Railways and the Exploitation of Victoria's Forests, 1880s–1920s

Railways made a large contribution to the expansion of Victoria's economy, and in the process enabled and drove environmental change. This article focuses on one industry, forestry. It first examines railway demand for timber in construction and maintenance, particularly for sleepers. This demand caused tensions – a bitter dispute in the 1890s between the Railways Department and the Conservator of Forests, George Perrin, over timber cut on state land led to uneasy co-existence after the turn of the century. Railways not only required timber but also carried commercial quantities in bulk, providing forest industries with access to profitable markets – in particular firewood, the significance of which has been underappreciated previously. Forest products contributed substantially to railway revenue, representing a more stable source of income than other major categories of freight such as wheat, wool, and coal.     

Environmental Efficiency and the Optimal Size of Chinese Cities

The spatial distribution of population and economic activities has important impacts on both economic growth and the environment. This paper uses a slack‐based measure to estimate the total factor environmental efficiency (TFEE) of 286 Chinese prefectural‐and‐above cities for the period 2002–2013. In particular, the relationship between city size and TFEE is investigated. The findings also show an inverted U‐shaped relationship between TFEE and city size, which implies an optimal city size of 16.68 million residents in China. According to this estimate, most Chinese cities may be undersized due to the migration restrictions of the hukou registration system and, hence, suffer from great environmental efficiency losses. The estimated low average TFEE value of Chinese cities also suggests the large potential for efficiency improvement. Thus, government policies should focus on relaxing migration restrictions and encouraging the development of large cities.     

关于重庆市环保产业发展现状的分析与思考

当前重庆市环保产业正处于快速成长时期,寻求更加完善的产业发展模式并加紧实施是当务之急。本文通过分析世界环保产业的发展形势和重庆市环保产业的发展现状,在借鉴发达国家先进环保经验的基础上,针对目前重庆市环保产业发展中存在的环保投资和产业结构不合理、产业经济规模小、技术开发滞后等问题,提出了合理调整产业结构、实行中小企业联合与兼并、大力发展低碳经济示范区等适合重庆市环保产业发展的对策性建议。     

‘FORGING,AHEAD’: INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSFORMATION IN A MELBOURNE SUBURB 1906–85

The trajectory of the suburb Sunshine in Western Melbourne (1906–85), from industrial powerhouse to repository of social problems, sheds light on the issues surrounding organic urban expansion. For the many Australians living on the fringes of large cities, a sense of deprivation – particularly inequality in services – undercut the presumed comfort and stability of the post‐war period. Unrest in outer areas deepened following the contraction of the ‘long boom’. The area's pre‐Second World War origins as a manufacturing suburb regulated by the industrialist Hugh V. McKay is starkly contrasted with its later incarnation as a site of industrial and suburban sprawl.     

The Spillover Effects of Environmental Regulations: A Perspective of Chinese Unregulated Firms' Tax Burden

Previous studies focus on the direct impacts of environmental regulations while paying less attention to spillover effects. Taking the Eleventh Five-year Plan in China as a quasi-natural experiment, our results show that environmental regulations significantly increase the tax burden of unregulated firms. Environmental regulations generate spillover effects on firms that should not be subjected to regulatory policies. Further channel analysis shows that the fiscal pressure of local governments caused by environmental regulations is a major channel for the increase in the tax burden of unregulated firms. Finally, according to the heterogeneity results, the spillover effects are more pronounced in small firms, non-state-owned enterprises, and provinces with stricter enforcement. Our findings emphasize the additional costs of environmental policies, and the government should consider these costs when formulating policies.     

Deal with it! The emergence and reversal of an agro-ecological crisis,Southern Sweden in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

The European Early Modern period provides examples of stagnating and even declining production and energy consumption per capita, which can be interpreted as indicators of an emerging crisis. With a focus on agriculture sector, some have suggested that the crisis was ‘conditional’ – meaning that a crisis can only be observed in some cases. This article investigates one such case, a village in Southern Sweden during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and investigates the mechanisms that mediate population growth to deteriorating living standards and environmental degradation. It provides new insights into the conditions of pre-industrial agriculture, particularly as regards the consequences of intensified demand pressure in ecologically fragile areas, and argues that human societies must be studied in tandem with their natural surroundings.     

