Impacts of climate change on food utilization in Nepal

Understanding how long-term climate patterns affect food security outcomes is crucial for crafting food policy in developing countries. In the case of Nepal, existing studies have focused overwhelmingly on food production and supply, but relatively little attention has been paid to understanding how extreme climate trends affect food utilization. This study fills that gap in the literature by examining the effects of temperature and rainfall trends from 1976 to 2005 on individual daily caloric intake and food diversity in Nepal. We use the copula method to jointly estimate the two potentially correlated food utilization outcomes. We find that climate risk negatively affects both outcomes. One percent increase (0.01 points) in climate risk index (index ranges from 0 to 1) leads to a decrease in weighted caloric intake by 8.1 calories (equivalent to 1.1% of average weighted caloric intake of 726 calories) and food diversity by 0.114 points (a reduction of 0.43% reduction of the mean score). We also find that factors such as ecological belts and social capital are strongly correlated with food security. Based on our findings, we recommend policies that attract private and public investments towards improving farmers' access to financial institutions, transportation networks, and risk-mitigation products and programs.     

The Political Economy of Addressing the Climate Crisis in the Earth System: Undermining Perverse Resilience

The Earth system is a complex adaptive system, characterised by non-linear change and with significant capacity for surprise. In times of systemic crisis, such as dangerous anthropogenic climate change, perverse resilience (for example the structural power of fossil fuel interests in the global economy) can threaten overall Earth system stability. Critical political economic analysis recognises climate change as a threat with significant political economic characteristics and implications. However, key dimensions of climate change as a globally coherent phenomenon, including the important implications of Earth system dynamism and non-linear change, can remain unrecognised, mischaracterised or underestimated. In contrast, resilience approaches describe social-ecological systems but neglect the significance of norms and power relations in human societies. This article builds theory by linking key concepts – hegemony and resilience – from neo-Gramscian political economic analysis and resilience approaches to social-ecological systems. Our objective is to generate a new conceptual framework to improve understanding of the role of politics in social-ecological systems. We use climate change and its mitigation to demonstrate the new framework's potential.     

Nepal's civil war and the changing sources of income: The role of sectoral shifts and remittances in mitigation and recovery

Given the increased worldwide unrest and a large number of displaced individuals, understanding the economic impacts of civil war has been the subject of growing attention by academics and policymakers. The 10‐year civil war in Nepal from 1996 to 2006 provides an opportunity to assess the impact of civil unrest on income sources and remittance patterns. In this study, we examine the changes in household income generating processes over the period of the Nepali civilwar. Using survey data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) in 1995/1996 and 2010/2011, we observe household income and remittance patterns before and after the civil war. Specifically, we employ a difference‐in‐difference estimator that focuses on the heterogeneity in civil unrest within Nepal to examine how the civil war impacted the sources of household income. Within the context of a slower growth rate of income after the revolution for those in the hardest hit districts, we find that there was also a change in the composition of income sources. In particular, our results suggest that there was a shift from a reliance on wages in the nonagricultural sector to wages in the agricultural sector; that there was a shift from external remittances to internal remittances; and finally that home production—the market value of items produced and consumed within the household—may be taking the place of income in regions hit by unrest. “People living in zones of war are maimed, killed, and see their property destroyed. They may be displaced or prevented from attending school or earning a living. To the extent that these costs are borne unequally across groups, the conflict could intensify economic inequality as well as poverty. The destruction (and deferred accumulation) of both human and physical capital also hinder macroeconomic performance, combining with any effects of war on institutions and technology to impact national income growth. Understanding the economic legacies of conflict is important to the design of post‐conflict recovery” (Blattman & Miguel, 2010).     

利益协调论:对独立董事制度的一种新理论解说

依据企业契约理论,以利益相关者通过提供要素使用权合作投资组成企业这一合约过程中发生的利益冲突与协调为主线,提出了"利益协调论",对独立董事的本原性质和治理效应弱化的根本原因进行了重新解读,并基于"利益协调论"的基本逻辑,从独立董事的选拔、功能定位、职责细化、激励约束等方面剖析了现有制度安排缺陷,并在此基础上提出一个逻辑一贯的治理分析框架,以期真正发挥独立董事治理硬约束的作用.     

