Sweet equality: Sugar,property rights,and land distribution in colonial Java

This article exploits a unique district-level dataset to investigate the relationship between sugar cultivation, property rights systems and land distribution in colonial Java around the turn of the twentieth century. We demonstrate a negative and statistically significant relationship between sugar cultivation and the landholder Gini. An IV strategy, employing a newly computed index of sugar suitability as instrument, suggests that this effect is causal. It is argued that sugar production in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries stimulated the expansion and persistence of communal landholding. This communal landholding consequently led to more equally distributed plots among landholders in the early twentieth century. We emphasize the importance of local property rights institutions in mitigating the effects of export production on socioeconomic outcomes.     

Infrastructure and Industrial Development: The Case of Central Java

Industrial development does not take place in all regions at the same speed. This paper seeks explanations for regional differences in the development of manufacturing industry in Central Java. Special attention is paid to the impact of infrastructure (roads, telecommunications, electricity) on industrial development. The spatial distribution of manufacturing industry is analysed by means of both secondary data at the kabupaten level and primary data on 274 firms in various parts of Central Java. In addition to demand side factors, infrastructure does indeed play an important role, but local government bureaucratic procedures for obtaining land and permits are also important.     

Rural Cottage Industry in Transition: The Roof Tile Industry in Kabupaten Boyolali,Central Java

This paper attempts to explain changes in rural cottage industry (RCI) employment by means of a Central Javanese case study of the rural tile industry. It demonstrates that a decline in employment in this industry, despite a favourable rural industrial environment, is largely due to transition from household-based production to production by more specialised and productive units, with some functions, e.g. marketing and transport, being contracted out, and providing employment for those originally involved in household-based production. Transition has occurred in areas with access to wider markets and improved technology.     

Promoting Small Scale and Cottage Industries in Indonesia: An Impact Analysis for Central Java

This paper reviews the promotion of small scale and cottage industries (SSCI) in Indonesia and its impact on employment creation. The review was conducted for the province of Central Java, the ‘heartland’ of SSCI employment. Secondary data showed that participation rates in technical and financial assistance programs for SSCI are low, suggesting that programs may continue for many years before a majority of SSCI producers are reached. A field survey in six clusters of SSCI investigated the effectiveness of current programs to enhance the development of these industries. The analysis provides little evidence that the programs have a positive impact on employment in the less dynamic clusters of SSCI. In the very dynamic clusters, firms using a combination of technical and financial assistance were most successful in terms of employment generation. The study concludes that present assistance programs are not a ‘cause’ of employment growth in SSCI, but are accommodating such growth.     

国务院国资委：提高知识产权工作水平 增强中央企业核心竞争力

国务院国资委日前提出,中央企业是国民经济的主力军,大力提高中央企业知识产权工作水平,既是提升企业核心竞争力、转变经济发展方式的内在需要,更是提高国家综合实力、建设创新型国家的必然要求。国务院国资委高度重视中央企业知识产权工作的开展,认真贯彻落实《国家知识产权战略纲要》的精神和要求,积极组织中央企业知识产权战略的制定与实施工作,取得了明显的成效。     

Property rights,uncertainty and fertility: An analysis of the effect of land reform on fertility in rural Mexico

Zusammenfassung Eigentumsrechte, Unsicherheit und Fruchtbarkeit: Eine Analyse der Wirkung der Landreform auf die Fruchtbarkeit in den l?ndlichen Gebieten Mexikos. —In der Praxis k?nnen die Ziele der Bev?lkerungskontrolle und der Landreform miteinander in Konflikt geraten, wenn das Land auf der Basis der Nutznie\ung zugeteilt wird. In dem mexikanischen Ejido-System des Landbesitzes werden spezifische Anreize zu h?herer Fruchtbarkeit festgestellt; es wird hervorgehoben, da\ (mangels gut entwickelter Kapitalm?rkte aufgrund der fehlenden Verk?uflichkeit des Landes) Kinder als Mittel zur intertemporalen Verteilung des Familienkonsums benutzt werden. Ferner wird die Rolle betont, die Kinder für die Sicherung von Rechtstiteln auf Land spielen. Ein Pr?ferenzmodell wird verwendet, um die Risiken zu analysieren, denen sich Ejido-Familien gegenübersehen, und es wird gezeigt, da\ die Struktur des Landbesitzes ein bestimmender Faktor für die erwünschte Familiengr?\e ist. Eine Querschnittsanalyse mit Daten von 48 l?ndlichen Gemeinden im Staat Mexiko stützt die Hypothese, da\ Ejido-Familien mehr Geburten und gr?\ere Kinderzahlen haben, auch wenn alle anderen (verfügbaren) Faktoren berücksichtigt werden.

