Intermediaries in environmental offset markets: Actions and incentives

Transaction cost theory and application tells us that when buyers and sellers in a market incur transaction costs, intermediaries may become involved. Specifically, intermediaries influence the cause of the transaction costs to buyers and sellers such that transaction costs are reduced. In this paper we assess if and how this occurs for a number of case study government created and private emergent intermediaries in Australian environmental offset markets. We find that the causes of transaction costs to buyers and sellers in offset markets – asset specificity, uncertainty and transaction frequency are influenced downwards by intermediaries. The degree of influence depends on the nature of the good traded in the offset market. We also assessed if the public intermediaries studied were operating in the offset markets to reduce the incidence of probity hazard (poor transactions) from private intermediaries. We found that this was not the case.     

Smallholder production structure and rural roads in Africa: the case of Nakuru District, Kenya

Data from a 1998 survey of farming households in Kenya is used to estimate the effects of poor rural road infrastructure (and high market access costs) on the structure of smallholder farm production. Simultaneous estimation of cost and input share equations reveals rational responses by farmers to high access costs. In the expected continued absence of major investments in rural infrastructure in countries such as Kenya, the policy challenge is to identify and catalyse institutional innovations that reduce a range of transaction costs, increase financial liquidity, increase social capital, and reduce risk.     

威廉姆森分析范式下农地经营权抵押贷款问题研究——以山东枣庄市为例

山东枣庄是我国较早开展土地产权制度改革的试点城市,其土地经营权抵押贷款的改革尤为突出。在实践过程中,通过剥离农地经营权、创建担保公司等改革手段,为农地规模化经营提供融资保障。但在实践过程中,混合治理结构带来的交易成本过高问题也渐渐显露。本文引入威廉姆森范式理论,对枣庄市农地经营权抵押贷款中的治理结构、交易性质以及交易频率等进行了分析,得出一体化的治理结构可有效降低交易成本,最后从一体化组织构建、行政关系、合作方式与原则以及风险防范等角度提出一体化治理结构的政策建议。     

农业产业组织模式的交易关系与治理机制——基于肉牛养殖企业的多案例分析

目的 农业产业组织模式是农业产业化发展的重要制度载体,考察企业控制型农业产业组织模式初期的合作问题,为助推小农户与现代农业融合发展具有重要意义。方法 文章以畜牧业生产加工企业为研究对象,通过采用多案例研究法,构建“交易特性—交易关系—治理机制”分析框架,探讨不同交易特性的农业企业与其他经营主体的交易关系与治理机制。结果 不同交易特性的农业企业与其他经营主体形成了不同联结程度的交易关系;在交易关系发展的不同阶段,其匹配的治理机制也有所改变,大多为复合治理机制且关系治理机制存在于多种交易关系中;准纵向一体化模式中要素契约治理机制和关系治理机制,有利于锁定双边的专用性资产投资,构建多元经营主体的长效利益联结机制。结论 政府需要不断优化农产品交易关系的制度环境、大力扶持与农户存在“乡土”关联的农业企业、加强农户自身能力建设。     

Transaction costs in milk marketing: a comparison between Canada and Great Britain

This study measures the magnitude of transaction costs incurred by milk producers in their contractual relations with dairy processors in two different coordination mechanisms: centralized contracting through a marketing board and decentralized bilateral contracting. Interviews and surveys were conducted to estimate transaction costs faced by producers marketing through the Québec milk marketing board in Canada and bilateral contracts in England and Wales in the United Kingdom using the measurement methodology of the cost of exchange. Our results show that the relative magnitude of transaction costs incurred by producers across both settings is quite low, which indicates that both hybrid coordination mechanisms minimize transaction costs in the dairy sector. However, results from the bilateral contracting setting indicate a strong heterogeneity of transaction costs levels among farmers. In that respect, the milk marketing board and its institutional setting would act as a collective insurance, pooling transaction costs and sharing them among producers. Our analysis leads to recommendations on bilateral contracting.     

