Use of Public Perceptions of Groundwater Quality Benefits in Developing Livestock Management Options

In this study, a dichotomous choice model is used to determine the compensating welfare measure for water quality improvements stemming from livestock waste management in the Abbotsford region of southwestern British Columbia. The benefits of improving water quality are compared with the net costs of composting manure on a large scale, the option for handling livestock wastes preferred by the provincial government. The results indicate that the costs of composting manure exceed the revenue from selling manure (compost) plus the off-site damages avoided.     

COMMERCIAL FORESTS IN SCOTLAND: AN ECONOMIC APPRAISAL OF REPLANTING

The economic returns from replanting commercial forests are estimated using an investment model which links physical resource information with economic data, including appropriate monetised values for the major non-market benefits such as recreation and carbon storage. The area and location of sites in Scotland which are uneconomic, i.e. forests, which if replanted with commercial crops, would fail to achieve the current government target rate of return of 6%, are identified. Depending on the values and assumptions used, between 12% (105,000 ha) and 48% (532,500 ha) of existing forests were found to be uneconomic. Because data on the water resource costs of commercial forests are not available and the higher biodiversity value of natural regeneration could not be included in the opportunity cost of land, these percentages are likely to be lower-bound estimates. On the grounds of economic efficiency, abandonment to natural regeneration is the most appropriate land use for these sites, but this might be considered undesirable because of land management considerations. Modified grant payments for natural regeneration under the Woodland Grant Scheme to ensure delivery of enhanced non-market benefits through judicious management and silviculture are suggested. Cautious implementation of this new policy is, however, recommended while further research on the physical suitability of sites for natural regeneration is carried out. More work is also needed to value the non-use benefits of different forest types.     

基于成本效益分析的地膜回收政策研究——以甘肃省景泰县为例

[目的]地膜是农业生产的重要物质资料之一,但地膜残留却极易造成严重的环境外部性影响。需提出合适的政策选择,协调农业短期经营行为与农业可持续发展的矛盾,纠正市场失灵。[方法]遵循成本效益原则,构建地膜回收的成本效益分析框架。基于地膜使用、回收的私人成本和私人收益,判断农户的行为逻辑;基于地膜使用、回收的社会成本和社会收益,提出政府的策略选择。[结果]在甘肃景泰的案例中,短期经营主体追求个人利益最大化,最优选择是保持更低的地膜捡拾率。政府代表长期经营者的利益,最优选择是引导农户到达更高的地膜捡拾率。当前,景泰5元/kg的残膜回收价格对短期经营主体产生的激励作用较为有限。[结论]地膜残留属环境外部性问题,问题的解决依赖于政府干预。政策手段的选择,应根据管理对象的不同有所差异,考虑政策的执行成本、可行性和公平性。建议政府依据"污染者付费原则",强化对规模较大的短期经营主体的行政约束;向分散小农户提供地膜捡拾方面的公共服务。     

SOCIAL COSTS OF REGULATION OF PRIMARY INDUSTRY: AN APPLICATION TO ANIMAL WELFARE REGULATION OF THE VICTORIAN PIG INDUSTRY*

The effects of state government regulation of primary industry are modelled. An analytical framework is presented for estimating the costs of regulation in terms of changes in economic surplus. The model permits trade between regions of the total market. An illustrative application of the framework is applied to proposed animal welfare regulation of the Victorian pig industry. Some regulations that may provide large gains with regard to the welfare of farm animals involve only small social costs compared to the gross value of production of the industry. Conversely, other regulations that potentially confer only small gains in animal welfare impose large social costs. The distribution of these costs is important. In general, consumers lose, as do some producers. Other producers gain. In some cases, producers in aggregate gain from regulation. Major beneficiaries, such as advocates of animal welfare regulations, are likely to bear little of the cost of regulation.     

