Agricultural development in industrialising Japan, 1880–1940

This study reviews research examining agricultural development in industrialising Japan. We focus on the (dys)functioning of markets for land, finance, labour and agricultural commodities. We cover topics including land (mis)allocation, size-productivity relationships, tenancy contract choice and Marshallian inefficiency, property rights, microfinance, shock-coping strategies, rural–urban migration and agricultural market integration. The literature reveals that market failures often observed in developing economies were not prominent, except for possibly labour markets. The literature also highlights the roles and administrative capacities of central and local governments. Tight local communities served to reduce transaction costs.     

The Analysis for Market-oriented Management of Agricultural Products of China

With the reform of trade system of agricultural products, market-oriented mechanism has been formed. Based on the analysis of current market-oriented status of agricultural products, this paper summarizes main features in the market-oriented management of agricultural products, explores problems existing in the market-oriented management of agricultural products, and finally puts forward guiding ideas for market-oriented management of agricultural products of China.     

KIVA Systems创新的仓储物流管理系统

零售企业面临的一个挑战是如何建立和运营高效的仓储和商品配送系统,这一点对于以低运营成本为标志的大型在线零售商尤其关键。传统的物流中心需要配置大量的工作人员来处理顾客的订单,这些工作人员在收到用户订单后需要在迷宫般的货架中     

Triangle of Linkages among Modernising Markets,Sprayer–traders,and Mango-farming Intensification in Indonesia

The domestic mango value chain in Indonesia is transforming rapidly. This article examines the triangle of linkages among farmers’ participation in modernising markets, the emerging use of outsourced services by sprayer–traders (STs), and farm technology intensification. The key findings are as follows. First, small farmers—not just larger farmers—participate in modernising markets. However, the participation is by the upper tier of small farmers, defined in non-land asset terms. Second, although both small and larger farmers use STs, the strongest determinant of use of an ST is the interaction between having non-farm employment (thus, demand for substitution for own labour on the farm) and having a medium-sized commercial farm (thus, demand for skilled agronomic services). Farmers in mango cluster areas also tend to use STs. Finally, use of STs and participation in modernising markets spur farming intensification through the use of modern inputs.     

A Proposal for Setting up Agricultural Insurance Policies Supporting Frame in China

China is a country with a large amount of agriculture, but agricultural insurance in our country develops slowly, which cannot keep up with the pace of the quick industrial insurance progress currently. The agricultural insurance faces the circumstances that the insurance companies do not fund in agriculture insurance and the farmers have nowhere to apply for insurance. In this paper, from the economic angle the following conclusion is drawn. The key sticking points lie in that agricultural insurance in China cannot be managed as policy insurance, and that agricultural insurance lacks support from the government. So it is necessary to conceive the basic agricultural insurance policies supporting frame and set up agricultural insurance policies supporting system in China.     

The Macroeconomic Controversy Over Price Rigidity — How to Resolve it and How Bayesian Estimation has Led us Astray

Open Economies Review - Price rigidity plays a central role in macroeconomic models but remains controversial. Those espousing it look to Bayesian estimated models in support, while those assuming...     

The Analysis and Improvement on the Lowest Price Method

The book of Modem Consulting Method and Practice is the appointed teaching material for registered consulting engineer qualification examination （investment） of China. Its Lowest Price method in evaluating mutually exclusive project has some problems, which contradict the delta IRR and NPV methods. We improve the method and recommend Good-Bad Boundary Price Method to solve problem of this type.     

The Path Dependence and Target of the Innovation of Chinese Bill Market

The current social and economic background of China and the development of Chinese financial market decide that, the system innovation of bill market must choose reasonable path, perfect the system arrangement of bill market, innovate the financing instruments of bills, control the market risk, raise the efficiency of market operation, bring the market function of bills into full play, make the bill market really become the effective instrument for the financial institutions and enterprises to finance, and become the carrier for the monetary policy to conduct and promote the standardized and healthy development.     

Structure Analysis of China Railway Management Information Systems

Taking 13 kinds of railway management information systems for business as an example, architecture grade analysis is adopted to quantize information interchange relationship between railway information systems and to divide them into multistage grade architecture, which will guide the leap development of China railway informatization.     

Income and Price Elasticities of China＇s Exports

The appearance of new product varieties and improvements in the quality of goods have both played key roles in the rapid growth of China's exports. However, these two important elements have not been formally integrated into the demand equations for China's exports. As we demonstrate in this paper, income elasticity will be underestimated if new varieties of goods and quality improvements are omitted in price index and quantity index calculations, which are necessary for estimating the export demand function. Moreover, the faster new product varieties enter export markets, the greater the underestimation will be. In this paper, we develop an export demand equation that takes into account new product varieties and improvements in quality, and then calculate the demand function for China's exports using the data from 1992 to 2006. According to our estimation, the short‐term income elasticity of demand for China's exports is approximately 2.34, and the short‐term price elasticity is approximately –0.65. Our estimation predicts an increase in China's export value in the case of an RMB appreciation or export rebate rates reduction in the short term, due to the low price elasticity of China's exports, whose absolute value is less than 1. Our findings are novel and could have significant policy implications.     

Analysis of the Trade Dispute of Chinese Agricultural Products and Its Countermeasures

The trade dispute of agricultural products has become one of the hot issues that international community has paid close attention to for three years. This paper analyzes the current dispute situation, the characters and the causes in international export trade. It also points out how the government, enterprises and employer＇s organizations deal with the trade dispute of agricultural products.     

What is the Right Import Price for a FICE

Foreign companies are starting to establish wholly-owned trading companies in China to import and distribute products to the domestic market. The trading company is called a Foreign Invested Commercial Enterprise (FICE) and has been gaining popularity sin…     

Agricultural Science ＆ Technology Innovation of China： Imperativeness, Problems and Countermeasures

This article discusses the urgent need of agricultural science and technology innovation for China＇s agriculture development, and analyzes the limiting factors faced to the innovation of agricultural science and technology in several aspects, then puts forward the countermeasures and suggestions of strengthening the innovation ability of agricultural science and technology of China.     

Energy Dependence in Developing Countries: Does the Level of Income Matter?

This paper re-examines the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in four developing countries. The four countries include two lower-middle income economies, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, and two upper-middle income economies, Brazil and Uruguay. The study attempts to answer one critical question: Is the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth sensitive to a country’s level of income? In order to account for the omission-of-variable bias, the study incorporates exports as an intermittent variable between energy consumption and economic growth—thereby creating a simple multivariate model. Using the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL)-bounds testing procedure, our results show that while energy consumption Granger-causes economic growth in upper-middle income countries, in lower-middle income countries it is economic growth that drives energy consumption.