Cost-benefit analysis of the Dutch nature policy: Transaction costs and land market impacts

This paper analyses the financial and economic costs and benefits of the large scale National Ecological Network (NEN) nature conservation project in the Netherlands, taking into account transaction costs and land market impacts of different institutional arrangements. The net financial costs associated with achieving the current plan are equivalent with an annual amount €876 per hectare. Of the costs, transaction costs amount about 16% or €140 per hectare. The substantive land purchases involved in the plan will lead to land price increase of 20%. Nature management by agriculture turns out to be a relatively cheap option.     

成都市幸福村土地综合整治中的治理结构改善研究

研究目的：以成都市幸福村为例,在分析土地综合整治中治理结构变化的基础上,解释治理结构改善的原因。研究方法：采用自主治理理论对土地综合整治中的制度创新进行实证分析。研究结果：新型自治组织对传统组织既有替代又有补充作用,能够降低交易成本,并改善社区自主治理结构,保证自主治理效率;社区参与治理,改变了政府或市场的治理模式,提高了制度绩效。研究结论：鼓励社区自主治理发展,选择政府、市场与社区在各自领域内协同配置资源的治理模式,有助于保障农民权益,降低社会风险和促进城乡统筹。     

电商采纳与农民合作社内部信任

电商采纳使合作社被嵌入进新资源与技术环境之中。在电商情境下,合作社电商采纳通过提升社员与合作社交易忠诚度、增多社员与合作社交易环节来增强合作社内部人际信任;通过增强社员对信息技术的信任、促进合作社推广新型农业技术来增强合作社内部技术信任;通过促进合作社完善制度建设、建立公平机制来增强合作社制度信任。人际信任、技术信任和制度信任构成了合作社稳定的信任“三角架构”,建构了合作社内部信任的混合治理机制,其中,技术信任起到调节作用,其在有效促进人际信任向制度信任转化的同时,既能避免人际信任浓度被过分稀释,又能保障在合作社信任结构中制度信任的演进方向。     

乡村振兴的共建共治共享路径研究

厘清乡村振兴的主体及实现路径问题,可以避免乡村振兴出现重大导向性偏差。本文在评述政府主导、资本主导和农民自主三种路径面临困境基础上,提出应以习近平“共建共治共享”社会治理理论引领乡村振兴。在阐释习近平“共建共治共享”社会治理理论后,构建了一个乡村振兴与共建共治共享内在关联的理论分析框架,回答了乡村振兴的本质属性“是什么”、乡村振兴“为什么”需要共建共治共享、乡村振兴“怎么”进行共建共治共享的问题。然后以明月村为例,阐明了普通乡村在特定的经济与制度条件下通过共建共治共享走上振兴之路的现实可行性。本文认为,乡村振兴应以增进农民福祉为导向,但从实现路径上不应只依靠农民,多元主体共建共治共享至关重要。现阶段实施乡村振兴战略,关键是抓住城市化带动消费升级的历史机遇,健全城乡融合的体制机制,构建一套可操作的共建共治共享机制,让城市化辐射到的乡村以市场方式率先振兴起来,同时把节约的财力转移给城市化辐射不到的乡村进行保底建设。     

乡村政策动员中的“权力——技术”及其影响

在基层治理现代化背景下,乡镇政权对村干部的政策动员,开始由激励机制、压力机制转向责任机制。乡镇政府面对财权与事权不匹配现实,渐次倚重对制度性资源的技术化调配,塑造乡村"责任共同体"关系,推进政策落地。乡村政策动员中体制性吸纳、组织化协调、技术性约束和伦理化调适等权力—技术支配机制,虽可借助组织内责任关联纽带提高政策动员与执行效率,但该"权力的技术支配网络"同时也容易带来乡村治理的悬浮化、去政治化与泛政治化等"行政消解治理"问题。由此,乡村政策动员应警惕过于强化制度的工具性价值,重新发掘其治理内涵与社会价值,实现乡村治理"治术"与"治道"的平衡。     

Rural Development Programmes and Transaction Effects: Reflections on Maltese and English Experience

