National policies and the sectoral pattern of economic growth

This article presents tests of whether the kinds of "national" policy variables used to explain cross-country variation in the growth of aggregate GDP per capita can also successfully explain per capita growth in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of developing countries. There are four main results of interest. First, relative to nonagriculture, convergence is much slower in agriculture and the burden of population growth is generally much higher. Second, while orthodox economic policies share positive associations with economic growth in the nonagricultural sectors of developing countries, such policies fail to robustly predict variation in agricultural growth. Third, size of government indicators often yield an "unexpected" positive association with agricultural growth. And finally, although there is some evidence that fewer price controls are associated with faster agricultural growth, these associations are statistically quite weak and quantitatively quite small.     

On the need for national land administration infrastructures

Many nations lack a coherent national approach to land administration. Instead, land information and processes are frequently disaggregated across states, provinces, cantons, counties, or municipalities. This is particularly the case in federated countries. The growing body of land administration theory often assumes or prescribes the need for national systems; however, the justification for this approach requires further explanation. Without justification, nations that maintain disaggregated systems lack the impetus to unlock the opportunities veiled within their disparate land administration systems. Moreover, a nation's ability to respond effectively to emerging national and global-scale issues such as climate-change is greatly impeded. This paper aims to explain the need for national land administration infrastructures. Qualitative case studies of the Australian context and the method of triangulation inform the justification. The research reveals most drivers can be classified into six overarching subsets: adherence to international standards by national governments, better federal or central governance, improved shared governance, scale of economies for lower levels of government, opportunities and savings for business, and social inclusion for citizens. Unfortunately, specific drivers are found to be complex and changeable, as political, scientific and environmental debates raise policy issues: there is no single solution. As an alternative, nations must seize on the specific drivers relevant to their context. They must employ them to transform disparate land administration systems into multi-purpose national land administration infrastructures that deliver benefits to all stakeholder groups.     

Impact assessment of land use policies: Introduction

This special issue is built around a series of impact assessments of land use policies and sustainable development in developing countries, carried out in the EU-funded project LUPIS (Sixth framework programme, Global Change and Ecosystems, Contract 36955). The project targeted at the development and testing of impact assessment tools of land-use-related policies in seven developing countries: Brazil, India, China, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali and Tunisia. This issue presents the current understanding of ex-ante assessment and includes contributions with comparative work across several countries, and case studies in individual countries, addressing important land-use related concerns.     

Estimating the range of economic impacts on farms of nutrient leaching reduction policies

Declining agricultural incomes, increasing concern over rural poverty and sporadic crises such as those of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Foot and Mouth Disease mean that the imposition of further costs on U.K. agriculture are likely to be politically and socially sensitive. Such additional costs are however on the agenda with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD; European Commission, 2000 ). The WFD aims to achieve “good ecological status” in EU water bodies reducing, inter alia, diffuse pollution from agriculture. In this study, we assess four possible WFD measures proposed to the U.K. Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs: reducing inorganic fertilizer application, conversion of arable land to ungrazed grassland, reducing livestock stocking rates, and reducing livestock dietary N and P intakes. For each measure, changes in farm gross margins (FGMs) are estimated using a dataset of over 2000 farms. In contrast to previous analyses, which have focussed upon mean responses on stylized farms, our approach allows the analysis of the range of impacts across a wide variety of real‐world farms and farm types. Findings reveal high variability in impacts. Cost‐effectiveness analysis indicates that, on average, cropping farms seem capable of reducing nutrient leaching in a more cost‐efficient way than livestock or dairy enterprises.     

浅谈税收优惠政策的运用

税收优惠政策是有效实施宏观和微观调控的重要税收杠杆。当前的税收优惠政策在总体上应调整为坚持产业优惠为主、区域优惠为辅的目标,区分税种实行多种形式优惠,并根据我国目前税收优惠的具体情况,完善立法,尽快使税收优惠走向法治化轨道。同时要加大对“地方土政策”清理力度,保证税收优惠政策公正、公平、公开。从而使国家一定时期的税收优惠政策能真正起到促进经济和社会迅速发展的积极调控作用。     

An economic assessment of the Common Market Organization for bananas in the European Union

The main objective of this paper is to provide some estimates of how the world banana market has been affected by the Common Market Organization (CMO) for bananas established in the European Union (EU) on 1 July 1993, and modified in April 1994. We quantify the effects of the new EU regulation on world and EU prices, on the structure of EU imports from Latin American countries, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and EU regional suppliers, on the pattern of consumption in the various EU member states, and on consumers' and producers' welfare using a static partial equilibrium model of the world banana market. Simulation results suggest that the two key variables in determining the effects of the CMO are the size of the tariff quota on dollar and non-traditional ACP bananas and the capacity of ACP countries to exhaust their ACP contingent share.     