AUSTRALIA'S SMOKE CITY: AIR POLLUTION IN NEWCASTLE

The City of Newcastle has been viewed as marginal to the main narratives of Australian history, despite its contribution to industrial development being likened in importance to that of a Pittsburgh or Birmingham. A focus on visible air pollution makes it possible to reposition Newcastle as the centre of environmental innovation, largely because of the knowledge gathered by Novocastrians about smoke abatement in the Anglo-American industrial cities upon which it modelled itself. The reduction of smoke in Newcastle since World War II is attributed partially to the City Council activities, but also to the displacement of pollution elsewhere, both within Australia and to the Asian cities to which coal is exported.     

THE ECONOMICS AND ORGANISATION OF CHINESE MINING IN COLONIAL AUSTRALIA

This article describes Chinese mining in colonial Australia using the examples of gold mining in southern New South Wales (NSW) and the Northern Territory as well as tin mining in northern NSW. Chinese miners were often more successful than their European counterparts. One reason for this success was the effective use that the Chinese made of large cooperative groups, a particularly efficient way to work a mining claim. Earlier studies of Chinese mining in Australia chiefly chronicled the racism and violence experienced by the Chinese and underestimated their significant economic contribution. Reasserting their economic importance challenges an exclusive focus on race.     

BLASTING OUT: EXPLOSIVES PRACTICES IN QUEENSLAND METALLIFEROUS MINES, 1870–1920

The use of explosives in mines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was notoriously unsafe. In Queensland's underground metalliferous mines, explosive practices could be dangerous not only because of the attitudes of miners and managers, but because of problems inherent to the technology, conditions underground, economic fluctuations, and the persistence of outmoded practices. Some limited specialisation of labour occurred in the interests of safety, and although newer technology had the potential to deskill the work of miners, these developments were quite dissimilar to the highly specialised work practices that were adopted for large-scale mining in the United States during the same period.     

基于波特假说的绿色创新激励研究

波特假说颠覆了传统经济学关于环境保护问题的理论框架,从一个全新视角解释了环境规制、技术创新和竞争力之间的互动关系。本文基于波特假说及其主要争议,通过分析不同时期下外部环境成本一收益变化,判断环境规制是否在强、弱绿色创新激励作用下为企业带来竞争优势。同时比较了两种互异且相辅相成的规制政策类型,旨在形成适宜、灵活的政策工具组合,以更好地激励企业开展绿色创新。     

关于环境绩效审计若干问题的思考

环境绩效审计是环境审计、绩效审计的最新发展阶段,本文在对环境审计以及绩效审计研究的发展和现状综述以后,重点论述环境绩效审计的对象、内容、方法、难点以及实施环境绩效审计应树立的理念创新问题。     

环境规制对工业企业绿色创新效率的影响——基于空间杜宾模型的实证分析

对我国省域工业企业绿色创新效率的测算和财政分权条件下不同环境规制对企业绿色创新效率影响的分析表明,工业企业绿色创新效率具有明显的正向空间集聚效应,财政分权对工业企业绿色创新效率存在显著的抑制作用,不同环境规制工具存在明显差异,财政分权和环境规制的交互效应在“行政命令型”环境规制中尤为显著。不同地区的环境规制以及与财政分权的交互效应具有显著的区域异质性。我国应优化财政分权制度与地方官员绩效考核评价体系,充分考虑环境规制工具与地方财政分权的交互效应,在不同区域选择不同的环境规制工具,制定跨区域的环境规制政策,发挥东部地区绿色创新的优势,进一步完善中西部地区的绿色创新补偿机制。     

我国企业投资区位决策模型构建研究——基于地方政府博弈的视角

我国存在资源禀赋、环境规制、产业政策的区际差异,这些差异对企业投资区位决策会产生哪些影响?为了研究地方政府在兼顾地区经济增长、产业转型升级与生态环境保护中如何科学引导企业投资区位决策,文章构建了企业投资区位决策分析模型,理论分析了基于地方政府资源禀赋、环境规制和产业政策支持博弈的企业投资区位决策过程。并运用2005-2012年30个省级面板数据对理论模型分析结果进行了实证检验,实证与理论分析结果相符合。最后从增强区位禀赋优势、弱化区际环境规制差异、强化政府公共服务职能、鼓励企业技术创新提出了优化企业投资区位决策的对策建议。     

