Willingness to pay: Who are the cheap talkers?

The purpose of this paper is to determine who is willing to pay (WTP) for a greener event by applying a Contingent Valuation (CV) approach together with an experimental design. To identify the cheap talkers a survey was conducted at the Wacky Wine Festival in South Africa, were 474 respondents participated. Using a Heckman two-step approach, the results confirmed that the decision to contribute depends on behavioural and motivational factors, while the amount is income-dependent. The extent of cheap talking is significant, with a 50% deviation in stated and revealed behaviour. Besides cheap talkers, another category is identified, namely “ethicals”, who contribute their voucher to the tree planting project without indicating that they are willing to pay.     

中国农村绿色化发展效率收敛了吗——基于1997-2017年的实证分析

本文基于中国1997-2017年31个省份的面板数据,借助DPSIR-SBM框架,测算并分析中国农村绿色化发展效率的地区差异及其收敛性.研究表明,中国农村绿色化发展效率总体呈波动上升趋势,同时存在一定的省际差异;经济发达地区农村绿色化发展效率高于经济欠发达地区,沿海地区农村绿色化发展效率高于内陆地区;全国及东、中、西部...     

制造业信息化的必由之路——绿色制造

信息技术促使制造技术在发生质的飞跃,在制造业信息化的过程中,为尽可能地避免环境污染和提高资源的利用效率,绿色制造是趋势。它不但使社会健康地发展,而且使制造业赢得市场竞争优势,是人类社会可持续发展战略在制造业中的体现。     

办绿色奥运 建生态城市 实现首都园林绿化更高水平科学发展

介绍了北京举办绿色奥运、推进奥运绿化的主要做法和体会,总结了奥运绿化美化建设积累的宝贵经验。做好奥运绿化美化工作的重要前提是领导重视、全民参与,根本保障是与时俱进、改革创新,追求目标是以人为本、建设精品,强大动力是奥运精神、过硬作风。坚持以"办绿色奥运、建生态城市"为目标,以"绿色奥运、科技奥运、人文奥运"为理念,圆满完成奥运绿化重点工程,全面提升奥运生态环境水平,奥运花卉布置取得重大突破,首都园林绿化事业实现了新的历史跨越。     

The private provision of public environment: Consumer preferences for organic production systems

This paper analyses individual preferences regarding environmental and health improvement technologies in organic food production systems. The impure public model is applied to explore the implications of organic food preferences for environmental market provision. Empirical results from a survey reveal that consumers are willing to pay for both health gains and environmental friendly technologies in organic milk production, although the valuation of the health aspects is higher. Prior information about organic production systems and shopping convenience are key variables in interpersonal comparisons of willingness to pay. The perceived overall value of organic production systems was higher among individuals with stronger environmental preferences than among those who prioritise health concerns. The conclusions of this study may have implications for the analysis of efficiency in the organic produce market.     

消费者对生态标识食品的多层面认知行为:基于MVP模型的实证分析

笔者基于山东省693个样本数据,以绿色食品为例,将消费者认知行为划分为知晓、识别与使用三个层面,构建多变量Probit模型,分析在消费者认知程度提高过程中起主要作用的因素。研究发现,男性或年轻受访者在知晓层面的认知率较高,而女性、年长受访者在识别和使用层面的认知率相对较高;收入和卷入程度的影响在知晓层面不显著,而在识别和使用层面显著;学历、子女状况与环境保护意识的影响在各层面皆显著;食品安全意识与信息渠道的影响在较低层面显著,而在较高层面不显著。消费者认知行为的异质性为市场细分与开发提供了空间。厂商应针对不同群体采取差异化营销战略,引导消费者认知行为,促进潜在需求向现实需求转化。     

It is not easy being a Green party: Green politics as a normal good

An extensive body of literature shows that voters often credit or blame ruling political parties for economic successes and failures, respectively. This paper presents a related, but new possibility: whether local economic conditions impact Green party electoral outcomes. According to the environmental Kuznets curve, high-income countries will see decreased environmental degradation as they become wealthier, but it is yet to be seen whether this relationship is carried over to environmentally friendly political parties. Using a panel data set that includes over 250 elections from 26 European countries, we find that elections held during times of economic growth increase the vote share that Green parties win. This effect is especially robust for national elections, as opposed to elections for the European Parliament. The magnitudes are large enough to potentially alter the number of seats Green parties have in national legislatures. This provides evidence that Green parties are most likely to gain seats when the economy is growing, and support for the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve.     