雾霾治理、地方政府竞争与全要素生产率

在将城市面板数据与中国工业企业面板数据进行匹配的基础上,本文就地方政府竞争下环境治理策略互动形式进行了检验,然后构建空间自滞后模型并运用两阶段最小二乘法探讨了雾霾治理对全要素生产率的本地影响及其空间溢出影响,进一步从资源配置效应、创新补偿效应和污染避难所效应三方面考察了雾霾治理的传导机制。结果表明,随着环保政绩考核的加入,地理邻近城市环境治理策略逐渐从“逐底竞争”转变为“模仿”形式,即邻近城市加强或放松治理,该城市也加强或放松治理强度,相对竞优模仿形式下雾霾治理更有助于促进本地、邻地全要素生产率的提高,且不同区域、行业和所有制企业存在差异。进一步探究原因,发现加强雾霾治理产生的资源配置效应和创新补偿效应有利于促进城市间全要素生产率提高,而雾霾治理产生的污染避难所效应不利于城市间全要素生产率提高。由此,本文提出完善雾霾联防联控机制、创新绿色经济发展方式,实现环境保护和经济发展良性互动的建议。     

Study on Medium- and Long-Term Fiscal Policies to Cope with Climate Change under the “Dual Carbon” Goals

Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality constitute an extensive, profound and systemic economic and social change. It is worthwhile to explore how fiscal policy, as a key institutional arrangement in the public policy system to cope with climate change, can play a fundamental and pillar role. Based on literatures, theories and empirical materials, this paper systematically explores the relationship between climate change and public finance. The fiscal impact of climate change will eventually be reflected in fiscal behavior, fiscal costs and fiscal relations, and the fiscal system has the adaptability of an “automatic stabilizer” and the proactiveness to enable the Discretionary Approaches function when facing climate change impacts. This implies such a governance logic of fiscal policy that is systematic, forward-looking and flexible in addressing climate change. In the future, it is necessary to further incorporate climate change or related environmental factors into the fiscal policy framework, target the two key aspects of mitigation and adaptation, and carry out a holistic, systematic and forward-looking reform of the existing fiscal expenditure policy, fiscal revenue policy, fiscal investment and financing policy, government budget system, government procurement policy and ecological compensation policy. While highlighting the “governance” function of fiscal policy in addressing climate change, Chinese government needs to strengthen the coordination and collaboration between fiscal policy tools and other public policies, and magnify the governance effectiveness of fiscal policy in the process of addressing climate change. This paper helps understand the positioning, role and influence of fiscal policy in the process of addressing climate change, provides a basis for better playing the fundamental and underpinning role of the modern fiscal system in the governance of ecological civilization, and presents an analytical framework for building a theoretical system of ecological fiscal governance.     

治理环境、企业寻租与交易成本-基于中国上市公司非生产性支出的经验证据

基于交易成本理论,本文分析了治理环境如何影响企业寻租动机并进而影响企业交易成本——非生产性支出。本文借鉴并改进了Andersonetal.(2006)模型,探讨了非生产性支出的度量,并实证检验了影响非生产性支出的制度因素。研究表明,企业所处地区治理环境对交易成本有显著影响,减少政府干预、改善政府服务、加强法律保护均有利于减少企业非生产性支出。本文研究发现不仅具有理论上的意义,也为我国市场化改革提供了进一步的实证支持。     

Climate Insecurity in (Post)Conflict Areas: The Biopolitics of United Nations Vulnerability Assessments

Within the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have all highlighted climate risks as relevant to their work in areas affected by conflict, endorsing human security approaches as valid for mapping the relationships between climate stresses and conflict-related harm. While this policy interest has limited operational presence, I discuss salient assessments of climate vulnerability in (post)conflict areas, arguing that these agencies have applied a natural disaster rather than conflict regulation inflection of humanitarian reason. The former entails a biopolitical paradigm of disaster risk reduction, prescribing technical-managerial measures to build the resilience of vulnerable populations. This framing supports a depoliticised stance reflecting UN norms of neutrality and impartiality. I claim that this position nevertheless disregards its own geopolitical conditions and effects, which dilute the scope for international humanitarian law to assign responsibility for conflict-related harm.     

Redistribution of Economic Resources due to Conflict: The Maoist Uprising in Nepal

Nepal has seen a significant reduction in poverty over the period 1995–2010 which encompasses the decade-long Maoist-led civil war. So was the post-conflict provision of economic resources to districts related to their involvement in promoting the Maoist cause? We tackle this question combining theory and empirics. Our model predicts that poorer districts are more likely to support the Maoists and in return they get promised economic gains conditional on the Maoists prevailing post-conflict. Combining data on conflict with consumption expenditure data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey and data on foreign aid, we test these predictions. Our panel data estimates and our cross-sectional analysis consistently find strong support for our hypotheses. These are confirmed by the IV analysis that we perform at the panel level.     

