Estimating and communicating food system impacts: A case study in Montreal, Quebec

Modern food systems are characterized by a range of resource use, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts, resulting from choices made by various actors, including the public, who are “distanced” from these impacts, with important implications for sustainability. In order to make ecologically responsible food choices, the public will need information that is reliable, easily comprehensible, and that allows them to discriminate between these choices in terms of the range of impacts, and their trade-offs with factors such as market price.We illustrate, by means of a case study involving nine variations of two meals of similar nutritional energy content, some challenges and issues associated with estimating and integrating the diverse impacts of food systems, and explore the implications of our results for communicating these impacts in a manner that balances epistemic adequacy with heuristic usefulness in enabling ecologically responsible food choices.     

Examining the global environmental impact of regional consumption activities — Part 2: Review of input-output models for the assessment of environmental impacts embodied in trade

This paper offers a detailed review of recently described single- and multi-region input-output models used to assess environmental impacts of internationally traded goods and services. It is the second part of a two-part contribution. In Part 1 [Turner, K., Lenzen, M., Wiedmann, T. and Barrett, J. in press. Examining the Global Environmental Impact of Regional Consumption Activities — Part 1: A Technical Note on Combining Input-Output and Ecological Footprint Analysis; Ecological Economics.] we describe how to enumerate the resource and pollution content of inter-regional and inter-national trade flows with the aim to illustrate an ideal accounting and modelling framework for the estimation of Ecological Footprints.A large number of such environment-economic models have been described but only in the last few years models have emerged that use a more sophisticated multi-region, multi-sector input-output framework. This has been made possible through improvements in data availability and quality as well as computability. We identify six major models that employ multi-sector, multi-region input-output analysis in order to calculate environmental impacts embodied in international trade. Results from the reviewed studies demonstrate that it is important to explicitly consider the production recipe, land and energy use as well as emissions in a multi-region, multi-sector and multi-directional trade model with global coverage and detailed sector disaggregation. Only then reliable figures for indicators of impacts embodied in trade, such as the Ecological Footprint, can be derived.     

Economic impacts of the Natural Forest Protection Program in Yunnan Province, China： an input-output analysis

The paper assesses the economic impacts of the natural forest protection program （NFPP） on the economy of Yunnan Province, China.in terms of gross output, value added,employment, and household income. An inputoutput model is developed to estimate NFPP＇s economic impacts by means of backward linkages in the forestry sector and logging and haudage sector. It is found than the NFPP has positive impacts on gross output, value added and houschold income in the initial year, but has significantly negative impacts on the regional economy in the following years as the investment decreases.     

Examining the global environmental impact of regional consumption activities — Part 1: A technical note on combining input-output and ecological footprint analysis

In recent years there have been a number of attempts to develop a more comprehensive approach to the issue of measuring resource use and/or pollution generation embodied in trade flows, including contributions that combine input-output techniques and Ecological Footprint analysis. In this two-part paper we describe how to enumerate the resource and/or pollution content of inter-regional and inter-national trade flows (Part 1) and we present a literature review of recent methodological and empirical developments (Part 2). It is straightforward in principle to extend the basic input-output approach to capture international trade flows. However, in practice, problems of data availability and compatibility, and of computability of extended input-output matrices, mean that simplifying assumptions are generally applied, but with the implications of these assumptions often not made fully explicit. What appears to be absent from previous applications is an account of the analytical method by which Ecological Footprints should ideally be estimated in an international input-output accounting analysis. This allows an explicit analysis of the problems that prevent the application of the full method and identification of the most appropriate short-cut methods in a transparent way. The objective of this paper is to provide such an account.     

Rural credit and the time allocation of agricultural households: The case of PRONAF in Brazil

This paper evaluates the impact of Brazil's National Program to Strengthen Family Farming (PRONAF) on the time allocation of household members. We use data from the 2014 Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, and we apply propensity score methods to complex surveys recently recommended in the literature. We find that PRONAF helps to increase focus on agricultural activities, but it also stimulates female partners to engage in unpaid work. The results show significant effects of PRONAF on child labor and on the gender‐specific division of labor within households, although it does not have the usual adverse effects of rural credit programs on school attendance.     