发达地区农户被征地意愿及其影响因素 ——基于苏州农户调查的实证研究

研究目的：对发达地区农户征地意愿及其影响因素进行分析。研究方法：结合苏州市调研数据,建立Logistic回归模型,定量分析影响农户征地意愿的因素。研究结果：农户征地意愿受到诸多因素的共同作用和影响,不仅包括家庭政治结构、家庭非农收入比例等,对征地后生活水平的预期、打工机会的预期、自主经营条件的预期以及社会治安条件的预期都会对农户征地意愿产生影响。研究结论：政府在征地过程中应该尽可能充分保护农户的利益,同时从就业培训、完善失地农民养老保险等多途径完善征地补偿机制,优化征地行为,为征地后农民可持续生计提供充分保障。     

The social cost of labor in rural development: job creation benefits re-examined

Job creation effects are examined as they would apply to social analysis of rural development programming by public or private sector agencies. A synthesis and critique are provided of approaches to valuing the social opportunity cost of labor. These approaches vary according to whether or not unemployment is present in the pre‐project state and according to whether or not there is interregional migration in response to project hiring. Graphical, partial equilibrium analysis illustrates why, in general, job creation and project employment give rise to social costs, not benefits. The magnitude of these social costs is shown to depend upon the presence of payroll taxes, wage subsidies and unemployment, in addition to the market's supply and demand elasticities. These social costs may be reduced or offset in specific instances where projects increase the value of labor's productivity or reduce its costs, such as with job training, worker mobility and skill development projects. Careful attention to these approaches can help society choose correctly among alternative development proposals and among alternative (labor‐intensive versus capital‐intensive) technologies.     

“绿水青山”建设时代退耕还湿问题博弈分析

以博弈论为分析工具,以信息的完备性为分断点,基于退耕还湿政策的有效性趋势,分别从委托-代理与讨价还价两种模型对"绿水青山"建设时代退耕还湿主体的策略选择进行讨论,并从无限重复博弈分析中归纳合作的可能性。研究表明:无论从何种机制进行探讨,农户和政府的合作是必然和有效的;从主体角度分析,推进退耕还湿能促进参与主体互利。因此,建议加大补偿弹性与优化惩罚机制并重、工作透明化与补偿多元化相结合、普及湿地潜在价值以让农户更注重长远利益,为退耕还湿推广和实施、湿地恢复和保护提供理论借鉴。     

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF RESEARCH INTO TRADED GOODS: THE CASE OF AUSTRALIAN WOOL

The final incidence of benefits and costs of wool industry research and development (R&D) undertaken in Australia depends greatly on the nature of the R&D and the way it is funded. Using preferred parameter values, the Australian share of benefits from farm-level R&D is 58 per cent (falling to 40 per cent if there is 50 per cent adoption of the new technology by producers overseas); the Australian shares of benefits from wool-processing R&D ere 24 per cent (topmaking) and 27 per cent (textile-processing). Under current funding arrangements, an Australian wool tax provides about one-eighth of total R&D funds, a matching government grant provides another one-eighth, and other public sector funds make up the remaining three-quarters. Under these arrangements, the final incidence of the costs is 95 per cent on Australians (mostly taxpayers at large), and the wool industry bears only 12.5 per cent of the costs of its R&D. One implication is that a wool tax alone is a more equitable and efficient means of financing wool-industry R&D than the current arrangements.     

Assessing the trade‐offs of increased mining activity in the Surat Basin,Queensland: preferences of Brisbane residents using nonmarket valuation techniques

The mining boom in Australia since 2003 has produced significant economic benefits for regional, State and National economies, creating new job opportunities and revenue flows. Despite the contribution of the resources sector to economic growth, questions are frequently raised about the concomitant negative social, economic and environmental impacts. The Surat Basin in southern Queensland is a traditional agricultural region with a small but growing coal mining sector and a rapidly developing liquefied natural gas industry (mainly associated with extracting coal seam gas). In this paper, the preferences of residents in Brisbane, the State capital, are explored in relation to the relative importance of social, economic and environmental impacts of the resource boom in the Surat Basin. A choice modelling experiment was conducted to assess the trade‐offs Brisbane residents would make (in monetary terms) between the economic benefits and the associated costs of increased mining activity on local communities. The results identify the strength of concerns about community and environmental impacts and can potentially be used to help evaluate the net benefits of resource development.     