New institutional economics, and transaction effects in particular, are highly relevant to public policy performance. The evolution of EU rural development policy has generated both increasing complexity and increased transaction costs. However, this policy evolution also creates opportunities for improvement of policy process management. The paper considers these opportunities in the case of Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) under Pillar 2 of the CAP. We examine the influence of transaction effects on RDP performance, based on direct experience of RDP review and planning in England and Malta, where qualitative evidence of ‘transaction benefits’ is identified. Benefits occur when exchange processes are designed in ways that generate positive returns beyond the immediate transaction, which can outweigh short‐term costs. We conclude that more attention to these aspects of policy design is warranted in future rural development programming and evaluation.     

林业专业合作社集体行动研究

以福建省三明市尤溪县上源村林业专业合作社为例,基于制度分析与发展框架(IAD)分析林业专业合作社的形成、治理模式,结合行动情境内部的7个规则变量,探究林业专业合作社内部集体行动形成过程。结果表明:上源村林业专业合作社内部集体行动水平受行动情境内部7个规则变量的影响,并在这7个规则的联合作用机制下形成了较高水平的集体行动,有效发挥了林业资源的生态价值、经济价值和社会价值;在林业专业合作社内部集体行动形成过程中,边界规则确定了林业专业合作社资源与成员规模,身份规则决定了林业专业合作社成员的职能,范围规则、选择规则、偿付规则和信息规则决定了林业专业合作社成员的权利、收益、成本和监督水平,聚合规则提高了林业专业合作社成员对集体行动决策的控制水平。     

Adapting governance for coastal change in Portugal

In many countries, but particularly in Portugal, coastal conditions are already endangered by flooding and erosion, both likely to increase as a result of climate change. This daunting prospect raises critical questions of sustainability; social justice; genuine public participation and social learning; effective financing for long term social and economic benefit; connected polycentric governance; and the appropriate use of scientific knowledge bonded to public and political trust. While the development of most shorelines is nominally shaped by public administrative action, rapid coastal migration and excessive economic concentration have turned many threatened coastlines into a stage for settlement hazard and institutional chaos. In Portugal, despite clear evidence of increasing flooding and erosion, appropriate management responses are proving inadequate, both in the turbulent planning framework and in the scarce financial provision for future safeguard. The only plausible alternatives seem to lie in the processes of progressive adaptive governance, involving the trust and full participation of local communities; strongly supported scientific assessments of threat and safety; and fresh approaches to finding suitable funding sources. However, as evident from interviews with key actors in coastal planning in Portugal, the lack of policy clarity and political will, the weak science and poor coordination of stakeholders, combined with the particular regenerating coastal cultures of these communities, make any organised adaptive approaches highly problematic. This consequently places more emphasis on the rich cultural meanings of coastal occupation; of national identity in a time of economic crisis; of social justice in a period of reduced coastal maintenance funding; and of a more measured and sequential approach to an adaptive coastal governance.     

The Effects of Transaction Costs,Power and Risk on Contractual Arrangements: A Conceptual Framework for Quantitative Analysis

Increased reliance on commercial traders in liberalised agricultural markets poses questions about the nature of contractual relations between traders and farmers; about welfare, efficiency and equity characteristics of these relations; and about conditions necessary for traders to engage in these markets. A new institutional economics analysis seeks to understand the institutions that affect transaction costs and risks for each party, and power relations between them. Transaction cost analysis has not, however, developed a unifying conceptual or quantitative framework to integrate these issues. This paper develops a methodology for modelling negotiated choice of contractual arrangements in buyer/seller relationships, taking account of the socioeconomic characteristics of each party, economic and technical characteristics of the commodity, and the institutional environment. The model is setup as a non‐linear programming problem. The approach provides a framework for the application of transaction cost economics to quantitative empirical study of markets, to individual firms' supply chain decisions, and to the analysis of policy interventions in markets.     