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Résumé Les droits de propriété, l’incertitude et la fertilité: Une analyse d’effet de la réforme de campagne sur la fertilité en Mexique rural. -En pratique les buts du contr?le de population et de la réforme de campagne peuvent entrer en conflit si la campagne soit assignée sur une base d’usufruit. Les incitations à une fertilité plus haute sont identifiées en système d'ejido d'affermage de campagne pratiqué en Mexique; nous soulignons l’usage des enfants comme instrument d'effectuer l’allocation intertemporale de la consommation familiale (à défaut des marchés des capitaux assez développés qui existent à cause de la vendabilité manquante de la campagne) et le r?le des enfants en assurant les droits à la campagne. Nous utilisons un modèle de préférence d'analyser les risques avec lesquels les familles d’ejido sont confrontés et nous démontrons que la structure d’affermage de campagne est un facteur déterminant de la magnitude désirée de famille. Une analyse statistique transversale des données des 48 municipalités rurales dans l’état de Mexique supporte la hypothèse que les familles d’ ejido auront plus des naissances et plus des stocks d’enfants même si tous les autres facteurs (disponibles) soient considérés.

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Resumen Derechos de propiedad, inseguridad y fertilidad: Un análisis del efecto de la reforma agraria sobre la fertilidad en el Mexico rural. —En práctica, las metas de un control de la población y de una reforma agraria pueden ser conflictivas si la tierra es asignada sobre la basis de usufructo. Los incentivos para una mayor fertilidad son identificados con el sistema de ejidos como control de la tierra practicada en México; se da importancia al hecho de usar a los ni?os como instrumentos para realizar una alocación intertemporal del consumo de la familia (en ausencia de mercados de capital bien desarrollados que existen debido a la ausencia de estabilidad de la tierra) y el rol de los ninos para asegurar los derechos sobre la tierra. Se utiliza un modelo de preferencia para analizar los riesgos que enfrentan las familias de los ejidos y se muestra que la estructura de tenencia de la tierra es un factor determinante para el tama?o deseado de la familia. Un análisis estadistico de corte transversal de datos para 48 municipalidades rurales en el estado de México apoya la hipótesis que las familias de los ejidos tendrán más nacimientos y mayores stocks de ni?os incluso si se toman en cuenta todos los otros factores a disposición.

     

Valuing school quality, better transport, and lower crime: evidence from house prices

Housing prices within urban areas exhibit highly localized variationthat cannot be explained solely by differences in the physicalattributes of dwellings. We consider the role of local amenitiesand disamenities in generating price variation within urbanareas, focusing on three highly policy-relevant urban issues–transportaccessibility, school quality, and crime. Our survey of therecent empirical literature highlights what is known and whatis not known on these issues, and considers the relevance andreliability of this evidence for policy design and evaluation.Although there are serious empirical challenges, we argue thatresearch on housing values based on careful research designscan offer credible estimates of the social value of place-specificattributes and amenities.     

Central Bank Independence and Sacrifice Ratios: Some Further Considerations

The existing literature reports a positive relationship between sacrifice ratios and central bank independence. This paper discusses two critical points related to the usual procedures employed by this literature. One concerns the issue of non-stationarity of the inflation rate, the other the problem of correlation between the error terms for different disinflation episodes in the same country. The way in which the sacrifice ratio-central bank independence relationship is tested is reconsidered taking into account these points. Our results shed considerable doubts on the nature and robustness of such a relationship and on the usual interpretation given to it in the literature.     

论征地房屋拆迁的成本分解及其控制思路:基于利益相关者的视角

征地房屋拆迁是实现土地资源有效供给和优化配置的必要路径,随着工业化与城市化进程的加快而呈现不断扩张趋势。征地房屋拆迁的顺利开展必然需要一定的成本投入,但是过多的成本支出将会严重降低征地房屋拆迁项目的综合效应。理性认识政府、拆迁人和被拆迁人这三个最主要的利益相关者分别承担的成本内容和特征,对于我们创新征地房屋拆迁成本控制思路具有非常重要的意义。     

Ownership and control of Maori land: Some lessons for South Africa

New Zealand replaced customary tenure of Maori land with titles. Some issues are relevant to South Africa. Massive redistribution of Maori land is accounted for by inadequate property rights conferred fay colonial legislation. Institutions emerged to deal with problems of landlessness and low farm incomes created by titling, among which private incorporations and trusts were particularly successful Such institutions may under certain conditions be useful to smallholders in the former homelands and to groups of farmers who acquire freehold land in South Africa.     