乌江流域水电移民安置冲突的合作博弈分析

乌江流域水电移民安置冲突自电站建设以来就是不可忽视的重要问题。为研究基层政府与水电移民之间的矛盾冲突,引入"鹰鸽博弈"模型,分析博弈双方之间利益关系和策略选择。对模型均衡解进行分析,得出了博弈双方的合作主要受单位成本收益和非对称性程度影响的结论。结合乌江流域水电移民安置的实际情况,提出了加强移民宣传教育、完善移民相关法规、结合区域特征多元安置和促进公众沟通和参与的对策建议。     

Modelling socially optimal land allocations for sugar cane growing in North Queensland: a linked mathematical programming and choice modelling study

A modelling framework is developed to determine the joint economic and environmental net benefits of alternative land allocation strategies. Estimates of community preferences for preservation of natural land, derived from a choice modelling study, are used as input to a model of agricultural production in an optimisation framework. The trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental protection are analysed using the sugar industry of the Herbert River district of north Queensland as an example. Spatially-differentiated resource attributes and the opportunity costs of natural land determine the optimal trade-offs between production and conservation for a range of sugar prices.     

Bilateral Information Asymmetry in the Design of an Agri‐Environmental Policy: An Application to Peatland Retirement in Norway

Agriculture is a significant source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG mitigation through agri‐environmental programmes could be important in achieving emission reduction targets under the 2015 UN climate agreement. This study uses the principal‐agent model to examine a peatland retirement programme to reduce agricultural emissions in Norway. The focus is on the role of the government's private information in programme design. Two cases are examined. First, optimal contracts are derived when farmers have private information about the costs of implementing peat land retirement, but the government reveals its information on the resulting public benefits through differentiated contracts. This corresponds to the standard targeting strategy with one‐sided information asymmetry. In the second case, an informed principal model developed by Maskin and Tirole in a 1990 study is employed to address bilateral information asymmetry. Using the informed principal model, the government offers the same menu of contracts to farmers in order not to disclose information on the public benefits from land retirement. Empirical results show that the government can achieve a higher payoff by using a pooling offer.     

Duck Hunting and Wetland Conservation: Compromise or Synergy?

Duck hunting is an issue — often controversial — that generates both benefits and costs to society. Hunters enjoy benefits from engaging in their sport, while those who have ethical concerns regarding the shooting of ducks endure costs. Some in the community fear that duck hunting puts pressure on the continued ecological viability of the hunted species, while others argue that the demand for hunting provides sufficient economic incentive for wetland conservation. Whether society as a whole should permit or restrict duck hunting is to some extent an empirical question: Are the costs to society of allowing duck hunting greater or less than the benefits it generates? Evidence presented in this paper addresses this question. The benefits enjoyed by people who hunt ducks in the upper south east of South Australia are estimated using the travel cost method. The ethical costs borne by the general community because of duck hunting are estimated using the choice modeling technique. Finally a threshold value analysis is used to assess the activities of Wetlands and Wildlife, a not‐for‐profit organization that manages wetlands in part for hunting.     

