Evaluating the impact of Tax-for-Fee reform (Fei Gai Shui) on water resources and agriculture production in the Zhanghe Irrigation System, China

This article questions the effectiveness and viability of rural Tax-for-Fee reform (Fei Gai Shui) on water resources and agriculture production, taking the Zhanghe Irrigation System of China as a case study example. The Fei Gai Shui reform has been heralded as a possible solution for reducing the excessive fiscal burden on peasants. While the reform may achieve in relieving peasant burdens significantly, the initial impact of Fei Gai Shui on water resources and agricultural production indicate least satisfactory trends. The policy shows significant impact on rice yield and area. It might also have profound impact on cropping pattern but it has yet to be seen. Dependence on local water resources such as ponds show significant increase after Fei Gai Shui as it discouraged farmers to rely on regional water sources. Although the lower regional water use under Fei Gai Shui reduced the water charges paid by farmers, the savings were mostly offset by increasing pumping costs in accessing water from local ponds. Without any adjustments, the Fei Gai Shui is likely to cause serious predicament in agricultural sector. It is visioned that local water resources such as water ponds will continue to play an important role in sustaining agricultural production.     

我国农村普惠金融的减贫增收效应研究——基于4023户农户微观数据的断点回归

文章利用全国27省份517个村庄的4023户农户微观调研数据，使用模糊断点回归方法，对农村普惠金融的贫困减缓效应和经济增长效应进行了实证检验。结果发现，在东部地区，普惠金融的发展降低了绝对贫困和相对贫困水平，促进了经济增长；在中部地区，普惠金融的发展有利于绝对贫困水平和相对贫困水平的下降，对于经济增长的促进效用不明显；在西部地区，普惠金融的发展有利于绝对贫困水平的下降，但增加了相对贫困并抑制了经济增长。基于此，文章提出在农村普惠金融的推广过程中，应注意其发展战略实施的区域差别化，以实现普惠金融积极效应的最大发挥。     

Rural decline or restructuring? Implications for sustainability transitions in rural China

With the increase in climate change and increasing social concerns about environmental deterioration, sustainability has become a hot topic in both natural and social research. Nowadays, sustainable cities are one of the focal points, while rural areas have been disregarded. In fact, rural areas have been suffering from environmental degradation for decades. Thus, sustainability transitions in both urban and rural areas should be given commensurate emphasis. In this paper, we provide an overview of rural evolution worldwide and attempt to explore alternative approaches for enhancing rural sustainability. As depicted in the literature, rural evolution is multifaceted. For a long time, depopulation and demographic aging have been like chronic diseases torturing rural areas. Although there were some bright spots of rural repopulation and economic restructuring, they were not mainstream of rural development. Based on the existing research, we established a conceptual framework and analyzed the rural evolution paradigm from a geographic perspective. We found that rural composition determined rural architecture, while rural architecture affected rural functioning. Changes in rural functioning formed the rural evolution trend. Since rural development was also influenced by external factors, both self-organization and governmental intervention were found to be alternative approaches to guiding rural transitions. We took the case study of Tengtou village to exemplify the sustainable pathways of a rural transition. The case study indicated that national policies were the fundamental impetus for rural transformation, while self-organization played a more important role. We hope that our study will shed new light on policy orientations and rural transitions.     

以县域为中心的乡村振兴：城乡关系演变与县域经济发展

乡村生产要素通过流动实现集聚是提升生产分工规模和生产效率的重要途径，但要素过度流失不利于乡村自身的发展。新中国成立以前，"乡-城"生产要素流动规模较小；新中国成立后改革开放前，在重工业发展战略下乡村生产要素被约束流动；改革开放以来，"乡-城"生产要素单向流动趋于加速；党的十九大开启了乡村振兴新篇章，致力于改变乡村要素单向外流的局面。近代以来，立足于乡村且突破村庄社区规模的分工生产和集聚性生产没有大范围发展起来，乡村对生产要素的吸引力不强。新中国的综合发展成就为发展现代化的乡村集聚经济创造了有利条件，探索在县域层面整合资源和集聚要素是振兴乡村和构建新型城乡关系的重要方向。     

中国独生子女家庭父母的养老保障——基于公共财政的视角

独生子女政策提出三十多年后,独生子女父母开始步入老龄化,在他们未来的养老进程中,除了家庭和子女在养老方面的帮助,来自政府的财政资金帮助也是必不可少的。面对未来独生子女家庭的养老困难,需要政府和家庭共同面对,解决独生子女父母养老保障问题是家庭的责任,也是政府应尽的职责。     

The estimation of long term impacts of China's key priority forestry programs on rural household incomes

We use a large unique household panel dataset spanning 16 years to estimate the impacts of three Key Priority Forestry Programs (the KPFPs) in China on household incomes. The programs are the most significant of China's forest policies namely the Sloping Land Conversion Program (the SLCP), the Natural Forest Protection Program (the NFPP), and the Desertification Combating Program around Beijing and Tianjin (the DCBT). A fixed effect model with clustered standard errors is used to identify programs’ impacts based on variation in participation across households and time. In addition to estimating the total impacts of these programs, individually and in combination, we disaggregate the effects by income source, stage of policy implementation, and duration of participation. Overall, the impacts of the KPFPs on rural households’ income vary with time of enrollment and policy stage. We observe that the KPFPs in their initial stages of implementation, and for the early years of household participation, had negative, or at best neutral impacts on household incomes, in particular incomes from land. However, the later stages of the SLCP and the DCBT have tended to raise land-based incomes, and the NFPP has ceased to have a negative effect. This is likely to be in part the result of adjustments made by rural households over time in response to changes in the programs, as well as in market and environmental conditions.     