跨国公司绿色战略及对中国的影响

跨国公司绿色战略的选择受到企业内外部若干因素的影响,跨国公司在发展中东道国的绿色战略对本土企业的环境行为和东道国的环境规制都产生影响.在已有环境管理文献基础上,文章提出跨国公司在我国设立子公司和建立全球价值链有利于提高我国企业环境管理水平和环境规制的改善.     

For Better or for Worse? Local Impacts of the Decentralization of Indonesia’s Forest Sector

This paper quantifies the local impacts of mechanized logging on forest-dependent communities in Indonesia, before and after decentralization. A conceptual framework incorporates financial, social, enforcement, rent-seeking, and environmental impacts. Using data from 60 communities in East Kalimantan, the empirical results suggest that significantly more households received financial and in-kind benefits after decentralization compared to before. Many communities engaged in self-enforcement activities against firms both before and after decentralization. Post-decentralization, a significantly higher proportion of households perceived community forest ownership. There were few significant differences in perceived environmental impacts. Little evidence exists of a post-decentralization trade-off between environmental and financial contractual provisions.     

MINERS' COTTAGES

The major visual reminder of Victoria's nineteenth-century gold rushes is the thousands of miners' cottages, which remain a significant part of the housing stock of former mining towns. This article traces the evolution of these modest structures that were adopted to solve the pressing problem of providing affordable and quickly constructed housing for gold miners once the alluvial rushes were over. Simple construction methods combined with cheap land on which to build allowed miners to construct and own their own homes to an extent not achieved elsewhere by manual workers in the developing world in the nineteenth century.     

能源消费与环境污染对经济增长的影响分析——基于空间面板模型的实证研究

文章运用空间误差模型,考察了2000-2012年中国大陆各个省际区域能源消费、环境污染与经济增长的关系。研究表明:中国区域能源消费、环境污染与经济增长存在明显的空间自相关性,不同省份间的经济增长率空间集聚分布规律明显;考察期内的能源消费、环境污染对经济增长呈现正相关性;四种空间关系均会对经济增长及其空间相关性产生影响,其中几何中心距离关系影响最为明显;模型均显示出区域间的正向相关,而以空间固定时间不固定效应相关性最高。据此提出要结合区域间的能源禀赋、环境约束等实行差异化的政策,以保证能源、环境与经济的正向互动与协调发展。     

Enhancing small,medium and micro enterprise development: Exploring selective interventions by the Lesotho government

Through a survey conducted among 219 businesses in Lesotho, this paper reports small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) owners' and managers' perceptions of strategies implemented by the government to enhance SMME development, as well as identify shortcomings, if any. It was ascertained that although there are a number of initiatives – inter alia, the creation of a ‘one-stop shop’ to simplify the procedures required for registering an enterprise – the respondents perceive that operating informally is the alternate solution, the consequence being possible loss of taxes by the government which impacts on economic growth. It also became evident that access to finance is still a hurdle to SMME establishment in Lesotho. SMMEs also find taxes too high and are therefore compelled to declare false turnover figures, to avoid being taxed or to pay minimum taxes. The findings of this research could assist SMMEs since there will be greater awareness of the initiatives by the Lesotho government to develop the sector.     

我国上市公司环境会计信息披露研究

企业的环境信息披露作为连接环境保护和经济活动的纽带,应该为推进环保事业的发展做出贡献。而随着企业生产经营活动对环境产生的负面影响越来越严重,也更凸显了企业披露环境信息的重要性与紧迫性。文章对我国环境信息披露进行了动因分析,从理论、法律法规、实务方面对我国上市公司环境会计信息披露的现状及存在的问题进行了分析,并针对目前我国企业在披露环境会计信息过程中存在的许多亟待解决的问题,提出了几点思考和措施,以促进和完善环境会计信息披露。