Land use and economic effects of alternative biofuel policies in Brazil and the United States

Being the two largest ethanol producers in the world, biofuel policies in Brazil and the United States affect both their domestic markets and the global food and biofuel economy. In this article we develop a price endogenous mathematical programming model to simulate and analyze the impacts of biofuel mandates and trade distortions on land use, agricultural commodity and transportation fuel markets, and global environment. We find that an 80% increase in total biofuel production from its 103 billion liter baseline level to the mandated 183 billion liter level in 2022 can be achieved with less than 2% increase in total cropland use in both countries. In the United States, this would occur with cellulosic biofuels meeting nearly half of the biofuels consumed and produced largely on cropland pasture and corn ethanol meeting the rest of the mandate and resulting in a 2% increase in corn price. In Brazil, the expansion in sugarcane production would be achieved by reducing land under pasture and a marginal increase in intensification of livestock production. In the aggregate, biofuel policies increase economic surplus in both countries by 1% and redistribute the benefits from agricultural consumers to agricultural producers and the fuel sector. Finally, we also find that full implementation of the mandates in North America, China, and the European Union would reduce the global life‐cycle global greenhouse gas emissions by about 5%.     

论黄河经济的发展

以科学发展观指导黄河资源综合开发和利用;深化国有资产管理体制改革,通过国有资本的运营,突出水利特色;以资本为纽带,构建具有行业实力的现代企业集团,在重视社会效益、生态效益的前提下,搞好供水、水力发电项目的滚动开发,实现黄河综合治理与开发社会效益最大化与黄河经济做大做强经济效益最大化的双赢目标。     

Integrated regional impact assessment of agricultural trade and domestic environmental policies

It remains challenging to derive general findings and conclusions from either economic theory or empirical studies on the relationship between international trade and the regional environment. Consequently, we aim to analyse environmental effects of agricultural trade policies in the Austrian Marchfeld region. We apply an integrated modelling framework that accounts for heterogeneity in agricultural production and environmental outcomes. Scenario analysis is applied to assess regional impacts of different trade policy scenarios. Sensitivity analyses reveal the relative influence of model parameters on outputs. The results indicate that lower domestic tariffs have small beneficial effects on the regional environment. The regional environmental impacts highly depend on the changes in world crop prices through global trade agreements. A laissez-faire market scenario that includes the elimination of trade barriers and agri-environmental payments (AEPs) leads to substantial environmental deterioration. Hence, the alignment of AEPs with WTO trading rules remains an important issue in the trade and environment debate.     

Property-level assessment of change in forest clearing patterns: The need for tailoring policy in the Amazon

Once driven by large-scale clearings, Amazon deforestation now occurs mostly in small increments. Did this result from the emergence of a new group of agents or from a strategic adaptation in the behavior of those who led deforestation in the past? We address this question using georeferenced data on private rural properties and deforestation. We cross property-level and forest clearing data in an empirical setting designed to detect shifts toward clearing patches that were knowingly invisible to the monitoring system. We are therefore able to assess not only whether deforesters were responding strategically to stricter monitoring of deforestation, but also how this response differed across actor types. Results suggest that centralized policy efforts introduced starting in the mid-2000s inhibited medium- and large-scale deforestation, but had heterogeneous effects on small-scale deforestation. Although the relative participation of small deforestation polygons increased in both sample states, the relative participation of smallholders in total state deforestation increased in Pará, while remaining constant in Mato Grosso. We interpret these results as suggestive — albeit not causal — evidence that landholders strategically responded to the monitoring system by adapting their forest clearings practices to elude monitoring in both Mato Grosso and Pará. In the latter, however, the increase in smallholders’ share of annual deforestation suggests that their clearing practices were relatively less affected by what effectively contained deforestation in large properties. The apparent similarity in scale of deforestation across states conceals relevant baseline differences between the agents engaging in forest clearing in each locality. Tailoring policy to account for such differences could strengthen Brazilian conservation policy.     

论湿地生态经济系统优化

湿地与人类的经济活动构成湿地生态经济系统；通过对湿地生态经济系统的结构与功能的分析，针对我国湿地生态经济系统恶化的原因，提出了优化湿地生态经济系统的对策。     

Methods and tools for integrated assessment of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries

For stimulating sustainable development in developing countries, land use patterns and land use changes are considered critical, and therefore effective and efficient land use policies are needed. In this paper we present a methodological framework that has been developed in a joint European and developing countries project (LUPIS – Land Use Policies and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries), to assess the impact of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries. An illustrative application is presented for a case study in China, where water pollution due to agriculture in Taihu Basin is a major problem.     