Crime and economic growth: A case study of Manaus,Brazil

Brazil became the seventh largest economy in the world in 2012. In the same year, the country was responsible for 13% of all worldwide murders. Despite the economic advances, crime is increasing over time in the country. This study explores the impact of organized crime on local economies, focusing on the case of Manaus, Brazil, and the emergence of the criminal group Família do Norte (FDN). We employ a synthetic control method to analyze the economic effects of the FDN's presence in Manaus. The findings reveal a significant negative impact on the city's economic growth and prosperity, with Manaus experiencing a 2% per year lower GDP per capita compared to what it would have been without the FDN. Robustness checks confirme this result, showing how organized crime can disrupt the country's economic advances.     

美英公益企业发展的比较研究及其思考

本文从定义、历史背景、支撑环境三方面对美英公益企业的产生和发展进行了比较,指出由于路径依赖,美英公益企业演化的历史存在较大差异,即美国公益企业的发展主要受社会团体力量的驱动,而英国公益企业的发展主要受政府的推动。对中国公益企业的发展而言,采取政府主导和社会团体协助相结合的举措是比较可行的促进策略。     

The importance of social capital: Comparing the impacts of the 2004 Asian Tsunami on Sri Lanka, and Hurricane Katrina 2005 on New Orleans

This paper compares the experiences of the 2004 Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to highlight the importance of social capital in strengthening resilience against extreme events. Key issues and implications for policy and research are discussed.     

南京市紫金山国家森林公园风景林景观的 视觉质量评价及因子分析

以南京市紫金山国家森林公园风景林为研究对象, 对景观视觉质量展开评价,分析影响视觉质量的因子及核心成 分。采用主成分分析法,把影响因子转化成核心特征指数;结 合眼动分析图和特征指数分析影响风景林视觉质量的核心因 素。影响视觉质量的特征指数分别为：风景林近自然度、地域 文化特征、色彩丰富度、乔木易识别特征以及林内空间感。风 景林近自然度、地域文化特征以及色彩丰富度对视觉质量的影 响最为重要。以期能够对风景林的经营管理以及植物景观营建 有所帮助。     

Decentralization,social capital,and regional growth: The case of the Italian North-South divide

This paper aims to show how a region's constant level of social capital may have a very different impact on its economic growth depending on whether the central or the local level of government is responsible for regional policy.Our case study is the economic performance of Northern and Southern Italy in the post-World War II period, when a long phase of regional convergence came to a sudden halt in the early 1970s. We focus on the economic effects of the 1970s institutional reforms on government decentralization and wage bargaining. Our main hypothesis is that decentralization allocates the provision of public capital to institutions, the local ones, more exposed to a territory's social capital. Since social capital is lower in the Southern regions, decentralization made their developmental policies less effective from 1970 onwards, and regional inequality increased.We build an endogenous growth model augmented to include the interaction between social capital and public investment as well as the reform of the Italian labour market. We calibrate our model using data of the Italian regions for 1951–71. Our quantitative results indicate that decentralization triggered the influence of local social capital on growth and played a central role in halting the convergence path of the low-social-capital regions.     

Dynamics of social trust and human capital in the learning process: The case of the Japan garment cluster in the period 1968–2005

This paper examined the ways and the extent to which human capital and social trust are associated with the learning process of a manager in making operations decisions through experience. To this end, using a data set originally and purposively constructed by the author, I investigated the development and transformation of the garment industry cluster region of Kojima, Japan. The major findings through statistical estimations are as follows. (1) In the cluster development stage, the social trust of an enterprise and its manager's experiences in firm operations could be regarded as forming a complementary association. (2) In the stage following cluster development, however, a manager's human capital as accumulated through schooling and personal experience, instead of social trust, become complementary.     

