Willingness to Pay for Rural Landscape Improvements: Combining Mixed Logit and Random‐Effects Models

This paper reports the findings from a discrete‐choice experiment designed to estimate the economic benefits associated with rural landscape improvements in Ireland. Using a mixed logit model, the panel nature of the dataset is exploited to retrieve willingness‐to‐pay values for every individual in the sample. This departs from customary approaches in which the willingness‐to‐pay estimates are normally expressed as measures of central tendency of an a priori distribution. Random‐effects models for panel data are subsequently used to identify the determinants of the individual‐specific willingness‐to‐pay estimates. In comparison with the standard methods used to incorporate individual‐specific variables into the analysis of discrete‐choice experiments, the analytical approach outlined in this paper is shown to add considerable explanatory power to the welfare estimates.     

美国土地价值捕获制度及其借鉴

在美国,土地价值捕获（value capture）是指将土地的自然增值全部或部分回收归于社会的过程。本文对美国“土地价值捕获”的原理与实现方式进行了分析,总结特点,提出了针对我国土地增值收益分配的借鉴意义。     

The distribution of returns from land efficiency improvement in multistage production systems

This paper assesses the distributional consequences of technical changes that improve the efficiency of land and of other inputs in a multifactor crop‐production system. We introduced an equilibrium displacement model (EDM) by using the specification of a factor‐augmenting approach. Given the uncertainty about the EDM parameters, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to produce a distribution of possible return measures. We found that land suppliers (likely farmers) receive a larger share (73%) of total benefits from the adoption of land‐technical change than they do from the adoption of other input technologies. Each input supplier receives a larger share of total benefits from technical change in her own input. However, this result is sensitive to the value of the parameters, especially the value of the elasticity of substitution. We applied the EDM to the case of no‐tillage (NT) to provide insight into how the aggregate return from the adoption of NT was distributed among different groups on the Canadian Prairies. The results of this study can be used by policymakers and funding agencies in order to influence landowners and farming communities to adopt environmentally sound land technologies to achieve both greater agricultural productivity and sustainability.     

El Niño,La Niña,and world coffee price dynamics

Coffee is produced in equatorial and subequatorial regions of the world, which are also most affected by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO events have a tendency to amplify weather conditions such as droughts or excess precipitation in the affected regions, resulting in production shortage or excess supply, subsequently impacting agricultural commodity prices. In this research we assess effects of ENSO events on world coffee price dynamics using the monthly data between March 1989 and December 2010. We employ smooth transition autoregression framework to examine nonlinear dynamics of ENSO and coffee prices, and illustrate the results of this research using generalized impulse‐response functions. We find that ENSO events indeed have short‐term impacts on coffee prices. The research findings are of interest to coffee producers and intermediaries in the coffee markets as well as researchers in the fields of environmental and development economics.     

大城市保障性住房空间布局的社会问题与治理途径

本文研究了北京、上海、南京等五大城市保障性住房空间布局特征,指出大城市保障性住房普遍存在空间选址偏僻、大规模集中建设、配套设施不完善等现实问题.在分析以上问题形成原因的基础上,认为大城市保障性住房集中建设在偏远郊区可能导致社会隔离与排斥加剧、出现城市贫民区与贫困文化、贫困的代际延续与社会风险加剧等一系列社会问题.因此建...     

价值理论研究中的热点难点问题探讨（下）

马克思的政治经济学的任务，主要是研究资本主义的生产关系。而当代马克思主义的经济学，不仅要研究包括社会主义社会的生产劳动在内的经济问题，也要研究当代资本主义的经济关系、经济运行和发展的新特点。因此，马克思主义理论工作者，需要在继承与坚持劳动价值论的前提下，对这一理论进行创新和发展。     

论法治统一性：价值、要义及实现

法治由于自身的消极价值而必须从内部实现协调统一才能真正确保法治内在的＂良法之治＂的效果状态存在。由是,法治统一性的命题也自然被提到政治日程上,它意即可被视为系统的法治实现内外部要素和谐平衡的要义。法治统一性与国家法律制度、权法关系及政民互动有密切联系,以从静态意义（法律体系化）与动态意义（制度有效运作）上实现统一协调,最终突破当下法治困境,实现法治中制度运作符合其内在价值导向的要求。因此,法治统一性实现从根本上决定了我国百年法治梦的最终实现。     

One village,one product: Agro‐industrial village corporatism in contemporary China

This paper investigates the implementation of “one village, one product” (OVOP) in four peri‐urban villages in China's Yangtze River Delta. China's agricultural transformation, including the introduction of new corporate actors and the growing pressure of market discipline, has challenged the relevance of villages in the organization of agricultural production. In response, village cadres in thousands of Chinese villages have used OVOP to transform their villages into agro‐industrial firms and re‐exert their control over the agricultural surplus, echoing earlier examples of village corporatism. Rooted in agricultural specialization, OVOP encompasses a diversity of strategies for the production of locality‐based value. I disaggregate these strategies into four sociospatial dimensions that comprise locality—place, network, territory, and scale. Place‐based branding is the dominant strategy, but village cadres also pursue complementary sociospatial strategies to ensure their control over the realization of the brand's value and reconstitute their redistributive and administrative powers.     

Farm Capital Investment and Deviations from the Optimal Path

We identify farms’ optimal investment path in capital assets and compare it with their actual investment to assess the direction and extent of deviation from the optimal investment. A probit model is further used to investigate the determinants of the probability that a farmer over‐ or under‐invests in capital assets. We use a panel dataset of Dutch dairy farms over the period 2003–2013, and find that most farms under‐invest in capital assets during the study period. Although the number of farms that had over‐invested in capital assets is relatively small, these farms account for the biggest share of total investment in capital assets. The probit results show that liquidity, agricultural support payments, age, land tenure and standard output size are important variables explaining the likelihood of over‐and under‐investment.     

State‐contingent analysis of farmers’ response to weather variability: irrigated dairy farming in the Murray Valley,Australia

The agricultural sector is commonly regarded as one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Current understanding of the impact of climate change on this sector relies on the underlying assumptions about farmers’ possible responses to weather variability, including changes in crop choice, input combinations and land management practices. Many previous analyses rely on the implicit (and restrictive) assumption that farmers operate under a fixed technology set across different states of nature. This assumption, represented through stochastic production or profit functions, is commonly made but seldom tested and may understate farmers’ responses to climate change if state‐contingent production technologies are, in reality, more flexible. The potential for farmers to adapt production technologies in response to unforeseen events is at the core of the state‐contingent approach. Advanced in Chambers and Quiggin (2000), the theory contends that producers can manage uncertainty through the allocation of productive inputs to different states of nature. In this article, we test the assumption that farmers’ observed behaviour is consistent with the state‐contingent production theory using farm‐level data from Australia. More precisely, we estimate the milk production technology for a sample of irrigated dairy farms from the southern Murray–Darling Basin over the period from 2006–2007 to 2009–2010.