Where the Water is Free but the Buckets are Empty: Demand Analysis of Drinking Water in Rural India

This paper examines how a policy of providing free domestic water can be unsustainable. Using a conditional logit model, this research looks at the demand side and identifies the determinants of choice. Under assumptions normally associated with developing societies, the model shows that the people's perception of benefits of safe water is significant, household variables like female literacy are important variables determining the choice of safe water and the capability to pay and willingness to pay already exists. The governments in poor countries need to have a fresh look at their policy relating to rural water supply.     

Property Rights Reform in Rangeland China: Dilemmas On the Road to the Household Ranch

This paper contributes to the debate over land tenure in rural China by extending its spatial coverage to the country’s extensive rangeland regions. Key characteristics of pastoral tenure, identified from field appraisals in western China, include group tenure and fuzzy boundaries. Although these characteristics give rise to efficiency concerns, from a new institutional economics perspective they also facilitate the realization of certain benefits, benefits that could represent opportunity costs of further exclusiveness. The strengthening of rangeland co-management may constitute a more appropriate path to institutional improvement than the establishment of the household ranch, the current goal of national rangeland policy.     

发展中国家贸易战略的效应分析

20世纪50年代以来,发展中国家为改变自身畸形的经济结构,改变自身在国际分工中的不利地位,从未间断探索适合本国经济发展的道路.在贸易战略上,发展中国家经历了初级产品出口导向型战略、进口替代型战略到出口导向型战略的转变.文章以发展中国家贸易战略的演变为线索,以发展的眼光多角度的评论这三种贸易战略的效应.     

产权视角下的征地补偿模式探讨——以西山村征地补偿情况为例

西山村依山傍海,环境幽雅,其得天独厚的条件得到了山东乳山维多利亚海湾旅游开发有限公司的青睐,但在随后的征地补偿过程中出现了许多问题,涉及农民的切身利益,有些问题至今尚未解决,其根源在于农村士地产权的不清晰。个人土地终身制为解决这一问题提供了产权上的依据。     

Tomato Farmers and Modernising Value Chains in Indonesia

The tomato value chain in Indonesia has transformed in the last two decades. We assess this transformation here, focusing on small tomato farmers in West Java and the determinants of their market-channel choices (as well as the technology correlates of those choices). These farmers sell to traditional village traders, urban and modern wholesalers, and supermarkets, and they have all invested heavily in irrigation and rely on external inputs. We find differences among farmers selling to different market channels. To wit, non-land assets—especially irrigation—are important to farmers participating in the supermarket, or modern, channel, but farm size affects modern-channel participation only in high-level commercial zones (zones dense in infrastructure and near highways). We also find that modern-channel farmers earn more profit than farmers in other channels but do not necessarily use chemicals more intensively. Yet hardly any farmers sell graded tomatoes; the main ‘capture of rents’ goes to specialised and modernising wholesalers.     

From protectionism to free trade fever? Recent reforms in developing countries

During the 1980s, increasing numbers of developing countries unilaterally liberalized their trade regimes. This paper presents an overview of this dramatic shift from protectionism toward freer trade. South Asia, Latin America, and East Asia have implemented extensive reforms, yet each region has shown a distinct difference in approach and in the degree of liberalization actually achieved. Latin America stands out as moving sharply toward the level of openness of the East Asian Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). Only in Africa is there little progress toward freer trade.     

North versus South: The Impact of Social Norms in the Market Pricing of Private Property Rights in Vietnam

Despite a centralized political system, country-wide legal reforms, and similar high housing demand pressures, property rights have evolved differently in Vietnam’s two leading cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), during the transition period. Using ethnographic fieldwork and a hedonic price model, the study shows that the two land and housing markets price tenure ambiguity differently. The different price structures indicate the importance of norms, as socially constructed by local political interests and culture, in the efficacy of land title regularization programs.     

