Space matters: the importance of amenity in planning metropolitan growth

Most Australian capital cities require many 100,000s of additional dwellings to accommodate demographic change and population pressures in the next two or three decades. Urban growth will come in the form of infill, consolidation and urban expansion. Plans to redevelop environmental amenities such as parks and open green spaces are regularly being put forward to local councils and State governments. Maintaining parks and reserves represents one of the largest costs to local councils. To aid in the evaluation of some of the different propositions, we report the results of a spatial hedonic pricing model with fixed effects for Adelaide, South Australia. The results indicate that the private benefits of a close proximity to golf courses, green space sporting facilities, or the coast, are in the order $0.54, $1.58, and $4.99 per metre closer (when evaluated at the median respectively). The historic Adelaide Parklands add $1.55 to a property’s value for each additional metre closer. We demonstrate how the estimated model could be used to calculate how local private benefits capitalized in property values change with changes in the configuration of a park.     

ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF THE FARM WOODLAND SCHEME IN SCOTLAND

This paper describes an economic evaluation of planting under the Farm Woodland Scheme in Scotland based on the calculation of the Scheme's net UK Exchequer cost (NEC) and its relationship to the benefits observed through a survey of first-year Scheme entrants. It was found that the motivation in planting was primarily for ‘environmental’ benefits such as landscape, amenity, wildlife and sport. Income and timber production were much less important. On average, payments under the Scheme under-compensated farmers for their direct and opportunity costs associated with planting. When based on agricultural savings in the year of planting, the annual NEC was #58 per ha, but this cost increases substantially if the additionality principle is applied. Anticipated benefits in terms of farm output reduction, income diversification, employment and timber production are identified but the effects are not large. Environmental benefits were not included in the evaluation and these may provide greater justification for the expenditure.     

COMMERCIAL FORESTS IN SCOTLAND: AN ECONOMIC APPRAISAL OF REPLANTING

The economic returns from replanting commercial forests are estimated using an investment model which links physical resource information with economic data, including appropriate monetised values for the major non-market benefits such as recreation and carbon storage. The area and location of sites in Scotland which are uneconomic, i.e. forests, which if replanted with commercial crops, would fail to achieve the current government target rate of return of 6%, are identified. Depending on the values and assumptions used, between 12% (105,000 ha) and 48% (532,500 ha) of existing forests were found to be uneconomic. Because data on the water resource costs of commercial forests are not available and the higher biodiversity value of natural regeneration could not be included in the opportunity cost of land, these percentages are likely to be lower-bound estimates. On the grounds of economic efficiency, abandonment to natural regeneration is the most appropriate land use for these sites, but this might be considered undesirable because of land management considerations. Modified grant payments for natural regeneration under the Woodland Grant Scheme to ensure delivery of enhanced non-market benefits through judicious management and silviculture are suggested. Cautious implementation of this new policy is, however, recommended while further research on the physical suitability of sites for natural regeneration is carried out. More work is also needed to value the non-use benefits of different forest types.     

RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FARMERS' GOALS AND FARM ADJUSTMENT STRATEGIES: SOME EMPIRICS OF A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH

A knowledge of farmers' goals provides an important basis for understanding farmers' preferences for, and choices among, various farm adjustment strategies. Such information is also valuable in estimating the acceptability to farmers of various government measures to assist rural adjustment. The goals of Queensland graziers, with and without a history of farm expansion, are compared. Different adjustment strategies are analysed in terms of the ways in which they satisfy different individual goals. A dimensional analysis of relationships among goals and adjustment strategies reveals that, for those willing to expand but without a history of expansion, income and social goals are at odds with each other. For these graziers, property expansion seemed to be the strategy most likely to meet both these goals. For graziers with a history of expansion, income goals were complementary with social goals.     

Riparian Buffers and Hedonic Prices: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Residential Property Values in the Neuse River Basin

Riparian buffers, the strips of vegetation along banks of rivers and streams, have been proposed as a key instrument to protect water quality in the United States. Riparian buffers impose a restriction on the use of private property limiting harvest and development, but buffers can also provide for aesthetic and recreational benefits that may accrue to property owners. With data from the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina, this study attempts to provide empirical evidence on the effect of a mandatory buffer rule on the value of riparian properties. Spatial autoregressive hedonic models are estimated within a quasi-experimental framework using the imposition of the buffer rule as the treatment and nonriparian properties as a control group. Results indicate that a riparian property generally commands a high premium. We find no evidence, however, that the mandatory buffer rule has had a significant impact on riparian property values when compared with the control group.     