The innovation impact of the EU Emission Trading System — Findings of company case studies in the German power sector

This paper provides a detailed analysis of how the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) as the core climate policy instrument of the European Union has impacted innovation. Towards this end, we investigate the impact of the EU ETS on research, development and demonstration (RD&D), adoption, and organizational change. In doing so, we pay particular attention to the relative influences of context factors (policy mix, market factors and public acceptance) and firm characteristics (value chain position, technology portfolio, size and vision). Empirically, our qualitative analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators, technology providers and project developers in the German power sector which were conducted in 2008/09. We find that the innovation impact of the EU ETS has remained limited so far because of the scheme's initial lack of stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors. Additionally, the impact varies significantly across technologies, firms, and innovation dimensions and is most pronounced for RD&D on carbon capture technologies and organizational changes. Our analysis suggests that the EU ETS on its own may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate innovation activities at a level which ensures political long-term targets can be achieved.     

The Myth of Market Neutrality: A Comparative Study of the European Central Bank’s and the Swiss National Bank’s Corporate Security Purchases

ABSTRACT

Monetary policy operations in corporate security markets confront central banks with choices that are traditionally perceived to be the prerogative of governments. This article investigates how central bankers legitimise corporate security purchases through a comparative study of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). As we show, central bankers downplay the novelty of corporate security purchases by relying on familiar pre-crisis justifications of Central Bank Independence. Citing an ideal of ‘market neutrality’, central banks present corporate security purchases as pursuing a narrow objective of price stability and obfuscate their distributive consequences. In this way, central bankers depoliticise corporate security purchases: they reduce the potential for choice, collective agency, and deliberation concerning both the pursuit of corporate security purchases and the choices made in implementing these policies. We also describe the undesirable democratic, social and environmental dimensions of these practices, which we propose to address through enhanced democratic accountability.     

A study on the tourism practitioners perception of tourism impact a case study of Hainan, China

This study examines the urban population of tourism practitioners'perceptions of economic,environmental,and social impacts on cultural,convention,and sport tourism may have in Haikou and Sanya,Hainan,China the study uses a modified Urban Tourism Impact (UTI) to examine economic,environmental and social perceived impacts.Analysis of the data includes testing three models of structural relationships between tourism impacts and support for development in each of the tourism market sub-divisions through a confirmatory factor analysis.The results of this study show that the positive economic impacts consistently exert influence on predicting support for tourism development in all three models.However,the social impacts play a greater explanatory role with all three market segment,the negative environmental impacts play a role in determining support for .sport tourism only.Dif ferences have been found with those with a higher education level in predictmg support for cultural tourism,but not Convention or sport tourism.     

Effects of the October 2013 U.S. Federal government shutdown on National Park gateway communities: the case of Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor,Maine

The U.S. Federal Government experienced a shutdown that halted much of its spending and services over 16 days in October 2013. Federal government officials noted a wide variety of impacts that the shutdown had on economic activity, including a reduction in the admission fees collected by the National Park Service and losses of visitor spending in ‘gateway communities’ located near national parks and monuments. This article examines the effects of the October 2013 federal government shutdown on Acadia National Park’s gateway community of Bar Harbor, Maine. Regression results show that the 16-day shutdown is associated with a 76% reduction in Acadia visitation in October 2013 and a 13% reduction in tourism-related sales. This suggests that an estimated 17% of the potential visitors impacted by the Acadia closure cancelled their trips to Bar Harbor. This change in visitor behaviour is a reasonably large response to a short-term event such as the government shutdown.     

R&D decision support by parallel assessment of economic, ecological and social impact — Adipic acid from renewable resources versus adipic acid from crude oil

The concept of eco-efficiency has largely been applied along these years. This study proposes the earlier application of this concept, namely the R&D stage of a product. Together with the economic and ecological assessment, the social impacts were analysed in the production of adipic acid from renewable resources. Conventional adipic acid based on crude oil served as a benchmark. The work was carried out within the frame of the EU funded project BIOFOAM. The ecological aspects were addressed in the Life Cycle Perspective by performing a Life Cycle Assessment. The economic impacts were assessed by the application of the Life Cycle Costing under a ‘total production cost’ perspective. In this case, the addressee is interested in several steps of the value chain, but only of the steps that are related to the consortium as a single player in the value chain. The Life Cycle Working Environment method was used to assess the social impacts. Data sources were based on the project consortium, literature and statistics. Despite of the fact that the conventional routes still outperform the new bio-source based adipic acid, the application of this methodology has shown as successful way of identifying problem fields and paving further research.     

