelihood (ML) method. Our Bayesian by the Monte Carlo studies. We found the efficient as the ML estimators.     

The Sustainability of Current Account Deficits and Tourism Receipts in Turkey

Current Account Deficits (CAD) in Turkey have reached significantly high levels in the recent years and discussions around the sustainability of these deficits continue. On the other hand, thanks to its rapid development within the same period, the tourism sector is observed to increase its positive contribution to the current accounts balances. This study is an initiative to highlight the contribution of the tourism sector to the sustainability of the CAD in Turkey. Unit root and Cointegration tests have been used to this end. This approach is applied to the long-run relationship between Exports + Tourism Receipts (X + TR) and Imports + Tourism Expenditures (M + TE) for the period of 1980Q1–2005Q2. We question the weak sustainability hypothesis where the cointegrating vector is (X + TR)_t = a + b(M + TE)_t + η _t . In this vector, if b equals to one and η_t is stationary, then the current account deficits are strongly sustainable, if b is between 0 and 1(0 < b < 1) and η_t is stationary or b = 1 but η_t is non-stationary, then the current account deficits are weakly sustainable and lastly, if there is no cointegration or b = 0, then the current account deficits are unsustainable. The empirical results indicate that CAD in Turkey are unsustainable in spite of the rising shares of tourism receipts in current account balances. Therefore, in Turkey, where exports are exceedingly depended on imports, which makes it not very easy to reduce imports, the only way to ensure that CAD are sustainable is to seek options to further increase the tourism receipts.     

供应链管理课程教学改革探索

供应链管理是物流管理专业一门重要的专业课,在学生的课程学习中具有重要地位。文中针对供应链管理课程教学中的常见问题,在教学实践的基础上,提出了对供应链管理课程教学方法改革的若干思路,以期对供应链管理教学的创新能有一定的参考价值。     

UNDERSTANDING THE FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE BULLWHIP EFFECT IN A MULTI‐ECHELON SUPPLY CHAIN

This article is concerned with how supply chain strategies can mitigate the Bullwhip Effect and inflated inventories from the perspective of the central firm (typically a manufacturer) in the supply chain. We first outline a base case scenario with a validated system dynamics simulation model, using supply chain characteristics as reported by a real firm, in this case a Mexican electronics supplier to U.S. automobile assemblers. We find, surprisingly, that a lower Bullwhip Effect Index (BE) does not always lead to lower costs in the supply chain studied. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis suggests some interesting, counterintuitive results. The implications of these findings are further developed as we test how lead time reduction can also reduce the Bullwhip Effect in the simulated setting.     

DO PERCEPTIONS BECOME REALITY? THE MODERATING ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCY ON DISRUPTION OCCURRENCE

The concern and study of supply risk and supply continuity has recently come to the forefront in managing business and conducting research. This empirical study of U.S. and German firms investigates the relationship between perceived supply risk sources and supply disruption occurrence, as well as the use of supply chain resiliency practices to reduce disruption frequency. We demonstrate that supply managers' concerns with risk emanating from suppliers and the supply market are positively related to supply disruption occurrence. We further show how and when implementing flexibility and redundancy may reduce the effects of supply disruptions.     

Quality management,environmental management maturity,green supply chain practices and green performance of Brazilian companies with ISO 14001 certification: Direct and indirect effects

This study aims to test a new conceptual model based on the relationship between quality management (QM), environmental management maturity (EMM), adoption of external practices of green supply chain management (GSCM) (green purchasing and collaboration with customers) and green performance (GP) with data from 95 Brazilian firms with ISO 14001. To our knowledge, such links and relationships are not simultaneously identified and tested in the literature. The results indicate the validation of all of the research hypotheses. This paper highlights that an improvement in green performance will require attention to quality management, environmental management maturity, and green supply chain.     

Supply Chain Management Competency and Firm Financial Success

Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well‐established. Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi‐style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968) Z‐score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z‐scores than their close competitors and industry averages.     

我国农业保险发展的现状及对策——以区域化发展为视角

近年来，我国农业保险在持续发展过程中出现了一些问题，最为突出的是在区域间发展不平衡，而且现有保险模式难以兼顾不同区域经济发展状况、农业风险和农业生产布局的特殊性。推进我国农业保险，应根据经济发展的状况和农业保险发展水平合理划分农业保险区域，平衡和协调好农业保险市场，根据区域特色因地制宜寻求农业保险发展模式，进而促进农业保险平衡协调可持续发展。     

中小企业集群与技术创新

技术创新对中小企业集群的健康成长十分重要，文章分析了中小企业集群与技术创新的关联性，阐述了在我国中小企业集群中技术创新的种类和途径，指出了我国中小企业技术创新过程中存在的问题，认为我国中小企业应重视企业发展中的技术创新，以创新提升自身实力。文章建议我国中小企业应制订在创新方面的发展战略，并建立集群内的技术创新体系。