Rice productivity in Bangladesh: What are the benefits of irrigation?

Green Revolution technologies transformed Bangladesh’s agricultural system through the introduction of high-yielding rice and wheat varieties, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the expansion of tubewell-irrigated area, enabling crop production during the dry season. However, serious challenges continue to plague the agriculture sector, including scarcity of land due to high population density, unbalanced use of fertilizers and pesticides, and great variation in water supply across seasons – from drought to stagnant flood conditions. Further expansion of irrigated area – including through the continued development and improvement of surface water systems – is being eyed by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Agriculture to address many of the remaining challenges facing the country. However, such expansion is not without risks or consequences, and a careful analysis of who benefits from irrigation, and how, must guide development priorities.We examine plot-level data for rice production during Bangladesh’s three rice seasons – aus, boro, and aman – across a nationally-representative household survey in Bangladesh. While rainfall is the most important determinant of rice yield during aus and chemical inputs are most important during aman, access to irrigation has the greatest influence on boro rice yield during the dry season, particularly for the coastal south. The government of Bangladesh is planning massive investments in the southern region for the improved provision of surface water irrigation. The expected decline in groundwater, coupled with our econometric findings, suggests that expanding boro production in the south may not be a good strategy to promote, for the region. Whether brackish shrimp aquaculture can provide an equitable and sustainable livelihood alternative should continue to be a focus of research.     

Sharing the unearned increment: Divergent Outcomes in Toronto and São Paulo

Land value capture (LVC) refers to the public sector’s recovery of part or all of the land value increments (‘unearned’ income) generated by actions other than the landowner’s direct investment, including public investments in infrastructure or administrative changes in land use norms and regulations. LVC is increasingly used around the world as a tool to raise funds for urban development. This paper analyzes two LVC tools, one used in Toronto and the other in São Paulo, to show how different approaches produce divergent outcomes in practice. Expert interviews and an analysis of secondary quantitative data show that São Paulo’s formula-led approach is bureaucratized, compared with Toronto’s politicized process and that benefits from Toronto’s Section 37 are primarily located in the central wealthier neighbourhoods, while in São Paulo benefits are more dispersed. The comparison between the two cases highlights different approaches that reflect divergent values, rationales, socio-economic realities and political cultures which ultimately produce varied outcomes. The contrasting tools’ distributional and equity outcomes in Toronto and São Paulo raise questions about how cities can best share the benefits of urbanization to ensure equity and justice for all city residents.     

英格兰林地补助金及其对我国森林资源管理政策的启示

英格兰林地补助金是在欧盟共同农业和农村发展政策框架下的林地管理和补助政策。突出特点是按照森林资源经营的不同阶段设置不同的补助标准,采用现代化信息技术作为森林资源管理和补助发放的手段,资金瞄准率高,实现了在最大限度地利用森林资源的同时,最大化国土生态效益的目标。阐述了英格兰林地补助金的主要内容,分析了其政策的突出特点和管理理念,提出了值得我国公益林建设借鉴的思路。     

清流县林权抵押贷款的实证分析

指出清流县开展林权抵押贷款的3个条件分别是资本需求的扩大、林业产权制度的改革和政府的干预;发现了林权抵押贷款可以实现保护森林资源、改善生态环境,带动投资、扩大就业,有效提高金融部门和林农收入水平等多重效益;提出设置林业专业信贷员,延长林权抵押贷款的时间,创新林权抵押贷款机制,建立林地收储制度等4条改进林权抵押贷款福利的建议。     

江都水利枢纽综合效益评估

采用模糊综合层次分析法,建立水利枢纽综合效益评估指标体系及评估方法体系,对江都水利枢纽的综合效益进行评估。江都水利枢纽综合效益评估结果为4.53,介于效益非常大和很大之间,表明其综合效益很大。在经济效益、生态环境和社会效益三者等权重的情况下,江都水利枢纽的生态环境效益的评分值最大,其次为社会效益,经济效益相对最低。研究结果可为江都水利枢纽的运行、维护与管理措施的制定提供参考。     

Macro–micro feedback links of water management in South Africa: CGE analyses of selected policy regimes

The pressure on an already stressed water situation in South Africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change, plans for large industrial expansion, ongoing rapid urbanization, and government programs to provide access to water to millions of previously excluded populations. This article employs a general equilibrium approach to examine the economy‐wide impacts of selected macro and water‐related policy reforms on water use and allocation, rural livelihoods, and economy at large. The analyses reveal that implicit crop‐level water quotas reduce the amount of irrigated land allocated to higher‐value horticultural crops and create higher shadow rents for production of lower‐value water‐intensive field crops, such as sugarcane and fodder. Accordingly, liberalizing local water allocation within irrigation agriculture is found to work in favor of higher‐value crops, and expand agricultural production and exports and farm employment. Allowing for water trade between irrigation and nonagricultural uses fuelled by higher competition for water from urbanization leads to greater water shadow prices for irrigation water with reduced income and employment benefits to rural households and higher gains for nonagricultural households. The analyses show difficult trade‐offs between general economic gains and higher water prices, which place serious questions on subsidizing water supply to irrigated agriculture, i.e., making irrigation subsidies much harder to justify.     