风暴潮灾害经济损失评估指标体系研究

文章对风暴潮灾害经济损失评估从直接经济损失和间接经济损失两方面进行了界定,在综述国内外风暴潮灾害经济损失评估研究的基础上,遵循科学与整体性、全面性、可操作性、可比性原则,采用主客观综合分析法并结合解释结构模型方法,构建了风暴潮灾害经济损失评估指标体系,旨在为风暴潮灾害经济损失评估的具体实施和灾害补偿提供参考依据。     

海域征用中渔业补偿的制度经济学探讨

沿海工业化的进程中,征用海域非渔业使用的制度变迁成为一个新的事物,引致的渔业补偿和渔业稳定成为沿海社会一个热点问题。本文以制度经济学的视角,围绕海域征用中渔业补偿展开经济学探讨,用马克思主义的产权观确立渔业用海产权的历史渊源,分析了6种不同的海域转移制度和3条“失海”渔民的渔业补偿理想原则,并提出当前海域非渔业征用中可能的矛盾及其预防。     

A typology of graziers to inform a more targeted approach for developing natural resource management policies and agricultural extension programs

The use of landholder typologies to assist in the development of natural resource management (NRM) policies and agricultural extension programs has increased considerably in the past decade. In this paper we explore the potential of developing a typology of graziers to more effectively tailor policies and programs with the aim of improving land management outcomes. This is of particular importance since growing public concern about the environmental performance of the beef industry has led to increasing pressures on graziers to change their land management practices to decrease off-property impacts. To gain a better understanding of graziers’ land management practices and the factors that inform their decisions on how they manage their land we first developed a conceptual model of the relationship between grazier and grazing land where both can, ideally, thrive through conscious and timely land management decisions made and implemented by the grazier. A successful grazier land relationship is likely to be consistent with value systems and social and economic factors, although the particulars of any individual approach may vary spatially and temporally. These factors, in particular graziers’ values and motivations to follow a particular management strategy, guided the development of our typology of graziers. Australia's Bowen-Broken basin, which has been identified as a major contributor of sediment and nutrients that enter the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, served as a case study for this research. Three broad types of graziers emerged: (1) traditionalists, (2) diversifiers, and (3) innovators. The authors argue that by understanding graziers’ values and motivations underlying each of the grazier types, government agencies and NRM organisations can more effectively tailor their policy and extension programs towards specific types of graziers and can work with specific groups to achieve reductions in sediment and nutrient runoff from grazing properties.     

太原市市辖区经济发展综合实力评价研究

太原市作为山西省的省会城市,在政治,经济,文化等功能方面对周围各市的经济发展具有辐射作用。本文在统计资料的基础上,构建城市综合实力评价研究的指标体系,采用主成分分析法,使用SPSS19.0统计软件对山西省太原市中心城区市辖区的经济综合实力(小店区、迎泽区、杏花岭区、万柏林区、尖草坪区、晋源区)进行评价分析。     

On the economics of forests and climate change: Deriving optimal policies

First-best optimal forest sector carbon policy is examined. Using a forest and energy sector model with a carbon cycle module we show that the renewability and carbon neutrality arguments do not warrant emission free status of wood use. As a general optimality principle, the release of carbon is penalized by a tax and carbon capture is subsidized. However, under the biomass stock change carbon accounting convention, the land owners pay for the roundwood emissions and, to avoid double counting, the use of roundwood is treated as emission free. Yet, the carbon accounting convention followed does not affect the equilibrium outcome. The bioenergy from harvest residues is not emission free either. Furthermore, we show that an optimal policy subsidizes the production of wood products for their carbon sequestration. Correspondingly, carbon removals by biomass growth are subsidized and the harvest residue generation taxed. Numerical solution of the model shows that, although the use of wood is not emission free, it is optimal to increase the use of wood, possibly also in the energy sector. Before the wood use can be increased, the forest biomass will be increased. This carbon sink decreases the net emissions until the forest resources reach a new equilibrium.     

关于水资源管理经济手段的探讨

阐述2种主要的水资源管理经济手段——庇古手段、科斯手段及其分类,对各经济手段的适用性和可行性进行了详细的分析。在此基础上,结合目前我国市场化发展情况提出综合选择最佳的经济手段来优化水资源管理。     

An assessment of policies affecting Sustainable Soil Management in Europe and selected member states

This paper analyses soils-related policies in Europe and in selected member states and regions. Our approach breaks down policy packages at European, national and regional levels into strategic objectives, operational objectives, policy measures and expected impacts, and assesses the relationships between these elements and soil stakes. Four major policy packages, both at EU and national level (CAP-I, RDP, Environment, national initiatives) were analysed. A numerical scale was developed to quantify the level of “embeddedness” of soil stakes in these policy packages. We found that countries better embed soil stakes into their policies when they also put more efforts on environmental innovation. In turn, countries with a high embeddedness level, with high trust in European institutions and that make more efforts towards renewable energy, tend to propose a wider variety of management practices to farmers for dealing with soil stakes.