农户对秸秆深翻还田的选择偏好及异质性来源研究基于黑土地保护视角

目的 秸秆深翻还田是东北地区黑土地保护和修复主要的方式之一,但目前农户选用秸秆深翻还田作业的意愿依然不强。方法 文章基于黑土地保护视角,从技术和政策双层面分解秸秆深翻还田作业的特征属性,以规模户和小农户为调研对象,运用选择实验法及混合Logit模型识别农户选择秸秆深翻还田作业的选择偏好和支付意愿,并探讨其异质性来源。结果 （1）技术层面。行政农机托管能显著提高秸秆深翻还田的作业选择偏好;农户对秸秆深翻还田的成本风险和技术操作规范风险有承受能力,但对病虫害风险有排斥心理;小农户更注重短期产量和效益,倾向于劳动力投入,最高支付意愿为243.60元/hm²（16.24元/亩）;规模户更重视改善土壤质量等长期效益,倾向于资金投入,最高支付意愿为397.95元/hm²（26.53元/亩）。（2）政策层面。以激励为主的政策、作业后补贴以及高强度补贴均能显著提高农户采纳秸秆深翻还田技术的积极性,小农户希望补贴给农户本身,而规模户更倾向于补贴个合作社企业。（3）农户采纳秸秆深翻还田的行为偏好存在异质性,异质性来源为农户的个体特征、家庭经营特征和社会特征及认知等因素。结论 技术层面需优化相关配套辅助技术,大力推进黑土地保护监测数据和技术信息的共享;政策层面政府需完善秸秆深翻还田的政府补偿机制;保障层面需推进行政农机作业托管模式,加强对合作社的规范和监督。     

Editorial - Decision rules, government rules, and the costs of vegetation protection in New South Wales