农产品绿色技术壁垒形成的政治经济学原因探究

近年来，绿色技术壁垒问题正越来越引起人们的关注。一些发达国家以保护生态环境、保护人类、动植物生命和健康为由制定复杂苛刻的环境保护措施，对国际贸易造成了不必要的障碍。因为大部分农产品和食品的出口限制主要以保护环境和人类健康为由，如检测出进口农产品有毒成分残留超标，含有已禁用的农药和化学药品等，所以农产品贸易受绿色技术壁垒的影响更为严重。本文尝试从政治经济学的角度深刻分析农产品遭遇绿色技术壁垒的原因。     

Green infrastructure and public policies: An international review of green roofs and green walls incentives

Worldwide, green infrastructure is increasingly used to mitigate the impacts of dense urban areas, contributing towards the naturalization of the built environment. However, for investors, these systems often emerge as requiring substantial upfront cost (high installation costs) and, depending on the solution, might also have significant maintenance costs. On the other hand, policymakers are placing green infrastructure on the agenda, as a solution to consider in urban planning and design. There is a mismatch between the economic/social/environmental value of green infrastructure and their financial analysis. As the quantified benefits of these solutions may not compensate the high implementation costs, discouraging building owners to invest in them. The alignment of both expectations, public and private agents, regarding the development of green infrastructure, is done through the use of incentives, with distinct configurations and nature, that promote and facilitate the adoption of green infrastructure by private investors. This research aims to identify and analyse the incentive policies used by several municipalities to promote the installation of green roofs and/or green walls. The data set includes 113 cities in 19 countries. The incentive policies were classified into six different categories: tax reductions, financing, construction permit, sustainability certification, obligations by law and agile administrative process. The results show that incentive policies are mainly concentrated in Europe and North America, and most incentive policies focus on the promotion of green roofs, as no exclusive incentive policies for the promotion of green walls were found. From all incentive policies studied, financial subsidies and obligations by law are the most used ways to promote green infrastructure worldwide.     

Understanding the impacts of ‘Grain for Green’ land management practice on land greening dynamics over the Loess Plateau of China

Land greening in China is regarded as contributing a great deal to greening of the Earth. The phenomenon is mainly attributed to climate change, arising atmospheric CO₂ and ‘Grain for Green’ (GFG) land management policies. However, limited knowledge is known how much land greening is from contributions of the GFG practice. Therefore, the study took the typical region of the GFG practice, the Loess Plateau, as the study area, and used 1982–2015 satellite-observed GIMMS3g normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data, ERA-Interim climatic variables (precipitation, temperature and solar radiation) and atmospheric CO₂ concentration data with the help of a developed TPRC-based NDVI model to derive GFG-induced NDVI after 1999. Furthermore, this study tracked the spatial-temporal dynamics of GFG-induced NDVI and assessed contributions of the GFG practice to regional vegetation changes. Results showed that satellite-observed NDVI and TPRC-based NDVI both exhibited an increasing spatial pattern from the northwestern to southeastern Loess Plateau, but their greening trends were separately 0.0022 and 0.0009 per year in 1982–2015 (p < 0.05). Note that the satellite-observed greening trend was much steeper with a slope of 0.0056 per year after 2006 (p < 0.05). The subsequent analyses documented that GFG-induced land greening were largely responsible for the steep trend. In space, evident greening patterns began to be observed in the central Loess Plateau from 2006 to 2008, afterwards expanded towards eastern and southwestern Loess Plateau. In 2011–2015, the increase magnitude of GFG-induced land greening in the Loess Plateau averagely accounted for 8.5 % in comparison to estimated TPRC-based NDVI, but in six natural zones were various, ranging from 3.2%–15.7%. In some regions of central Loess Plateau, GFG-induced NDVI contributed even more than 20 % to vegetation increase. This study highlights that land use management contributes more to land greening dynamics over the Loess Plateau compared to climate change and arising atmospheric CO₂ concentration. These findings likely provide some valuable information for curbing or enhancing specific-location vegetation changes in future regional land management and planning.