Agrarian change through speculation: Rural elites as land brokers for mining in Colombia

This paper studies the connections between the expansion of mining capital, speculative forms of land grabbing and agrarian transformation. It is argued that in periods of commodity boom, the landowning rural elite benefits from mining through speculative land deals with mining companies. They act as ‘land brokers’ for the mining firms, helping them to overcome a significant barrier to land accumulation through the de facto abolition of landed property. The analysis is based on a qualitative case study on the expansion of coal mining in central Cesar in northern Colombia. To develop my arguments, I refer to the concept of accumulation by dispossession as defined by Michael Levien, and historical materialist approaches on rent, and speculative land dispossession. In addition, I use concepts developed for studying coercive land grabbing and agrarian elite participation in armed conflicts to analyse the mechanisms applied to (coercively) acquire rights to land. It is concluded that with high global prices for minerals, metals and fossil fuels, the expansion of mining in the countryside fosters a process of agrarian change through land speculation that is articulated in a reconcentration of landed property, a re-strengthening of the rural landowning elite and the dissolution of peasant agriculture.     

Global and local food value chains in Africa: A review

The rapid expansion of agrifood exports from low- and middle-income countries and the contribution of global value chains to rural development are well-documented in the literature. Also, studies on modernization of domestic food value chains in these countries are emerging. Yet, the linkages between global and local value chains are rarely studied. On the one hand, the development and expansion of global value chains may create competition with local value chains for land, labor, water, soil nutrients, and other resources. On the other hand, positive spillover effects, such as investment, technical or institutional spillovers, may occur and spur the development of local value chains. In this article, we put forward a conceptual discussion on the type of linkages between global and local value chains, and how these depend on crop and value chain characteristics. We review the empirical evidence on these linkages. Our focus is on Africa, where agrifood exports and global value chains evolved rapidly and where challenges remain to upgrade and increase efficiency in local food value chains.     

污水资源化管理的市场驱动路径研究

为了研究推动污水资源化、提高污水资源化水平、创新污水资源化管理体制,提出污水资源化管理的市场驱动路径。主要研究方法是基于成本核算分析,在对现状进行归纳分析的基础上,分析再生水使用量较大的城市污水资源化的外部效益,首要考虑的是生态的补水效益、环境效益等,直接经济效益并不是考虑重点,污水资源化处理的费用绝大多数由市政负担。在对污水资源化过程中,经过成本核算,认为财力雄厚的一线和准一线城市能够负担,而广大城市难以自行负担污水资源化的费用,对于引入社会资本降低地方财政负担和工业企业负担以及推动水治理体系现代化是形成污水资源化利用长效机制的关键所在。提出政府确定产权和收益;构建再生水资产的交易机制;制定全国再生水利用目标;加强再生水利用基础设施规划与建设;合理设置再生水作为非常规水源统一配置体系的边界以及协调再生水利用与最严格水资源管理制度的衔接问题的政策建议。     

THE USE OF HOME RESOURCES TO SAVE IMPORTS: A NEW LOOK

An earlier article *was concerned with the assessment of the net contribution (if any) made to the balance of payments by a marginal expansion of U.K. agricultural output. Such evidence as there is suggests that an increase in U.K. agricultural output would make a positive contribution to the Balance of Payments, though this contribution might be only about one half the value of net import saving. In addition it is necessary to compare agricultural expansion with other measures which are intended to make a positive contribution to the Balance of Payments. The purpose of this article is to re-examine the theoretical ideas behind the argument for using home resources to save imports. This argument was first put forward in the early 1950's and was concerned primarily with agricultural import saving and export promotion as alternative methods of alleviating the contemporary Balance of Payments problem. The argument has become relevant once again with the current proposal for further agricultural expansion to aid the U.K. Balance of Payments. A new method of presentation is employed which it is hoped adds clarity to the exposition. In addition it is suggested that the theory behind this argument is inadequate from the point of view of its application to agricultural import saving: agricultural import substitution gives a country only the potential to turn the terms of trade in its favour. A necessary second stage in the process—the realisation of this potential—seems to have been overlooked by previous writers. The theory is also considered under an assumption of flexible exchange rates, and it is argued that the use of the exchange rate as a balancing mechanism results in a failure to exploit any inelasticity of demand for a country's exports     

