Measuring benefits from spatially-explicit surface water quality improvements: The roles of distance,scope, scale,and size

Programs to improve water quality do not improve all water bodies equally. Evaluation of the benefits of such programs must account for where improvements occur and the relative magnitude of improvements that occur in different places. This study uses a choice experiment survey to explore how the value to a household of a surface water quality improvement varies as a function of (i) the distance between the household and the affected streams and rivers, (ii) the degree to which the quality of the water has been improved, (iii) how many stream and river miles have been improved, and (iv) the sizes of the affected streams and rivers. Results show evidence that value declines with distance in an approximately linear way, weak evidence that large rivers are worth more than small rivers, and no evidence that willingness-to-pay is nonlinear in either the degree of water quality improvement or the number of stream miles improved. These results indicate that it may be defensible in applied work to value small, spatially-explicit water quality improvement projects independently and then sum over projects.     

The Impact of Political Competition on Economic Growth: Evidence from Municipalities in South Africa

This paper examines the impact of political competition on economic growth. In this paper, I show that internal political dynamics, distinct from the type of political system, can having different effects on growth. Using results from the 1994 and 1999 elections in South Africa, I show that municipalities with higher levels of political competition have shown lower levels of economic growth. I use individual level surveys to show that this political competition is associated with political paralysis, dissatisfaction with the current democracy and government and lower optimism about the future.     

New perspectives on East Asian leadership in the age of globalization: local grounding and historical comparisons in the Asia Pacific region

ABSTRACT

Many management and leadership studies have traditionally been dominated by Western theories, perspectives and cases. Non-Western leadership requires additional caveats in arriving at generalizations. The theoretical trap of conceiving Asian corporations either as irrelevant concerning leadership effectiveness or as maintaining only culturally determined leadership derives from the lack of historical understanding of Asian cases. Our collection used both historical and contemporary cases of Japan, South Korea and China to show that these Asian economies have tried to some extent balance their traditional norms and values of leadership with those from the West. A key to understanding Asia is that all three countries have historically pursued leadership mandates in running both public and private corporations, although ‘corrupt’ leadership practices were also rampant during different historical periods. Further studies of leadership in non-Western cases are necessary to devise methodological and theoretical alternatives to Western-centric perspectives. In our collection, we analysed how a dynamic and evolutionary view of leadership fared in its attempt to clarify some of the conundrums surrounding East Asian leadership. From our results, it is indicated that historical and comparative methods must accompany any analysis of leadership.     

就业结构调整对水库移民土地流转的影响研究*——以南水北调中线工程移民为例

[目的]为促进水库移民的生计恢复及转型,探寻就业结构和土地流转间的交互机制,分析两者间耦合作用对当前移民安置模式及政策的影响。[方法]文章从移民就业结构变迁出发,通过超边际理论构建了安置区移民土地的流转机制模型,推演了从业决策对土地流转行为的影响路径,并运用南水北调农业安置移民数据进行实证检验。[结果]大面积转出土地是移民搬迁后土地处置的主要行为,移民中土地转入户有所增加,但土地集中度却有所减少。移民非农就业较搬迁前有明显上升,并有向当地兼业转移的趋势,但与土地流转间并不互为因果,农村社保还难以弱化其对土地养老的依赖。劳动力数量、非农就业时间、非农收入占比、土地政策等对移民土地流转行为和规模均有显著影响,而外出就业前景和地租水平在促进土地流转行为的同时,却不一定能增加土地流转面积。[结论]移民外迁中可以采用无土安置代替农业安置,推动移民土地流转的关键在于技能培训、政策保障和地租补贴,简单的就业推荐和土地权属划分的作用有限。而对于移民中的农业大户,则需在满足土地转入面积的基础上,保障其在安置区的各项土地权益。     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty in South Africa

This paper develops a new index of economic uncertainty for South Africa for the period 1990–2014. The index is constructed from three sources: (1 ) Disagreement among professional forecasters, (2 ) a count of international and local newspaper articles discussing economic uncertainty in South Africa and (3 ) mentions of uncertainty in the quarterly economic review of the South African Reserve Bank. The index shows high levels of uncertainty around the period of democratic transition in 1992–1994, the large depreciation of the currency in 2001 and the financial crisis of 2008. The uncertainty index is a leading indicator of a recession. An unanticipated increase in the index is associated with a fall in GDP, investment, industrial production and private sector employment. Contrary to evidence for the U.S.A and the U.K., uncertainty shocks are inflationary. These results are robust to controlling for global uncertainty shocks, consumer confidence and financial shocks.     

