Behavioral Incentives, Equilibrium Endemic Disease, and Health Management Policy for Farmed Animals

The article develops a dynamic capital valuation model in which farms can act with farm-varying cost to increase the probability of avoiding an infectious endemic animal disease. Multiple endemic disease equilibria can exist, and the one with the largest set of action takers is socially optimal. Costly capital markets are shown to be a factor in determining the extent of disease. Frictions, such as dealing with a veterinary public health bureaucracy, can enhance social welfare by encouraging precautionary biosecurity actions. Technical innovations can reduce social welfare, and a disease indemnification scheme is also studied. Suggestions for empirical implementation are provided.     

Asymmetric Information,Externalities and Incentives in Animal Disease Prevention and Control

Incentives influence behaviour while an understanding of farmer behaviour facilitates the control and prevention of infectious livestock disease. This paper lays out several perspectives on how information problems and other externalities affect biosecurity incentives. We use the principal–agent framework to examine livestock disease management in the presence of potential moral hazard and adverse selection. Moral hazard may apply to biosecurity decisions while adverse selection may apply to disease reporting. The example of compensation policies illustrates the importance of creating appropriate incentives: compensation must be sufficient to ensure early reporting but not so large as to discourage appropriate levels of biosecurity effort. Other cases of externalities are more diffuse than those modelled using principal–agent analysis, placing emphasis on third‐party effects and coordination problems. Three examples are provided. One concerns free‐riding when facing an endemic disease pool that can be managed by limiting sources and flows. Another regards coordination failure when securing against an exotic disease where farmer efforts complement and communicating actions are important. The last arises from absence of a risk market where an adverse infrastructural support externality could be managed by disease outbreak insurance.     

建立天西林区野生动物疫源疫病监测预警体系的思考

通过对新疆天山西部林区野生动物疫源疫病监测现状的研究，提出为了保障人民群众健康，维护社会公共卫生安全，天西林区应尽快建立野生动物疫源疫病监测预警体系，采取将监测“哨位”前移到疫病源头；建立动物疫病长效防控机制，彻底阻断病毒传播；健全预防体制，从动物疫病的源头上加大防治力度；加强湿地保护，重建候鸟与人的隔离带等措施。     

民国时期苏、浙、皖三省畜禽饲养数探讨

江苏、浙江、安徽是我国近代农村经济较发达地区，但其畜牧业究竟如何?所反映农村经济状况如何?问津者极少。笔者通过查阅大量资料，不仅对该三省民国时期畜禽饲养数统计资料进行汇集、整理和分析，对不合理的数据进行校正；而且还对这些畜禽饲养数统计资料进行初步分析，为我们进一步研究民国时期苏、浙、皖三省畜牧业及其农村经济发展奠定基础。     

土地托管、规模经营与生产技术效率 ——来自山东省小麦种植户的证据

研究目的：基于山东省小麦种植户调查数据，以田间管理环节为例，探究土地托管通过规模经营对技术效率产生的影响，为更好地发挥出土地托管在推进粮食产业高质量发展中的重要作用提供参考。研究方法：得分倾向匹配模型与IV-Tobit模型等。研究结果：（1）土地托管通过形成适度服务规模对技术效率产生影响：田间管理托管服务规模与技术效率之间呈现“倒U型”关系，当服务规模在2～<13.33 hm2时，相比于农户自主经营具有提升技术效率的优势；使技术效率最大化的田间管理服务适度规模为7.5 hm2；托管中采纳绿色高效技术能够整体向上提升技术效率水平。（2）土地托管也会通过与农户土地规模相作用对技术效率产生影响：通过适度服务规模对技术效率的直接提升效用偏向于土地规模较大的农户；通过土地流入对技术效率的间接提升效用在较小规模农户中更为显著。研究结论：（1）发展土地托管应强调服务主体的适度服务规模，着力推进土地连片化；（2）运用绿色高效技术和机械有助于提升服务主体田间托管作业质量；（3）注重适度服务规模与适度土地规模之间的良性互动，在推进农业服务规模化的过程中也要满足小农户土地流转的需求。     

Reputations, Market Structure, and the Choice of Quality Assurance Systems in the Food Industry

Many food traits desired by consumers are costly to provide and difficult to verify. A complicating factor is that delivered quality can only be affected stochastically by producers and imperfectly observed by consumers. Markets for these goods will emerge only if supplying firms can be trusted. We develop a repeated purchases model to explore how quality discoverability, market structure, nature of reputations, market premiums, and discount factors drive firm choice about the stringency of quality assurance systems designed to gain consumer trust. Reputation protection is key incentive for firms to invest in high-quality goods and quality assurance systems.     

尼日利亚翁多州和奥贡州小农油用棕榈生产改良技术采用的限制因素分析

虽然尼日利亚在油用棕榈的生产上具有许多有利条件，但是产量仍然呈下降的趋势。本文重点要考察的是，尼日利亚西部农民采用新技术来提高油用棕榈产量的限制因素。研究的数据来源于对翁多州和奥贡州的115户油用棕榈生产者的随机抽样。预调查和可信的问卷保证了分析的可信性。在调查的农民当中，大约有88％的农民年龄在30-59岁之间；男性所占比例为87％；有53％农民的耕地面积不足2公顷，81.7％的农民耕地面积不足4公顷。数据还显示，有70．5％的农民受过一种正规或其他种类形式的教育，只有13．9％的农民是没有受过正规教育的文盲。但是他们仍然因缺乏资金、生产成本高、收入水平低和获取土地困难等因素而难以提高产量和采用新技术。从结果的显著程度来看，只有教育水平的影响最显著，其他如农民年龄、性别和农场规模都不显著。基于以上分析，政府应该恢复对农业投入的补贴，尤其是在油用棕榈的生产上。要为生产油用棕榈的农民提供短期无息贷款或长期贷款。最后，政府还要把在油用棕榈生产带上大量的未被充分利用的土地，分配到有能力和有兴趣种植油用棕榈的农民手中。     

Rice Production,Trade and the Poor: Regional Effects of Rice Export Policy on Households in Vietnam

Analysing Vietnam's rice export policy and recent export ban in the context of rising food prices, this study combines insights from a regionally‐disaggregated or ‘bottom‐up’ CGE model and a micro‐simulation using household data. Three main conclusions are drawn. First, although there is little impact on GDP, there are substantial distributional impacts across regions and households from different export policies and market conditions. Second, both rural and urban households, including poor households, benefit from free trade, even though domestic rice prices are higher. Finally, under free trade, relatively large gains accrue to rural households, where poverty is most pervasive in Vietnam.