Spatial–Horizontal Inequality and the Maoist Insurgency in Nepal

The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is one of the highest intensity internal conflicts in recent times. Investigation into the causes of the conflict would suggest that grievance rather than greed is the main motivating force. The concept of horizontal or intergroup inequality, with both an ethnic and caste dimension, is highly relevant in explaining the Nepalese civil war. There is also a spatial aspect to the conflict, which is most intense in the most disadvantaged areas in terms of human development indicators and land holdings. Using the intensity of conflict (fatalities) as the dependent variable and HDI indicators and landlessness as explanatory variables, the authors find that the intensity of conflict across the districts of Nepal is significantly explained by the degree of inequalities.     

A general equilibrium assessment of climate change–induced loss of agricultural productivity in Nepal

The impact of climate change on agriculture has been one of the most discussed topics in the literature on climate change. Multi-regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have frequently been used to examine the impact of climate change on agriculture. However, these studies do not focus on country-specific issues related to the link between climate change and agriculture. This paper aims to address this gap by investigating the economy-wide impacts of climate change on Nepalese agriculture. Nepal makes an interesting case study as it has one of the most vulnerable agricultural economies in South Asia. This paper develops a comparative static multi-household CGE model to trace the direct and indirect impacts of climate change in Nepal. The results suggest that climate change has a significant negative impact on the overall Nepalese economy due to the induced loss of agricultural productivity. The results further reveal that rural households in Nepal, whose livelihoods primarily depend on subsistence farming, will face additional climate change–induced stresses due to already overstrained poverty and a weak social welfare system. The results indicate an urgent need to mainstream adaptation strategies to lessen the negative impacts of any climate change–induced loss of agricultural productivity in Nepal.     

基于综合生态安全格局的山地景观韧性 体系构建研究——以浙江莫干山为例

快速的城镇化和气候变化给山地空间带来了多重生 态扰动。由于空间的特殊性,山地环境表现出较高的敏感性和 脆弱性。引入韧性规划理念以提升山地环境应对各类扰动的能 力,并从综合生态安全格局的垂直叠加和系统性特征中得到启 发和支撑,提出多维度协调下的山地景观韧性体系构建策略。 基于综合生态安全格局和韧性理念的关键属性搭建耦合框架, 并总结出具体的实现路径。最后以莫干山为例,基于多源数据 识别出融合综合水生态、生物多样性保护、地质灾害防护、乡 土文化景观的综合生态安全格局,并以此支撑莫干山景观韧性 体系构建,以期为山地景观规划和韧性理念提供新的研究视角 与途径。     

Environmental rationalities and the development state in East Asia: Prospects for a sustainability transition

This paper reviews what is known about recent trends in environmental governance among the newly industrializing countries of East Asia and the implications of these developments for a sustainability transition within the region. The conceptual starting point for the review is research that examines sustainability transitions within the framework of a multi-level perspective on system innovation. One of the challenges presented by this framework is that of understanding how existing political economies and governance structures promote stability or change in socio-technical regimes. By socio-technical regimes we mean the predominant organizational, social and technological configurations through which societal needs are constituted and met. In the case of the rapidly industrializing and urbanizing economies of East Asia, the trajectory of socio-technical regimes will have profound consequences for local, regional and global environments. Our review of trends in environmental governance as they relate to socio-technical regimes within the region traces a pattern of initial efforts to strengthen environmental regulatory regimes very much along the lines of the policy models of OECD economies. The degree to which these initial efforts have taken root varies from country to country in the region. What is beginning to emerge in several countries within the region, however, are a variety of policy and institutional innovations that hold promise for opening up spaces for change in socio-technical regimes, and for creating opportunities for new pathways of industrialization and urbanization to take hold that are less pollution, materials and energy-intensive.     

中国ICT行业创新网络弹性——基于专利数据的实证研究

基于复杂网络弹性的视角,运用专利数据分析了中国ICT行业创新网络的弹性。结论如下:整体来看,中国ICT行业的创新网络具有无标度网络结构特征,少数网络主体间存在技术知识的非对称性依赖,局部网络锁定效应降低了创新网络弹性,网络关系瓦解导致创新网络弹性下降;随着行业创新主体的不断增加,创新网络的均衡性和异质性增强,创新网络弹性整体呈上升趋势,中国ICT行业的创新网络抵抗外部不确定性因素冲击的适应性增强。     

From Receding to Reseeding: Industrial Policy,Governance Strategies and Neoliberal Resilience in Post-crisis Britain

ABSTRACT

Industrial policy has been on the agenda of British policy elites since the 2008 financial crisis, particularly since Theresa May became Prime Minister in 2016. This has been seen as a challenge to pre-crisis norms of economic governance associated with neoliberalism. This article explores key aspects of industrial policy development in post-crisis Britain – new forms of vertical support for industry, local government reform, and the public financing of private sector R&D – in order to sketch a new understanding of political and ideological change. It focuses on the institutional mechanisms through which industrial strategy will ostensibly be implemented, including subnational and private spheres of governance. The article argues that recent industrial policy developments do not represent the receding of neoliberalism, but rather have provided opportunities for the reseeding of neoliberal norms in British economic statecraft. The strategy has reinforced forms of state machinery through which pre-crisis elite practice can be maintained and legitimated. By demonstrating that the apparent revival of state intervention in the wake of capitalist crises must not be assumed automatically to challenge pre-crisis economic orders, and highlighting the crucial role of exigent political circumstances, the article makes an important contribution to the literature on neoliberal resilience.     