Hybrid input-output analysis of wastewater treatment and environmental impacts: A case study for the Tokyo Metropolis

This paper proposes a new hybrid input-output model designed to analyze both the generation and treatment of wastewater. This model, named wastewater treatment input-output model (WWIO), can be regarded as an extension of the waste input-output model (WIO) (Nakamura, S. and Kondo, Y., 2002. Input-output analysis of waste management. Journal of Industry Ecology, 6(1): 39-63.). As an application, I compiled the Tokyo Metropolitan WWIO table for 2000, which comprises 482 economic sectors, 11 wastewater treatment sectors, 12 types of wastewater-related waste and 6 types of environmental load. The model was applied to different scenarios to compare alternative wastewater treatment systems. The results indicate that replacing the simple treatment with the high-class treatment improves the quality of treated water while increasing CO₂-equivalent emissions. Meanwhile, when the dewatered sludge is incinerated instead of landfilling, both CO₂-equivalent emissions and landfill volume decrease.     

Economic policy,the new economy and the social rate of return to R&D in UK manufacturing

This article focuses on the question of whether public policy changes and/or the new economy have influenced the social returns to R&D expenditure in UK manufacturing over the three decades up to the end of the millennium. The basic methodology is reasonably straightforward, to estimate a production function in which, in addition to labour and fixed capital, R&D appears separately in a form that directly enables estimates of the social return to investment in knowledge and how it has changed over time. The results suggest that neither changes in government R&D policy nor the new economy have raised social returns to R&D.     

Sharing and evaluation of a new community co-management model for protecting Crested Ibis: a case study of Crested Ibis National Nature Reserve, China

The Crested Ibis（Nipponia Nippon） is endemic to Qinling Mountains of China and was once abundant over vast areas of north-east of Asia habitat.During the 20th century,however,the population declined greatly in numbers.Habitat quality used to be the main threat to this species but recent actions by the government and wildlife protection organizations have brought this under control.With the establishment of Crested Ibis Nature Reserve in China,conflicts between socio-economic development and Crested Ibis conservation have become more acute.How do we deal with the relation between Crested Ibis conservation and community development？ In this study,the Crested Ibis Nature Reserve co-management model namely ＂companies ＋ farmers ＋ Nature Reserve＂ model is proposed and evaluated with demonstration investigation methods,including continuous six-year fixed-site socio-economic development data of surrounding community,company sales revenue data and monitored data of Crested Ibis Nature Reserve.The results show that farmers＇ income and conservation awareness increased greatly from 2003 to 2008; company sales revenue has increased by about 20% annually in the recent years; management level has noticeably improved in Nature Reserve,the scope of Crested Ibis habitat has expanded 50 hm2; chemical composition of habitat reduced year after year; and the number of Crested Ibis had been growing annually.At the end,the success of the model is evaluated,and problems in implementation of the model are discussed from the following aspects：management system,co-management concept,economic base of partners,marketing mechanism,technical capacity and so on.     

厦门电子业外商投资面面观

发展经济学理论认为,外国投资对发展中国家经济的发展具有扩展性的影响,它给发展中国家带来的不仅仅是资金,而且还包括管理技术、现代技术、充分就业和进入世界市场的能力。跨国公司的“一揽子”投资,是发展中国家经济快速发展的不可或缺的因素之一。本文试图以厦门特区电子产业外商投资为案例,对跨国公司“一揽子”投资的成效进行探讨。 一、厦门特区外商电子产业直接投资概况 自１９８０年厦门经济特区成立之后,特区政府即把引进外资作为推动其经济增长的主要动力。截至２０００年底,厦门市累计批准外商投资企业４９９１项,投资总…