Governments regularly spend public funds to purchase environmental amenities. They might purchase land to add to the public estate, pay to fence stock out of endangered native forest, or offer stewardship payments as incentives to conservation. Governments also regularly introduce policies to achieve environmental goals, even though these policies impose costs on firms, households or farms. The basic decision rule, to maximise environmental benefits from a given budget, in all these cases is received wisdom within the economics profession. In the case of purchase of land to add to the public estate:Maximise environmental benefits by purchasing land in descending order of the ratio of benefit to cost until the budget is exhausted.More generally, funds should be allocated to individual activities within a programme in order of the decreasing ratio of benefits to costs until the budget is exhausted. This rule can be applied when benefits can be measured in any monetary or non-monetary quantitative index. In the case of conservation of vegetation, it can be applied relatively simply in the field when vegetation types and land values can be mapped jointly through GIS techniques.This simple decision rule is not always followed by government agencies that manage environmental programmes. Consider the protection of native vegetation, which is defined to include native forest, native woodland and native grassland. To meet international obligations to protect this kind of environment, most countries must involve private landholders in conservation because there are insufficient government reserves to meet the international commitments. Indeed, most countries have already introduced many policies to encourage private landholders to protect native vegetation on their forests and farms.The New South Wales state government, in Australia, has introduced the Native Vegetation Conservation Act (1998) to ensure that private landholders protect vegetation. The Act constrains farmers to retain all the native forest, native woodland, and native grassland, on their land irrespective of the costs to them. Farmers can then apply for consent to clear and crop this land, but consent is rarely granted in full and often not at all. The Act is consistent with a decision rule of “maximise-benefits-only” - protect all vegetation irrespective of the costs to those who have to conserve it.Constraints of this kind will inevitably lead to a loss of income and land value when they restrict the farm enterprises, and so will impose opportunity costs on the farmer. There is already ample published evidence on the sizes of these costs - from publications of the relevant state agency itself, consultants' reports, farmer submissions and independent research. For example, in a large region in the northwest of New South Wales, where land could be cropped very productively:- some farmers bear only small losses (a quarter lose less than five per cent of their potential income),- some farmers bear very large losses (another quarter lose more than half of their potential income),- the overall losses of income per farm are high (an average loss of almost 30 per cent of potential income across the region), and- the losses are highest for those who have already conserved most woodland.Consider now the problem of reducing these costs by applying the benefit-cost rule as opposed to the maximise-benefits-only rule that has led to this position. There are three economic decision rules that might be used to rank projects or activities.The benefit-cost rule: Impose the constraint on the farm with the highest ratio of environmental benefit per dollar of opportunity cost first, then on the farm with the next highest ratio, etc., until the environmental goal is met. And so maximise the ratio of benefits to opportunity costs.The benefit-only rule: Impose the constraint on the farm with the highest environmental benefits first, then on the farm with the next highest benefits, etc., until the environmental goal is met. And so maximise benefits.The cost-only rule: Impose the constraint on the farm with the lowest opportunity costs first, then the next lowest cost, etc, until the environmental goal is met. And so minimise opportunity costs.But do these rules normally lead to different outcomes? If the “budget” or willingness to impose opportunity costs were large enough, all three would lead to the same outcome because constraints would be imposed on all suitable land. Otherwise the outcomes differ - that is the different rules lead to different levels of environmental benefit from the imposition of a given level of opportunity cost (or from the expenditure of a given budget).Both the benefit-only and cost-only rules lead to inefficiencies (see Babcock et al (1997) and Wu et al (2000) for a discussion of the associated statistical issues). Benefit-only targeting leads to the retirement of highly-productive land from agricultural uses - which is a major reason why opportunity costs are often high when native vegetation is conserved under the Act in New South Wales. The cost-only rule can lead to the reservation or purchase of land with few environmental benefits, even though expenditure or opportunity cost is minimised.A comparison of the benefit-cost rule and the benefit-only rule in the northwest of New South Wales illustrates the problem. The region is potentially highly-productive crop land but large areas of it are presently covered by native forest and woodland which cannot now be cleared. Much of this vegetation is under various degrees of threat even though it is not rare or endangered. The farm is the unit of assessment under the Act, so is used in the example. Benefits are measured as the percentages of species that are saved on each farm when its vegetation is protected rather than cleared to crops. The total benefit is the aggregate of percentage species saved across the farms - again following the present administration of the Act. The opportunity costs are measured as the losses in land value because land cannot now be cleared due to the Act.The comparison of the two rules indicates substantial savings with the benefit-cost rule. For example, 90 per cent of the total benefits can be obtained by imposing 93 per cent of the total opportunity costs with the benefit-only rule, and by imposing only 54 per cent of the total opportunity costs with the benefit-cost rule. The benefit-cost rule saves 39 per cent of the total costs at this level of benefits. Again, 80 cent of the total benefits can be obtained by imposing 86 per cent of the total opportunity costs with the benefit-only rule, but by imposing only 46 per cent of the total opportunity costs with the benefit-cost rule. The benefit-cost rule saves 40 per cent of costs at this level of benefits.While such results can only be indicative of the magnitudes, they do serve to highlight the inefficiencies of decision rules used by government agencies. In New South Wales, the Native Vegetation Conservation Act imposes high opportunity costs on farmers, partly because it is implemented through a high-cost decision rule. Now that suitable GIS technology, vegetation maps, and spatial land value data, are becoming available, these costs can be lowered with a more rational decision rule to guide choices in the field.The environmental goal is not at issue, but the cost of achieving it is. We can identify who bears the opportunity costs of environmental conservation, and often value the magnitude of these costs. Now we can also reduce the levels of these costs with the use of the benefit-cost decision rule.Jack SindenAgricultural and Resource EconomicsUniversity of New EnglandArmidale, New South WalesReferencesBabcock Bruce A, Lackshminarayan PG, Wu JunJie and Silberman D (1997) “Targeting Tools for the Purchase of Environmental Amenities”, Land Economics, 73, 325-339.Wu JunJie, Adams Richard M., Zilberman David, and Bruce Babcock (2000) “Targeting Resource Conservation Expenditures”, Choices, Second Quarter, 2000, 3-8.     

