中国股市泡沫浅析

中国股市泡沫的出现主要是基于四个方面：市场的非完全有效性、缺乏有效的红利分配、政策干预严重和缺乏做空机制。在股权分置改革后，产业资本与金融资本可依据Q值的大小，通过企业市场市值和重置资本的调整，使得Q值维持在合理的水平，抑制泡沫的膨胀。     

Technical Efficiency of Rice Farms in Different Agroclimatic Zones in the Philippines: An Application of a Stochastic Metafrontier Model*

Rice producers in the Philippines operate in spatially diverse physical environments that are largely beyond their control. We decompose total factor productivity into technical efficiencies and environment–technology gap ratios across four climatic zones for selected years from 1996/1997 to 2005/2006 using farm‐level panel data. Results show surprisingly little interzonal and intertemporal variation in productivity. It appears that Philippine rice producers have been able to adapt their crop management strategies sufficiently to suit their particular agroclimatic conditions. However, after an increase in the first 5 years of the study period, mean environment–metatechnology gap ratios stagnated in the second 5 years. The metafrontier does not appear to have substantially shifted outwards over the whole period, suggesting that rice producers achieved little technological progress and increased total factor productivity.     

RAINFALL, THE MÉLINE TARIFF, AND WHEAT PRODUCTION IN MEDITERRANEAN FRANCE, 1885–1914

Wheat production stagnated in France during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, while cultivated acreage and wheat output declined sharply around the Mediterranean from the 1870s. Wheat output never recovered in this region despite the introduction in 1885 of tariff measures, such as the 1892 Méline Tariff. This paper analyses the response of Mediterranean wheat growers to changes in local rainfall and to variations of the duty on imported grains. It uses regional level data for nine administrative divisions located on or near the Mediterranean and assesses the impact of rainfall on yields. It argues that an interplay of protectionist policies and environmental conditions explain the decline of wheat production.     

BLASTING OUT: EXPLOSIVES PRACTICES IN QUEENSLAND METALLIFEROUS MINES, 1870–1920

The use of explosives in mines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was notoriously unsafe. In Queensland's underground metalliferous mines, explosive practices could be dangerous not only because of the attitudes of miners and managers, but because of problems inherent to the technology, conditions underground, economic fluctuations, and the persistence of outmoded practices. Some limited specialisation of labour occurred in the interests of safety, and although newer technology had the potential to deskill the work of miners, these developments were quite dissimilar to the highly specialised work practices that were adopted for large-scale mining in the United States during the same period.     

The effect of nonfarm income on investment in Bulgarian family farming

This article documents a relationship between nonfarm income (primarily earnings and pensions) and agricultural investment in Bulgaria, specifically, expenditures on working capital (variable inputs such as feed, seed, and herbicides) and investment in livestock. Among those with positive spending on farm inputs, the estimated elasticity of these expenditures with respect to nonfarm income is 0.14. Nonfarm income also has an effect on the number of households that purchase farm animals, with an estimated elasticity of 0.35. The use of nonfarm income for farm investment is consistent with the presence of credit constraints, as is the fact that less than one percent of farmers report outstanding debts for agricultural purposes. Yet many farm households take out large unsecured loans for other purposes, primarily to cover consumption expenditures, implying that credit is available, but that farmers prefer not to use borrowed funds to finance agricultural investment. This would suggest that increases in the availability of agricultural credit may have little effect on farm outcomes, whereas increases in nondebt-financed sources of liquidity, such as subsidies or transfers, may better stimulate investment.     

Malaria incidence and agricultural efficiency in Uganda

The cost of accessing healthcare can be a major determinant of disease prevalence, which in turn has short‐ and long‐term welfare implications on poor households. In response, governments in developing countries often resort to subsidizing the cost of drugs, which, while perhaps easier to administer, may not always be the most effective way of addressing healthcare cost. In this regard, we analyze the impact of different types of household level health expenses on disease incidence and agricultural production efficiency. We use data from the 2006 Uganda National Household Survey, which covered approximately 7,400 households. The results suggest that a 10% increase in consultation, medicine, and hospitalization expenses would reduce malaria incidence respectively by 35.6%, 20.5%, and 21.3 %, which translates into a 1.1%, 0.6%, and 0.6 % decrease in agricultural inefficiency, respectively. The results indicate that helping poor households meet expenses for consultation through subsidies or eliminating consultation fees has a larger impact on malaria incidence and agricultural productivity among poor rural households than subsidizing the cost of medical drugs, the most common avenue chosen by developing country governments in the fight against the disease.     

The sceptical consumer? Exploring views about food assurance

The problem of trust in food production and regulation has increasingly been raised as a practical and policy issue in recent years and one solution has been to provide more and better information about food production and regulation, especially through food assurance schemes. To look for evidence that this might be successful, this paper uses a small empirical study of how UK consumers think about food information and food assurance claims, using a statement sorting exercise (Q methodology) to identify key factors or shared views. We found that our consumers, despite differences in sociodemographics, gender, diet and shopping habits, tended to share a baseline of scepticism about food information and food assurance claims. We speculate that such scepticism may mean that, rather than providing a solution to the problem of distrust, food assurance schemes may themselves come to be distrusted.     

Assessing the Impacts of Pillar 1 and 2 Subsidies on TFP in French Crop Farms

This article analyses the impact of common agricultural policy (CAP) subsidies on total factor productivity using a FADN dataset of French crop farms between 1996 and 2003. We first estimate a production function using a system GMM approach and then recover farm‐level total factor productivity (TFP). Further, the impact of Pillar 1 and 2 subsidies on TFP is investigated and results show that several subsidies have a negative impact on productivity during the period covered in the dataset. CAP reforms have also had an impact on the relationship between subsidies and productivity.     

Quantifying rural livelihood strategies in developing countries using an activity choice approach

This article uses a quantitative activity choice approach, based on identification of activity variables and application of latent class cluster analysis, to identify five major rural livelihood strategies pursued by households (n= 576) in Bolivia, Nepal, and Mozambique. Income sources and welfare outcomes are compared across strategies and household differences in asset holdings are analyzed using multinomial logit regression. Findings reveal that income diversification is the norm, that a higher degree of specialization does not characterize more remunerative livelihood strategies, that nonfarm income significantly contributes to higher income earnings, that environmental reliance does not vary across strategies, and that small‐scale farmers are the largest and poorest livelihood group. Some livelihood strategies are superior to all other strategies in terms of income earned; access to more remunerative livelihood strategies is determined by land ownership, education, and ethnic affiliation. Finally, the article also highlights that additional work is required to determine the most suitable methods for livelihood strategy identification.     

Cooperative pricing and scale efficiency: The case of Korean rice processing complexes

Unlike most investor‐owned enterprises, cooperatives often have freedom to choose among a variety of firm objectives. Using 2002–2008 plant‐ and province‐level data, we ask in the present article which of several alternative maximands a Korean cooperative rice processing firm pursues. In contrast to earlier studies, farmer‐member supply functions are incorporated into the cooperative's optimization framework. We show that only large cooperative firms have operated at efficient scale, while small and medium‐sized ones have been scale‐inefficient. Because the latter operate where scale returns are increasing, mergers of small and medium‐sized cooperatives likely would be cost‐reducing and member‐return‐enhancing.