Comparative costs and conservation of wild species in situ, e.g. orangutans

The extent to which conservation is feasible is constrained by budgets and the financial sacrifice stakeholders are willing to bear. Therefore a possible objective for conserving a species is to minimise the cost of achieving that stated aim. For example, if a minimum viable population (MVP) of a species is to be conserved, the size and type of habitats reserved for this could be selected to minimise cost. This requires consideration of the comparative (relative) opportunity costs of reserving different land types for conservation. A general model is developed to demonstrate this and is applied to the case of the orangutan. In the ecological literature, recommendations for reserving different types of land for conservation have been based on comparisons of either the absolute economic returns they generate if converted to commercial use or on differences in the density of a species they support. These approaches are shown to be deficient because they ignore relative trade-offs between species population and economic conversion gains at alternative sites. The proposed model is illustrated for orangutan conservation.     

Anomalies in green national accounting

We “extend” standard arguments for greening the product side of the national accounts to the income side of the accounts and turn up an anomaly. For an economy with oil use, no entry for oil income, a supposed primary factor, appears in the income side of the national accounts when the depletion of natural capital is accounted for on the product side of the accounts. We resolve this issue by applying an income definition developed in the theory of national accounting. This, however, leads to another anomaly on the income side of the national accounts.     

Issues in environmental justice within the European Union

This paper surveys pressing issues facing current and future social policies in the European Union (EU) at the juncture of social justice demands and environmental concerns. European policy-makers have in fact only recently acknowledged the notions of environmental justice and environmental inequalities, which have been part of the US policy arsenal for almost two decades. Yet, challenges to equality and fairness in the environmental domain are many and growing within the European Union. After having defined environmental justice and environmental inequalities in the European context, the paper addresses two contemporary dimensions of those challenges for EU social policies: vulnerability and exposure to environmental disaster and risk; and fairness in environmental taxation and the related issue of fuel poverty.     

房地产业履行社会责任与企业价值的关系研究——基于上市公司面板数据的实证分析

在基于利益相关者理论建立衡量房地产业履行社会责任的指标体系和用托宾Q值衡量企业价值的基础上,分别对2000—2009年房地产业履行社会责任和企业价值进行评估,并利用面板数据模型对中国2000—2009年房地产业履行社会责任和企业价值的关系进行实证研究。研究表明:企业社会责任履行情况越好,越被社会公众认同,企业价值就会越高。但是社会责任的综合表现对企业价值的提升作用十分微弱,整个社会对企业社会责任的履行情况关注程度还十分有限。     

伪满洲中央银行发行的纸币考证

1931年九一八事变后,日本帝国主义扶植建立了以满清逊帝溥仪为头子的傀儡政权伪满洲国。为全面控制东北经济,又策划建立了伪满洲中央银行,并强行发行伪币,收缴旧币,以统一东北币制。伪满洲中央银行发行的纸币数额巨大,种类繁多,先后发行改造券及甲、乙、丙、丁等多套票券。这些伪币不断变换票面图案,其用意无非是麻痹中国人民的反满抗日情绪,以利于扩大发行,垄断和独霸东北金融市场。     

语言Q值与小语种语言存亡边界——基于语言经济学的模型

基于语言的人力资本性质,引入语言"Q值"量化其经济价值,并以此修正Grin模型分析小语种语言存在的必要性.分析结果表明:(1)语言的Q值越大时,也即这种语言的生命力越强时,人们投入这种语言的时间就会越多;(2)基于文化和政治上的原因,在小语种语言有必要保护的前提下,刻画出小语种语言存亡边界、改变小语种语言的语言态度以及小语种语言的使用人数,可以使小语种语言从死亡区进入生存区;(3)在对小语种语言保护的制度安排中,持久增加使用小语种语言的人数十分重要.     

The multiple effects of carbon values on optimal rotation

Non-consumptive benefits which increase with crop age, like keeping carbon sequestered, lengthen optimal rotation compared with rotation for timber alone. High proposed carbon prices may extend rotation indefinitely. Carbon storage in wood products reduces this tendency. Biomass as an energy source displacing fossil fuels favours rotations near those of maximum biomass productivity. Use of sawn timber to displace structural materials with high embodied carbon favours somewhat longer rotations. Effects of rotation on soil carbon, and fossil carbon volatilised in harvesting operations, are further complications. Including all carbon effects results in optimal rotations somewhat longer than those based only on timber value, but shorter than those based on timber plus forest carbon. To include all factors intuitively is not possible: balanced appraisal needs economic calculations.     

Optimal rotation with declining discount rate

In recent years it has been argued, from many perspectives, that the further into the future a value flow occurs, the lower is the appropriate discount rate for it. National governments are now beginning to authorise such declining discount rates. This viewpoint can be, and has been, formalised in various ways, and has been applied to evaluating forestry investments of given durations. When the optimal duration of investment is itself the issue, new problems arise. Lower discount rates make subsequent rotations longer than earlier ones, and for a given length more valuable than they would otherwise be. This affects the optimal length of earlier rotations, which in turn may affect the discount rate profile applicable to later ones. In the absence of analytical solutions for the optimal sequence of rotations, numerical protocols are needed. The results arising are mostly in accord with expectations. If the change of discount rate is due to expected changes of circumstance that are actually realised, then the optimal sequence of rotations will remain as initially determined. If, however, it is due merely to the particular time perspective of the present generation, rotations will be revised by future generations. This will lead to a sequence of rotations similar to that deemed optimal at the current short-term discount rate. The most important reductions in profitability caused by choosing the “wrong” discounting protocol arise from the “wrong” rate, rather than by using declining rates as such.     

Incomplete Credit Markets and Commodity Marketing Behaviour

We use a simple theoretical model of seasonal market participation in the presence of liquidity constraints and transaction costs to explain the ‘sell low, buy high’ puzzle in which some households do not take advantage of inter‐temporal price arbitrage through storage and sell output postharvest at prices lower than observed prices for purchases in the subsequent lean season. We test our model with data from western Kenya using maximum likelihood estimation of a multivariate sample selection model of market participation. Access to off‐farm income and credit indeed seem to influence crop sales and purchase behaviours in a manner consistent with the hypothesised patterns.     

How do Agricultural Programmes Alter Crop Production? Evidence from Ecuador

Evaluating agricultural programmes requires considering not only the programmes’ influence on input and output indicators, but also considering the relationship between these indicators as embodied in the production technology. This article examines the impact on production of an intervention in the Ecuadorian Sierra designed to improve returns to potato production through training and through linking smallholders to high‐value markets. Critical to identifying the impact of the programme is the careful construction of a counterfactual and meticulous data collection. To assess the impact of the programme on production, a weighted estimation, where weights are constructed through propensity score matching, is employed to estimate a production function within a damage abatement framework. The function incorporates a series of interaction terms to assess the impact of the programme on the production technology. The findings provide evidence that the programme enhances yields both through a general shift in technology as well as increased input use. The results suggest that the use of effective farming techniques that are learned through the programme induce this technological shift.