A MIXED INTEGER LINEAR PROGRAMMING EVALUATION OF SALINITY AND WATERLOGGING CONTROL OPTIONS IN THE MURRAY-DARLING BASIN OF AUSTRALIA

Pollution of the River Murray by salt imposes costs on domestic and industrial users in Adelaide and to irrigators on the River Murray. Salt enters the Murray-Darling system through saline ground water aquifers and from irrigation and drainage of saline land. Irrigation and drainage generate benefits from improved agricultural productivity and impose costs through increased salt loads to the Murray-Darling system. The salinity of the River Murray can be reduced by pumping highly saline ground water into evaporation basins before it enters the River Murray. This paper presents a mixed integer linear programming model which is used to determine the mix of ground water interception schemes and land improvement schemes that minimises the net present value (over a time horizon of 30 years) of total Murray-Darling Basin costs due to salinity and waterlogging. By varying a target salinity level, the mix of works that yields various salinity targets in the River Murray at minimum cost is obtained. The sensitivity of the optimal solution to prescribed changes in costs and benefits of projects and to a longer planning horizon is examined.     

DISTRIBUTION OF RESEARCH GAINS UNDER DIFFERENT MARKET STRUCTURES: THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE WITHIN THE UK DAIRY INDUSTRY

This paper describes a model for assessing the aggregate level and distribution of benefits within the UK dairy industry from research aimed at reducing the costs of dairying equipment and machinery. The effect of the market structure of the farming and processing sectors is examined. It is shown, in this model, that the machinery sector always loses from a technological advance. The benefits and losses to the other sectors depend on the organisational structure of farmers and processors. Finally, the effect of imposing a levy on farmers to pay for research is discussed. The losses are shown not to be distributed in the same way as the research gains. The results have direct implications for the funding of research.     

Statistical Modelling of Incentive Design Under Limited Information ‐ The Case of Public Access to Farmland

This paper explores the use of statistical modelling to aid efficient policy design for the provision of environmental goods on farms under conditions of adverse selection. The specific case of incentive‐based schemes to enhance the supply of public access to farmland is used as an example. A range of site willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) distributions are used to explore the benefits derived from policies designed under different levels of information. Where no individual farm information is available, low payment rates are optimal, but efficient market creation may not be possible. Increasing the information set allows discretion in pricing and entry: optimal payment rates and net benefits are higher and the pay‐off from procuring improved information can be substantial. Such benefits are reduced where there is a welfare cost associated with increased government expenditure. Optimal policies are sensitive to the skewness of the WTP distributions. Mechanisms for increasing the information set available to policy makers are discussed.     

论土地善治

研究目的:探讨新时代背景下土地善治的概念、特征及体系。研究方法:归纳分析与演绎推理。研究结果:土地善治实质上是一种对管理理想状态的孜孜追求,其核心是由政府与非政府协同及多向网络化的管理模式,目标是以最小的政府和社会投入获取最大的土地管理效应;土地善治应遵循土地的基本属性、土地利用的价值准则和政策目标;现阶段实施土地善治重点需处理好土地行政管理权与国有土地所有权、政府与村民委员会及政府与农民等的关系。研究结论:土地善治是新时代土地管理的必然选择,土地资源的基本属性、土地利用的价值准则和政策目标是科学构建土地善治体系的基本逻辑依据。     

Build a people-oriented urbanization: China’s new-type urbanization dream and Anhui model

Since 2014, the Chinese government has initiatednew-type urbanization under the guidance of ‘the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014–2020)’, which embarks on a significant transformation of the model of urbanization in post-reform China. To understand the origin and outputs of this policy, this article demonstrates the context of China’s new-type urbanization. The paper proposes a conceptual framework of new-type urbanization, which mainly includes four aspects: humanism, people-oriented urbanization; inclusivism, benefits sharing for urban and rural; sustainability, development without sacrifice of resources and environment; and harmonism, coordination. This is followed by an examination of the case of Anhui province, as a pilot province of China’s new-type urbanization. Anhui has performed a lot of related work to promote citizenization of peasant workers and has made great progress on the reform of the household registration system. The study found that despite a special emphasis on people-oriented urbanization, the pressures and costs of citizenization of peasant workers are growing fast, accompanied by rising housing prices in cities. This insight suggests there are benefits and costs of promoting China’s new-type urbanization. Despite the advantages of institutional innovation, the unexpected side effects such as rapid rising housing prices actually undermine the success of plan implementation.