全球化背景下对主权理论的再认识

主权理论是政治学领域中的一个重要和基本的理论问题。主权理论产生至今,经历了许多的理论演变,在不可抗拒的全球化趋势下,国家主权受到越来越多的冲击和挑战。发展中国家面临着应对全球化进程,维护国家主权的艰巨任务。     

土地收益平等是农村土地公平的根基

我国农村土地集体所有,由农民分散承包经营,在一定程度上体现了土地的占有平等,实现了世代农民的梦想.但是,缘于城乡、地区之间主客观因素等的差异性,存在着事实上的土地收益起点、机会、标准的不平等,导致收益结果的不公平.要体现农村土地公平,就应当使土地均等占有,向土地收益平等转化,使耕种者能够获得平均利润.为此,应当提高农民的素质、利用土地所有权平衡贫富差距、善待城镇普通职工(农村务工者)等.     

The Role of Markets,Technology, and Policy in Generating Palm-Oil Demand in Indonesia

Indonesia produces more palm oil and consumes more palm oil per capita than any country in the world. This article examines the processes through which Indonesia has promoted palm-oil consumption and some of the consequences of that promotion. Partial equilibrium modelling shows that Indonesia's remarkable increase in palm-oil consumption since 1985 is not largely attributable to population and income growth. Instead, much of this consumption growth has resulted from substitution away from coconut oil, facilitated by government policies on technology, pricing, distribution, and trade. The switch from coconut oil to palm oil in Indonesia was associated with increased land conversions to agriculture and diminished smallholder competitiveness. Despite lower rates of cooking-oil substitution in the future, simulations suggest that Indonesia's total palm-oil consumption in 2035 will be at least double that of 2010.     

Loans or Grants?

We argue in this paper that canceling the debt of the poorest countries was a good thing, but that it should not imply that the debt instrument should be foregone. Debt and debt cancellations are indeed two complementary instruments which, if properly managed, perform better than either loans or grants taken in isolation. The core of the intuition, which we develop in a simple two-period model, relates to the fact that the poorest countries are also the most volatile, so that contingent facilities, explicitly incorporating debt cancellation mechanisms, are a valuable instrument. JEL no. F34, F35     

Urban Shopping Patterns in Indonesia and Their Implications for Small Farmers

In developing countries, the expansion of supermarkets and other modern food retailers has raised concerns about the potential impact on traditional retailers and fruit and vegetable farmers. Will small farmers, in particular, be squeezed out of this growing, remunerative market by the quality standards imposed by supermarkets? In an attempt to answer this question, we analyse data from a stratified random sample of 1,180 urban households in Indonesia. We find that only a small share of fruits and vegetables are purchased from modern outlets, even among high-income urban households. On the basis of the relation between income and shopping patterns in our data, we project that even after 15 years of income growth, supermarkets will account for less than 40% of urban food spending. The impact of supermarket standards on small farmers may be less dramatic than has been feared.     

Free trade and income redistribution in some developing and newly industrialized countries

A competitive general equilibrium model of production is specified and the long-run comparative static elasticities of changing prices on factor prices are examined in eight developing and newly industrialized countries. Unskilled labor in these developing countries stands to gain from a program of global free trade characterized by increased manufacturing exports and falling prices of imported business services, while capital owners and skilled labor lose. Results are contrasted with developed countries, the United States in particular, where unskilled labor will lose while capital and skilled labor enjoy gains with global free trade.     

Trade adjustment in the WTO system: are more safeguards the answer?

For countries to engage successfully in the international tradingsystem, their industries, firms, and workers must respond continuallyto new conditions of competition. The continuing need to adjustarises both from policy changes approved in multilateral negotiations—e.g.implementation of trade liberalization commitments, preferenceerosion, or adverse terms-of-trade consequences of export subsidyelimination—and from ongoing changes in competitive pressuresinherent in a liberal trading system—e.g. effects on comparativeadvantage of changes in technology or factor supplies. But thepolitical response to a situation calling for adjustment isoften a call for ‘safeguards’—whether as anex ante provision in negotiated agreements or as an ex postmeasure once the agreement has been signed and the reality ofnew conditions takes shape. This paper examines the range ofadjustment problems confronting the current and future internationaltrading system, the economic arguments for intervention to dealwith these problems, the adjustment environment as set out inthe current World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements, and proposalsfor reform. While the adjustment problems we discuss apply toboth rich and poor WTO member countries, we highlight the issuesof adjustment especially relevant for developing countries.