Leveraging agriculture for nutrition in South Asia: What do we know,and what have we learned?

Despite significant improvements over recent decades, rates of undernutrition remain high in South Asia, with adverse impacts on morbidity and mortality. Overweight/obesity, among children and adults, is now an additional and major public health concern. While agriculture has the potential to improve nutrition through several pathways, this potential is currently not being realised in the region. The Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) research consortium (2012–2018) set out to improve understanding about how agriculture and related food policies and programs in South Asia (specifically in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan) can be better conceptualised and implemented in order to enhance impacts on nutrition outcomes, especially those of young children and adolescent girls. This paper provides a snapshot of the agriculture-nutrition nexus in the region, outlines the pathways through which agriculture can influence nutrition outcomes, elaborates on the objectives of the LANSA research consortium within this context, and highlights the core findings of the six papers that form the body of this Special Issue. The paper ends with five key lessons that have emerged from this research, during this decade.     

Race and the Production of Extreme Land Abandonment in the American Rust Belt

Extreme land abandonment is one of the most visible expressions of urban decline. Conventional theory emphasizes housing lifecycle processes, municipal fiscal challenges and deindustrialization to explain its prevalence. Empirically however, these factors are not strongly associated with the most extreme instances of land abandonment in the American Rust Belt. Race, by contrast, is strongly associated with these patterns, yet there is little mention of it in conventional theory. This article draws on group threat theory to explain how the construction of Blackness as a threat to white property, power and political influence, has propelled the production of extreme land abandonment. The constructed threat has translated into a sustained suppression of demand and capital for overwhelmingly black neighborhoods. These forces operate both independently and as an accelerant for other abandonment drivers.     

Principles of innovation to build nutrition-sensitive food systems in South Asia

Innovations within global food systems have contributed to the predicament known as the triple burden of malnutrition – the co-existence of hunger and micronutrient deficiency with the diseases of overnutrition, such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. We use the case of the triple burden in South Asia to demonstrate analytically that innovation is a double-edged sword, with positive and negative potential, rather than a simple good. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals that target food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture (e.g. SDGs 2, 3 and 12), the countries of South Asia need more innovation, but, first, they would also benefit from some intelligent reflection about what innovation means, the directions it should take, and its risks and downsides alongside its benefits. In the present juncture, South Asian countries have an opportunity to learn from the experiences of other developing nations, and choose from alternative options to steer their own course. In this paper, we discuss how innovation has contributed to the present situation and ask how alternative kinds of innovation may enable South Asian countries to escape from the triple burden. We describe a conceptual framework that may be useful for thinking about how innovation pathways can be created and directed towards the goal of improving nutritional outcomes in South Asia. The framework draws attention to the direction of socio-technical change, the distribution of technologies and their risks and benefits, and the diversity of possible innovation pathways (STEPS Centre, 2010). We illustrate these points using examples of innovations in the areas of agricultural production, value chain interventions, and policy and institutional reforms.     

Women’s agricultural work and nutrition in South Asia: From pathways to a cross-disciplinary,grounded analytical framework

In this systematic review, we aim to examine the impact of women’s work in agriculture on maternal and child nutrition in South Asia. Building on previous reviews supported under the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) consortium, and recent published literature, we include findings from new LANSA research. While mapping literature onto the gender-nutrition pathways linking agriculture to nutrition (Kadiyala et al., 2014), we also point to conceptual and methodological directions for further exploration emerging from our work. Key amongst these are a focus on seasonality, poverty, and gender relations, moving beyond both an exclusive focus on women as a unified and homogenous group, and agriculture as an unchanging and common set of activities and production processes. Our analysis suggests the need for a more contextualised approach, and for a richer cross-disciplinary framework for effectively addressing the ways in which women’s work mediates agriculture’s role in improving child and maternal nutrition in South Asia.     

Determinants of total efficiency in water utilities in Mexico

By using panel data analysis across 368 water utilities in Mexico over the period 2010–2014, we find that small firms are more efficient than medium and large providers and that increasing production is associated with less efficiency. Billing, income collection and profitability are relevant factors to improve efficiency. Medium and large firms require to measure consumption by service with meters in order to increase efficiency, while small firms do not require it.