Integrated bio-economic models as tools to support land-use decision making: a review of potential and limitations

Bio-economic modelling has become a useful tool for anticipating the outcomes of policies and technologies before their implementation. Advances in mathematical programming have made it possible to build more comprehensive models. In an overview of recent studies about bio-economic models applied to land-use problems in agriculture and forestry, we evaluated how aspects such as uncertainty, multiple objective functions, system dynamics and time have been incorporated into models. We found that single objective models were more frequently applied at the farm level, while multiple objective modelling has been applied to meet concerns at the landscape level. Among the objectives, social aspects are seldom represented in all models, when being compared to economic and environmental aspects. The integration of uncertainty is occasionally a topic, while stochastic approaches are more frequently applied than non-stochastic robust methods. Most multiple-objective models do not integrate uncertainty or sequential decision making. Static approaches continue to be more recurrent than truly dynamic models. Even though integrating multiple aspects may enhance our understanding of a system; it involves a tradeoff between complexity and robustness of the results obtained. Land-use models have to address this balance between complexity and robustness in order to evolve towards robust multiple-objective spatial optimization as a prerequisite to achieve sustainability goals.     

New Evidence on Housing Wealth and Consumption Channels

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper provides new evidence on the effect of housing wealth on consumption by focusing on the impact of home-equity extraction. We develop a...     

政策不确定性、财政扩张与区域商业银行风险——基于中国地方官员变更和银行业的证据

文章利用2007-2017年我国93家区域商业银行的面板数据，并结合省级宏观经济数据和地方官员变更数据，实证考察了中国地方官员变更引起的经济政策不确定性对区域商业银行风险的重要影响。研究结果表明：（1）地方官员变更引起的政策不确定性增大了区域商业银行风险；（2）地方官员变更引起的政策不确定性，通过提高银行的资产收益率降低了商业银行风险；而不确定性时期的财政扩张，通过降低银行资产收益率增大了商业银行风险；并且财政扩张的负面影响大于政策不确定性的正面影响；（3）各省的市委书记发生职位更替引起的政策不确定性对区域商业银行风险的影响更大。文章研究为新时代背景下的金融供给侧结构性改革、政府宏观经济政策的制定以及财政体制与金融体制之间的联系提供参考。     

Firm age and performance

Amid increasing interest in firm age and its effects on firm performance, this special issue offers an exhaustive review of the literature and a novel collection of evidence on the effects of firm age on performance, including a special focus of interest on innovation performance, financial performance, exports, survival and growth. This editorial positions the theme in the extant literature, and provides key definitions and challenges ahead in the field of evolutionary economics. It introduces the collection of articles composing the special issue. The papers offer a diversity of country contexts, as well as analytical approaches and methods. They include an exhaustive review of the literature on age and firms’ performance, and present original empirical studies focusing on the effects of age on firms’ economic outcomes on the one hand, and on innovation outcomes on the other hand. While most of the papers use econometric analysis, the level of analysis ranges from firm to individual.     

Sweatshop Regulation and Workers’ Choices

The choice argument against sweatshop regulations states that public officials should not prohibit workers from accepting jobs that require long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions, because enforcing such regulations would be disrespectful to the workers who choose to work in sweatshops. Critics of the choice argument reply that these regulations can be justified when workers only choose to work in sweatshops because they lack acceptable alternatives and are unable to coordinate to achieve better conditions for all workers. My thesis is that the presence of unacceptable alternatives to sweatshop labor or barriers to coordination cannot justify sweatshop regulations such as minimum wage and maximum hour laws. Although officials should promote alternatives to difficult and dangerous sweatshop labor, they should not do so by limiting workers’ and employers’ options through coercive regulation. And the fact that sweatshop workers may face coordination problems does not undermine the claim that sweatshop workers choose to work in sweatshops, just as other workers face coordination problems but nevertheless make occupational choices. Furthermore, efforts to restrict sweatshop workers’ choices are morally risky and may not promote workers’ wellbeing or wellbeing in general.     

The Relevance of Nationality and Industry for Stakeholder Salience: An Investigation Through Integrated Reports

The aim of this research is to investigate the web of business-stakeholder relationships emerging from first integrated reports. Drawn from the stakeholder salience theory, the analysis focuses on some factors that may cause specific stakeholders to be crucial for some organizations and their ability to create value over time. More precisely, findings highlight the importance of industry membership, while entities’ nationality seems not to be a differentiating element. This study contributes to the corporate disclosure literature by analyzing an emerging reporting tool, the integrated report, and demonstrating that the link between some business characteristics and stakeholder salience seems fundamental for the representation of the impact of corporate social and environmental responsibilities on the economic performance. From a practical point of view, the impact of industry membership on corporate disclosures encourages the drafting of differentiated reporting standards across sectors, in order to improve comparability, materiality, and reliability of information.     

Cross-Domain Effects of Ethical Leadership on Employee Family and Life Satisfaction: the Moderating Role of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors

Drawing on the work–family enrichment theory, the present study investigates the cross-domain effects of ethical leadership on employees’ family and life satisfaction. Moreover, it focuses on the mediating role of work–family enrichment (WFE) and the moderated mediation process of family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) underlying the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ family and life satisfaction. Using a sample of 371 employees and their immediate supervisors in China, we found that WFE mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employee-rated and supervisor-rated family and life satisfaction. Moreover, FSSB positively moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and WFE, such that the relationship was strengthened when FSSB were higher. Furthermore, the mediations of WFE between ethical leadership and employee-rated and supervisor-rated family and life satisfaction were also positively moderated by FSSB, such that the indirect effects were stronger when FSSB were higher. The theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are further discussed.     

自动涂胶系统胶枪的热分析

为研究自动涂胶系统的胶枪最优材质、最佳热源位置和最佳测温位置,利用ANSYS Workbench软件对自粘胶胶枪进行数值模拟.通过分析不同材质胶枪的温度场分布情况,结合经济性和加热性能,选定最优胶枪基材.同时分析得出加热自粘胶至工作温度的时间和保持工作温度的加热功率,确定了热源和测温点位置,拟定了升温策略.进行自粘胶胶枪加热试验,验证了仿真分析结果的准确性.     

Economic Impacts of the Possible China–US Trade War

This article uses a multi-country global general equilibrium (GE) model to numerically simulate the effects of possible China–US trade wars. We introduce an endogenous trade imbalance structure with trade cost into the model which helps to explore both tariff and non-tariff trade war effects. Our simulation results show that China will be significantly hurt by the China–US trade war, but negative impacts are affordable. The US can gain under unilateral sanction measures to China, but will lose if China takes retaliation measures. Comparing the effects under mutual trade war, China will lose more than the US. Introducing non-tariff barrier trade wars will intensify the negative effects, and comparatively negative effects to China are larger than to the US. Mexico’s involvement in trade war with the US will strengthen the negative effects and comparatively hurt the US more. Under non-cooperative and cooperative Nash bargaining equilibrium, the US can gain more than China in trade war negotiation, which means the US has stronger bargaining power than China. Additionally, trade wars between China and the US will hurt most countries and the world especially in GDP and manufacturing employment, but benefit their welfare and trade.