THE BRITISH EGG MARKETING BOARD 1957-71-A REASSESSMENT

The Report of the Reorganisation Commission for Eggs, published in June 1968, was a condemnation of the British Egg Marketing Scheme which had at that time operated for ten years. The Commission criticised not only the detailed operations of the Board but also questioned the validity of the Board's major activities. Its condemnation contained the charges: firstly, that those who set up and operated the Scheme had been misguided and had worked in a way that was contrary to the well-being of the egg industry and, secondly, that there is little value in the producer marketing board type of organisation. Both of these charges are serious and neither of them has been substantiated. This paper is devoted to showing that the major charges of the Commission were not supported by fact: the market support operations of the Board did not cause over-production: market support operations improved price stability: the Board's marketing costs were not excessive; seen in the correct historical perspective, the Board from 1957 made a positive and helpful contribution to the development of egg marketing.     

Land for welfare in China

Drawing on firsthand observations, Party and government documents, and survey data, this study examines the causes and processes of the land for welfare policy in China. The implementation of the land for welfare program cannot be understood in isolation from the profound urban–rural gap in the land property rights regime and social welfare provision in China. The dual land tenure system allows local officials to generate revenue by expropriating rural land, which, to rural households, functions as a social insurance as well as an income-generating property. In the process of land requisition, land-losing villagers are provided with social welfare benefits to compensate for their loss of their land's insurance function. Such provision, however, is not developed out of the local governments’ benign intention, but their strategic reaction to the central government's development program that combines rural social welfare provision with a land rewarding system, which provides an opportunity for local officials to gain more land, a valuable asset for local governments. The provision of social welfare benefits is selective: affected rural households are provided with welfare benefits that are less costly to the local government, typically in the form of a pension insurance.     

基于Shapley值改进的水土保持PPP项目效益分配研究

针对水土保持项目正外部性、公益性等特点,建立水土保持效益估算模型,计算出包含生态效益、经济效益和社会效益的项目总效益,在此基础上,建立考虑投入比例、风险承担与合同执行度的Shapley值改进的效益分配模型,最后通过实例验证了模型的可行性。研究结果表明:考虑生态效益和社会效益后,效益分配基数增加,改进后的效益分配模型衡量了利益各方的实际贡献,分配结果更加合理,使项目向帕累托最优迈进。     

Assessing cost‐effectiveness when environmental benefits are bundled: agricultural water management in Great Barrier Reef catchments

Using economic analysis to prioritise improvements in environmental conditions is particularly difficult when multiple benefits are involved. This includes ‘bundling’ issues in agricultural pollution management, where a change in management action or farming systems generates multiple improvements, such as reductions in more than one pollutant. In this study, we conceptualise and compare two different approaches to analysing cost‐effectiveness when varying bundles of benefits are generated for a single project investment. Each approach requires data to be transformed in some way to allow the analysis to proceed. The index approach requires the transformation on the benefits side so that the effects of multiple pollutant changes can be combined into a measure for each project which can then be compared to costs. By comparison, the disaggregation approach requires the transformation on the costs side where costs for each project have to be apportioned across the different pollutants involved. The paper provides novel insights with an application to agricultural water quality improvements into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, demonstrating that while both approaches are effective in prioritising projects by cost‐effectiveness, the disaggregation approach provides more insightful results and values that may be relevant for use as upper value guidelines in future project selection.     

Locating the adverse effects of rangeland enclosure among herders in eastern Ethiopia

This paper examines the effects of rangeland enclosure on herders’ livelihoods and property rights. The analysis is based on the household survey and focus group discussions among pastoral and agropastoral households (from three administrative districts in eastern Ethiopia) who have practiced enclosure and who have been affected by practices of others. Such an examination helps anticipate whether enclosure practice assists in attaining income security and ensuring household welfare by supporting livestock development. Results have shown that expansion of enclosure leads to the emergence of incompatible demands (conflict of interest) over the resource and unstable property rights to the grazing commons. Though private benefits from enclosure produce an incentive for households to practice it, its expansion does not generally increase the welfare of (agro-) pastoral community in the longer-term. Hence, land use policies that favor private use of the rangeland, using land enclosure as an entry point, can potentially harm pastoral livelihoods rather than supporting sustainable pastoral development.