An integrated analysis of the effects of local water institutions on irrigated agriculture outcomes in the arid western United States

Irrigation water rights and their governance structures constitute the foundation of local water institutions and profoundly influence water resource allocations, irrigated agricultural productivity and other consumptive water uses in the arid climate zones. This article explores the regional structures of irrigation water rights and water governance and empirically analyses the priority effects of water rights on irrigated agriculture at the micro level in Idaho, an arid and semiarid state in the western United States. We integrate a unique data set of water rights and water supplies with agricultural features and environmental characteristics into our empirical analysis. Results indicate that seniority in water resources allocation has significant, positive effects on both the average crop revenue and crop water use efficiency. Local water rights structures differ significantly in seniority and water sources from region to region. In response to the heterogeneity in local water rights structures, the aforementioned effect of allocative priority of water rights on average crop revenue per hectare and crop water productivity varies significantly, reaching up to an 87% difference, when measured across regions. In addition, the priority effects of water rights are nonlinear, which reflects the influence of historical patterns of water rights establishment on water institutions to date.     

The role of peer imitation in agricultural index insurance adoption: Findings from lab-in-the-field experiments in Kyrgyzstan

Frequent climate shocks require farmers in developing countries to increase their resilience. Although index insurance is often discussed as a promising climate adaptation strategy, take-up rates are still low. This study primarily explores the role of peer behavior as peer imitation in the demand for three marketable and unsubsidized crop index insurance options. Furthermore, the influence of trust and understanding is investigated. We collected data in lab-in-the-field experiments among farmers in Kyrgyzstan, where index insurance is planned for imminent implementation. Applying ordered logit estimations, our results show significant and strong peer imitation effects. Imitation attitudes decrease with own insurance experience and received insurance payouts, but intensify with peer size, insurance trust and practical insurance understanding. While trust robustly increases index insurance adoption, understanding effects only gain significance in the dynamic perspective. These findings underline the importance of community-based extension treatments and trust toward the uptake of innovative agricultural technologies in the first steps of dissemination.     

Operationalising a resilience approach to adapting an urban delta to uncertain climate changes

Climate change may pose considerable challenges to coastal cities, particularly in low-lying urban deltas. Impacts are, however, associated with substantial uncertainties. This paper studies an uncertainty-robust adaptation strategy: strengthening the resilience of the impacted system. This approach is operationalised for the city of Rotterdam, using literature study, interviews, and a workshop. Potential impacts have been explored using national climate statistics and scenarios and a set of ‘wildcards’ (imaginable surprises). Sea level rise, particularly in combination with storm surge, and enduring heat and drought are the most relevant potential stresses in the area. These can lead to damage, loss of image, and societal disruption. Unclear responsibilities enhance disruption. ‘Resilience principles’ made the concept of resilience sufficiently operational for local actors to explore policy options. Useful principles for urban resilience include: homeostasis, omnivory, high flux, flatness, buffering, redundancy, foresight and preparedness/planning, compartmentalisation, and flexible planning/design. A resilience approach makes the system less prone to disturbances, enables quick and flexible responses, and is better capable of dealing with surprises than traditional predictive approaches. Local actors frame resilience as a flexible approach to adaptation that would be more suitable and tailored to local situations than rigid top-down regulations. In addition to a change in policy, it would require a more pro-active mentality among the population.     

Positivist Climate Conflict Research: A Critique

In recent years a large body of work has emerged that uses a positivist epistemology and quantitative methods to assess the likely conflict impacts of global climate change. This article advances a critique of this positivist climate conflict research programme, identifying within it three serial shortcomings. It contends, first, that the correlations identified by this research are specious, since they always rest upon coding and causal assumptions which range from the arbitrary to the untenable. It argues, second, that even if the correlations identified within this research were significant and meaningful, they would still not constitute a sound basis for making predictions about the conflict impacts of climate change. And it submits, third, that this research programme reflects and reproduces an ensemble of Northern stereotypes, ideologies and policy agendas. A departure from positivist method is required, the article contends, if we are to get close to thinking through the wide-ranging political and conflict implications of the human transformation of the global climate.