Theoretical analysis and model design of search for ecological conservation redlines based on the sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services

Most small-scale social economies are characterised by their deficiency, lack, and/or difficulty in matching natural data. Against this backdrop, this paper builds a relatively uniform theoretical framework and designs a more economical and objective method for demarcating ecological conservation redlines (ECR) based on sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services. The results show that the sensitivity assessment model designed in this study can identify sensitive zones effectively, and that the ECR in Hubei Province are well within the sensitive zones so identified. The delimited areas based on the sensitive assessment of ecosystem services have great similarities (95%) with the actual ECR areas in Hubei Province. The most ecologically important functional zones (EIFZ) can also be identified using the regional ecological sensitivity coefficient. When the threshold of EIFZ is set higher, the probability that it falls within the ecologically sensitive areas is greater and the ECR delimited by the method proposed in this study will be more reliable. Theoretically, the delimitation of ECR can be inserted at any evaluation level with a grid resolution higher than that of the land use data, which can be used as a supplement to the ECR delimitation method in ecology or geography.     

创新影响了银行风险承担吗?——基于中国上市银行的实证检验

本文将银行内部创新因素和外部创新环境引入银行风险承担研究框架,从理论和实证两个方面分析创新对银行风险承担的影响。研究结果发现,创新与银行风险承担之间呈现"U型"的关系,适度创新能够弱化银行风险承担,过度创新会加剧银行风险承担。进一步研究发现,内部创新对非五大行具有当期和滞后的双重影响,而对五大行仅具有当期效应。外部创新对五大行具有当期和滞后的双重影响,而对非五大行的当期影响不显著。企业还款能力、银行贷款质量和创新资产规模是创新影响银行风险承担的重要中介机制。此外,五大行对创新的敏感性小于非五大行,五大行可接受的创新区间大于非五大行。     

Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability

This paper investigates why household debt in Korea has increased so rapidly over the past decade and whether it is sustainable, adopting a multi-faceted approach which includes a time series analysis, a quantitative analysis based on household panel data, and an analysis using a debt dynamics equation derived from the household budget constraint. A regression analysis reveals that household debt growth has been significantly related to house price increases, banks’ lax attitudes toward household lending, and financial institutions’ favorable funding conditions. Also 70–80% of the total debt increase has been accounted for by high income or newly indebted households. The debt dynamics equation analysis shows that the rapid rise in the ratio of household debt to disposable income is attributable not only to the increase in household asset purchases but also to the dampened growth in disposable income and the reduced savings rate. The sustainability analyses indicate that Korean households’ debt sustainability is unlikely to deteriorate sharply within a short period of time unless two extreme scenarios, under which house prices decline by 5% a year over the next five years, or a significantly large macroeconomic shock similar to the 1997 crisis hits the economy, would be realized.     

Does participation in the sloping land conversion program reduce the sensitivity of Chinese farmers to climate change?

Over the last two decades, extensive literature has examined the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of China's Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), a program that was launched in late 1990s to mitigate the environmental effects of agricultural production and reduce rural poverty. However, little empirical evidence exists with regard to the impact of SLCP on rural households' sensitivity to nature-induced changes and environmental challenges. In this study, household-level data covering the period 1995–2010 from five Chinese provinces were used to examine the effect of SLCP on farmers' sensitivity to climate change. The empirical results show that participation in SLCP significantly reduced farmers' sensitivity to climate change by reducing their dependency on land and natural resources for income, and by diversifying their livelihood options. Spatially, the results reveal that the effect of SLCP on farmers' sensitivity vary across regions. Specifically, SLCP was found to have a ‘rate effect’ on farmers in the Northern regions and a ‘level effect’ on farmers in the Southern regions. Likewise, we found that the effect of SLCP differs considerably across income groups, with the effect on low- and middle-income groups being most significant. The results indicate that subsidy is the main pathway through which SLCP reduces farmers' sensitivity to climate change. In contrast, we found inclusive evidence about the indirect effect of SLCP farmers' sensitivity through the promotion of non-agricultural employment. These results carry major implications with regard to the effectiveness of ecological conservation programs and their mitigation potential through building farmers' resilience in China and ecologically fragile environments.     