Land,ladies, and the law: a case study on women's land rights and welfare in Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century†

This study evaluates women's de jure and de facto land rights and their implications for household welfare in nineteenth‐century Bangkok. Women constituted a significant share of agricultural landowners holding government‐issued land deeds in central Siam (now Thailand)—a pattern that stands in contrast to both historical and contemporary developing economy contexts where the structure of land rights often favours men. The findings show, through both direct and indirect evidence, that women's de jure rights were upheld in practice. Women made significantly more agricultural investments than male or mixed‐gender owners, which supports the assertion that women perceived their land rights as secure under Siam's traditional usufruct land rights system. An assessment of land‐related court cases directly supports our claim, showing that women in Siam had access to legal representation and were protected when their land rights were challenged by investors and local elites in the context of high demand for both agricultural and urban land. Such secure land rights helped preserve women's livelihoods as agriculturists and household well‐being. We estimate that the median female‐owned orchard could support 10 adults annually, achieving a standard of living comparable to unskilled labourer households in Beijing and Milan during the same period.     

The economic crisis in Southern Africa: Some perspectives on its origins and nature

The crisis of development in most of Southern Africa has come to be regarded as an inevitable outcome of the failure of post‐independence development policy in those countries. That policy failure eventually led to the need for policy reform, which emerged most dominantly in the form of structural adjustment programmes. This article, which is a comparative analytical review, examines the origins and nature of the economic crisis in Southern Africa and the policy framework giving rise to it, drawing on country examples to illuminate and illustrate the analytical perspective.     

Communist Party branch and labour rights: Evidence from Chinese entrepreneurs

This study examines the causal effects of having a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) branch on the coverage of labour contracts and social insurance among employees in private enterprises. Using a regression discontinuity design in a quasi-experimental framework, we find that having a Party branch has a significant effect on the coverage rates of individual and collective labour contracts as well as five social insurance schemes. The positive effect of having a Party branch on contract and social insurance coverage are weaker when the enterprise also has a trade union and staff representative congress, when the entrepreneur is a member of the CCP or the People's Congress or Political Consultative Conference and in provinces in which government intervention is lower or the private sector more developed. We find that firm-level mean wages and spending on training and occupational health and safety mediate the relationship between having a Party branch and labour rights.     

Property rights security and firm survival: Micro-data evidence from China

The security of property rights has been found to play important roles in various aspects of firm behaviors. However, its effects on firm survival have been largely neglected in previous research. Using annual data of Chinese manufacturing firms over the period 1998–2008, we analyze the link between property rights security and firms' survival probabilities, differentiating firms into stated-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs, and considering whether the linkage evolves over time. Examining a wide range of specifications, we find that the protection of property rights, by limiting government intervention and promulgating laws and rules, is crucial for firm survival. Moreover, better security of property rights benefits non-SOEs more. We also find that the beneficial effects of secure property rights on firm survival are more pronounced for years after 2003 when China speeded up deregulation to comply with its WTO commitments and reform target to establish a modern system of property rights than for years before 2002.     

Bank consolidation and competitiveness: Empirical evidence from the Korean banking industry

The Korean government consolidated several banks following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 to stabilize the financial market and to improve international competitiveness. This process has brought sound capital reserves, assets and profitability to the banking industry. However, due to the resulting increase in market concentration, this process has also produced concerns about the monopolistic and oligopolistic power of the banks. Recently, the growing concern within the government is the weakening of bank competition due to the sharp increase in market concentration. This study reviews and examines the status of bank consolidation and the competitive structure of the banking industry. The degree of competitiveness in the banking industry is analyzed using the Panzar and Rosse model with a non-structural approach and data from 1992 to 2007 (before the beginning of the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis). This time span is divided into a pre- and a post-bank consolidation period. The estimation results indicate that monopolistic competition in the market exists but that the competitiveness of the banks has improved with the increased market concentration. This finding contradicts previous beliefs regarding the increased risk and lower competition derived from a concentrated financial system.