The Cost Effects of Government‐Subsidised Credit: Evidence from Farmers’ Credit Unions in Taiwan

We investigate government‐subsidised credit effects on participating financial institutions’ performance in terms of cost efficiency. Using farmers’ credit unions in Taiwan as an example, we find that credit unions’ cost inefficiency is positively correlated with the extent of involvement in subsidy programmes. The results are robust to the control of local competition and labour quality. In addition to the stochastic frontier models from which we obtain the main results, we also propose a new distribution‐free estimation method based on quantile regressions. Results of this study point out that, when evaluating the social costs of the credit programmes, it is important to take into account the efficiency loss generated among financial intermediaries by credit subsidy programmes.     

How do planners manage risk in alternative land development models? An institutional analysis of land development in the Netherlands

While risk is a key concern in property development, it tends to be discussed by planners only relative to the effects of regulatory planning on private sector risk. Yet planning encompasses a broad range of activities that go beyond its function of regulating private sector development. Despite active approaches to land development being commonly used across different planning contexts, frameworks for analysing public sector strategies to address risk are rarely discussed. We attempt to redress this deficit by investigating the actions of public sector development actors with regard to risk across three different land development models: public land development, land development by public-private partnership, and land readjustment. Using recent Dutch experience, we conduct an institutional analysis of each land development model in order to highlight the effects of alternative governance structures on risk as a particular transaction attribute, from the perspective of public sector planning. Our findings indicate the importance of highlighting the role of public risk in alternative models of land development where there may be a tendency to adopt institutional arrangements without due regard to this, and point to possible future applications of institutional analysis at the particular, rather than the general, level.     

Private Insurance Company Involvement in the U.S. Crop Insurance Program

The participation of intermediaries in either public policy or private markets can be justified on the basis of efficiency gains. With respect to private insurance companies and the crop insurance program, efficiency gains may arise from either decreased transaction costs through better established delivery channels and/or the revelation of asymmetric information. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that delivery costs are excessive and it appears that for political economy reasons, rates have and will not be adjusted in response to new information. In conclusion, the value-added of private insurance companies is questioned in light of the current political economy and thus should serve as a caution to other countries wishing to emulate the U.S. system.     

Increasing returns,individuality and use of the common pool

A model of monopolistic competition is suggested to study common‐pool resource use. Individuals extract an input from the pool to produce a consumption good under decreasing average costs. The equilibrium output and population sizes are obtained under two types of usage conjectures. Somewhat counter‐intuitively, a cooperative equilibrium results in a larger population of harvesters but lower welfare than the noncooperative one. Some degree of population heterogeneity helps minimise the welfare gap between the two equilibria, but the size of heterogeneity may be a determinant if the resource pool becomes subsequently depleted. The model's potential for policy analysis is illustrated by considering how governance via institutional arrangements and transaction costs may be incorporated and inferred.     

基于交易成本理论的森林碳汇交易研究

以新制度经济学交易费用理论为基础,把森林碳汇项目交易成本分为事前交易及事后交易成本,并细分为8项成本费用。通过分析各项交易成本的影响因子,建立了森林碳汇交易成本的函数关系式,并在交易成本框架下指出了森林碳汇服务项目交易过程存在的问题,据此提出了降低交易成本的途径。     

Catalysing global and local social change in the land sector through technical innovation by the United Nations and the Global Land Tool Network

Two thirds of the world’s 6 billion tenures are not part of formal governance arrangements. UN-Habitat facilitated the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) partners to develop pro poor land tools between 2006–2015 to help to fill gaps in the conventional land administration systems. Through the lens of the United Nations (UN) working with a global network, the problem being addressed is about how to develop a pro poor Geographic Information System (GIS) in a way that can lead to changes in power relations in parts of the global land industry; and so that people in some poor communities can have their land rights supported by land documents and digital data. The history of the development of the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM), elucidates the social change approaches that can contribute to the alteration of land-related power relations from global to local levels. The explanatory power of soft systems methodology, linked to global network governance approaches, including the indirect governance approach of orchestration with, and through, intermediaries, is used. This contributes to sociological understanding about what is involved in bringing about social change in global networked environments linked to the UN in regard to technical innovations.