An extended peer communities’ knowledge sharing approach for environmental governance

This paper is devoted to propose an approach to implement the idea of extended peer knowledge to environmental governance by means of engaging the «extended peer communities». Socially robust knowledge relies on transparency and citizen participation. These two underlying elements take the form of both assessment and post-assessment decision support systems. Initially, during the assessment process citizens and stakeholders are engaged in the framing, proposal of alternatives, and evaluation criteria. Then the analysts assessed the alternatives proposed by means of DSS. Then, in a second stage, the analysts inspired in the idea of transparency, gave back the assessment result to the «extended peer community» who were able to give their opinion regarding the results and suggest potential parametric changes that were used for sensitivity analyses. The authors explore the proposed extended peer communities’ knowledge sharing for environmental governance assessment using a case study applied to a sustainable mobility planning process carried out in Tenerife (Canary Islands). The results gathered highlight that this approach is of use for guaranteeing the robustness of complex environmental decisions under high levels of uncertainty.     

Optimization of postal express line network under mixed driving pattern of trucks

Details about the movement of trucks on postal express lines are investigated to improve the performances of mail distribution. A mixed driving pattern of trucks is introduced to minimize the transportation cost of a postal express line network with a service level requirement. We formulate this problem as a mixed p meeting depots location with shipment scheduling problem and build a MINLP model. A two-level tabu search procedure based on shipment grouping method is developed. Through a series of computational experiments and sensitivity analysis on different instances, some managerial insights of the network under mixed driving pattern are revealed.     

晋江市土地利用变化对生态系统服务价值的影响

以晋江市为研究区,依据2005年,2010年和2015年3期土地利用数据,从生态系统服务功能角度,运用Costanza的方法,结合谢高地修正的我国生态服务价值当量因子表,分析了晋江市土地利用变化与生态服务价值的响应关系。结果表明:2005-2015年,晋江市的城镇用地显著扩张,而耕地和林地却急剧减少,土地利用的生态系统服务价值总体呈逐年下降趋势。通过分析晋江市土地利用变化对生态服务价值的影响可以为科学合理利用土地,保障人口、资源、环境的可持续发展提供决策支持。敏感性分析表明,生态服务价值对生态服务价值系数的变化是缺乏弹性的,因此结果是可信的。在编制土地利用规划时应将生态服务价值考虑其中,尤其是应注重保护湿地、水域、林地等生态服务价值系数高的土地利用类型,以期实现晋江市的可持续发展。     

我国国际贸易结构变化对能源消费影响的敏感性分析

本文基于投入产出分析法中影响力系数的研究思想,提出了"能源消费影响力系数"的概念,运用1992年、1997年和2002年投入产出表中的数据,计算了各进出口部门净出口每增加一单位,通过投入产出的连锁反应最终导致我国能源消费总量的增加数量,得出了对我国能源消费具有重要影响的关键性的进出口部门,以及这些部门单位进出口额的变化对我国能源消费的影响程度。其中,在对能源强度的计算中,借鉴了投入产出混合价值模型(Input-output Model in Hybrid Units)的计算方法。     

Impatience implication of weakly Paretian orders: Existence and genericity

We study order theoretic and topological implications for impatience of weakly Paretian, representable orders on infinite utility streams. As a departure from the traditional literature, we do not make any continuity assumptions in proving the existence of impatient points. Impatience is robust in the sense that there are uncountably many impatient points. A general statement about genericity of impatience cannot be made for representable, weakly Paretian orders. This is shown by means of an example. If we assume a stronger sensitivity condition, then genericity obtains.     

Determining the optimal dimension of a work-in-process storage area

We study the problem of determining the optimal dimension of a work-in-process storage area in a two-line production system with delays and breakdowns. We propose a stochastic model and prove theoretical results that allow us to implement an exact algorithm for the solution of the model. We optimally solve a real instance and carry out a sensitivity analysis to evaluate if the optimal solution is stable when the initial data are perturbed.