Assessing policy tools for encouraging farm afforestation in Ireland

To encourage Irish farmers to afforest agricultural land, a premium scheme supporting such planting was implemented in 1989 and afforestation targets outlined in 1996. In the period from 1996 to 2009, however, only half of the targeted area was planted although the income of many farmers would have improved on joining the scheme. A multi-method study was undertaken looking at farmers’ decision-making with regard to afforestation under the scheme. In this paper we focus on one particular element of the study, which is about identifying policy tools that best match farmers’ behaviour with regard to afforestation. Based on previous work, which we undertook on farmers’ goals and values with regard to afforestation and which was presented in this journal, a postal survey was designed and distributed in spring 2012 to farmers all over Ireland. The results indicate that the majority of those surveyed do not make their decision to afforest based on profit maximisation goals. Offering only an incentive tool – such as the current premium scheme – will not be sufficient to encourage those farmers to plant trees. Additionally capacity tools such as group plantings of neighbouring fields and symbolic tools such as information and PR- or image-building campaigns should be deployed to further encourage afforestation by farmers.     

Structural changes in covenants through the adoption of IFRS in Brazil

This study examines changes in the structure of covenants in debt agreements of companies issuing debentures during the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Brazil. We investigate debt contracts of public and private companies that issued debentures before and after IFRS adoption in Brazil, between the years 2006–2008 and 2011–2014. We develop a database with all covenants from 126 contracts via hand-collected data, with 78 contracts from before IFRS adoption and 48 contracts afterward. We find high increases in covenants after adoption. However, this growth is observed only for restrictive security and non-accounting covenants, excluding clauses with accounting multiples. Our results show that IFRS adoption in Brazil shifted incentives and, as a result, shaped a new structure of debt contracts. Our findings complement and expand previous studies and can be useful to academics, regulators and practitioners by showing that the incentives to use accounting figures and ratios shifted in the credit market after IFRS adoption.     

Land tenure (in)security and crop-tree intercropping in rural Xinjiang,China

The relationship between land tenure security and long-term land-related investment is of great importance especially given the current flux in property rights systems of agricultural land in China. This paper empirically examines the role of land tenure security in farmers’ crop-tree intercropping decisions, and is based on a comparative analysis between contract land and wasteland holders in rural Xinjiang, China. Data from a survey, carried out in 2008 among 352 households in Awati County in Xinjiang, is used to estimate the factors that affect the adoption of crop-tree intercropping. The results indicate that, for those households that only have contract land, land tenure security positively affects their adoption of crop-tree intercropping. However, for those that hold both contract land and wasteland, land tenure security negatively impacts upon their adoption of crop-tree intercropping on wasteland, as the crop-tree intercropping on wasteland can increase the perceived tenure security of wasteland. The results also suggest that the comprehensive effect of labor organization on intercropping is moderate as a result of the presence of counteracting effects.     

Bottom-up design process of agri-environmental measures at a landscape scale: Evidence from case studies on biodiversity conservation and water protection

An Agri-environmental measure (AEM) is a payment to farmers to reduce environmental risks or to preserve cultivated landscapes. The single farm scale that is the basis for the AEM has often inhibited the achievement of the environmental goals since many biophysical processes (e.g. soil erosion, water pollution, biodiversity losses) occur at landscape scale. This creates a spatial scale mismatch between the implementation scale of the measures and the ecological processes controlling the target agri-environmental issues. In this paper, we propose how to address this spatial scale mismatch by analysing nine case studies of AEMs implementation at landscape scale concerning biodiversity conservation and water protection. The analysis highlights that the inclusion of the landscape scale in AEMs depends on the level of the involvement of the local stakeholders (SH) in the building process. When the authorities created the space for the SHs to participate in the defining process of AEMs, the inclusion of local knowledge led to the emergence of new landscape and site-specific AEMs which were not previously considered by the autorities. On the contrary, when the SHs were only allowed to choose among the AEMs predefined by the authorities, many site specificity and acceptance issues arose. The creation of space in Rural Development Programmes for collaborative, bottom-up and landscape scale AEMs and the overcoming of institutional constraints in the design of specific actions are the key ingredients for the successful adoption of measures and for enhancing their effectiveness. In this paper, we explore in depth what made these stories successful and provide a framework for the implementation of site-specific and landscape AEMs.