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.     

Impact of national policies on patterns of built-up development: an assessment over three decades

Globally, built-up development is taking place at unprecedented rates. To mitigate and limit its effects, recent scientific and spatial planning communities call for built-up management to be addressed on broader scales, from regional to national, and coordinated with multiple policy domains. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the evolution and impact of Romania’s national policies on built-up management during the entire period from the fall of the communist regime to the present. The new perspective offered by our study concerns the use of spatiotemporal built-up development assessment with policy analysis and visualization. Moreover, policies and built-up land changes are addressed in direct relationship with major political events and global economic influences. Our findings reveal that policies were influenced by the communist legacy, accession to the EU and the global economic crisis. Most effective were the policies adopted during the pre-EU accession period and after the economic crisis. The strongest impact on patterns of development came from policies in the domains of transportation, regional development, public administration and the environment.     

A social-media-based approach to assessing the effectiveness of equitable housing policy in mitigating education accessibility induced social inequalities in Shanghai,China

Social inequalities induced by education accessibility are widespread and concern land use policy makers globally. Yet much of existing research heavily emphasizes on uncovering the spatial patterns of housing price in relation to education resources. This paper aims to renew our understanding of this classical topic by bringing the importance of temporal and institutional dynamics to the fore. Specifically, this research presents a detailed examination of the relationship between school quality and housing rental dynamics under the intervention of equitable housing policy, with special reference to Shanghai, the most developed megacity in China, also one of the first Chinese cities granting equal rights for renters to access schools within the catchment area. Based on time-series housing rental data collected from social media, the t-test discovers that school quality has a significant impact on housing rental prices after the introduction of this new housing policy. Moreover, housing rental prices within high-quality school districts are significantly higher than those within ordinary school districts. The hedonic model and variance partitioning further confirm that school quality is capitalized into housing rental prices, and its relative contribution varies with temporal periods. More specifically, how the relative contribution of school quality changes over time is consistent with the schedule of primary school enrollment and sensitive to policy intervention. The difference in difference model foregrounds that the equitable housing policy does result in rental prices hike in high-quality school districts, i.e., a 13.5 % rental premium of housings within high-quality school districts compared with those within ordinary ones. We conclude that the equitable housing policy fails to achieve the expected goal and propose alternative suggestions for mitigating social inequalities in education accessibility. This study demonstrates a novel methodological framework for evaluating the social consequence of equitable housing policy based on social media data. It unravels how housing rental changes with school district division and the capitalization effect of school quality in housing rental prices.     

Five scale challenges in Ecuadorian forest and landscape restoration governance

The forest and landscape restoration (FLR) targets set as part of the Bonn Challenge draw attention to the governance arrangements required to translate national FLR targets into local action. To achieve the targets, actors at multiple levels of the governance scale aim to influence relevant processes on the ecological scale. In this article, we focus on the scale challenges relating to the implementation of Ecuador’s restoration targets, by analysing the implementation of the 2014–2017 National Forest Restoration Plan in the montane Chocó Andino and Bosque Seco landscapes. From 54 semi-structured interviews, a document review, and geographical data analysis, we identified two temporal (i, ii) and three spatial scale challenges (iii, iv, v): i) Political cycles mismatch with FLR timelines; ii) Planning horizons mismatch with FLR timelines; iii) National restoration objectives mismatch with decentralised land use planning realities; iv) The governance level of existing FLR efforts mismatches with the level receiving restoration funds; and v) Tensions exist between the spatial dimensions of biodiversity and water-related restoration efforts. The findings highlight that more attention must be given to scale-sensitive governance to make the process in which national FLR targets are translated into local action more effective.     

What is the policy improvement of China’s land consolidation? Evidence from completed land consolidation projects in Shaanxi Province

Land consolidation plays an important role in increasing cultivated land, improving cultivated land quality and the ecological environment, and promoting the coordinated development of urban and rural areas. However, under the conditions of three decades of land consolidation being conducted and changing urban–rural human–land relationship, the areas of improvement in the land consolidation policy of China must be studied. This article analyzes the implementation and distribution characteristics of the land consolidation project completed in Shaanxi Province in 2018. Results show that land consolidation projects in Shaanxi are mainly land reclamation projects, cropland consolidation projects, and high-standard cropland consolidation projects. The increased cultivated land is mainly from land reclamation projects and cropland consolidation projects. The land consolidation projects in Aeolian Plateau Area, Loess Plateau Area, and Da Ba Mountain Area are mainly land reclamation projects. The land reclamation projects in Guan Zhong Plain Area and Qing Ling Mountain Area account for a large proportion. The spatial distribution of rural settlement consolidation projects, and rural settlement consolidation and land reclamation projects are mainly located in Guan Zhong Plain Area and distributed in the boundary area of Guan Zhong Plain Area and Loess Plateau Area. According to the characteristics of land consolidation projects and the changes of urban–rural human–land relationship, China should be prudent in or stop advancing land reclamation to increase cultivated land; cropland consolidation and high-standard cropland construction are vital ways to achieve China’s food security; and rural settlement consolidation should be carefully conducted in remote areas under the background of urbanization.     

金融稳定是否应纳入中国货币政策目标——基于混频IS-Phillips模型的实证分析

文章首先使用混频动态因子模型（MF-DFM），构建中国首个混频金融稳定指数（MF-FSI），接着把MF-FSI作为金融稳定的代理变量，使用文章新构建的混频IS-Phillips模型，比较分析纳入与不纳入金融稳定的中国货币政策损失函数差异，最后对货币政策目标选择和时效选择进行了敏感性分析，实证分析表明：（1）中国混频金融稳定指数是金融稳定的一个实时性有效测度指标；（2）中国货币政策目标应纳入金融稳定，以减少货币政策福利损失；（3）无论中国货币政策目标偏好和预期偏好怎样变化，央行都应给予金融稳定固定且不可忽略的关注度，但物价稳定和经济增长仍为主要货币政策目标。     

Walras as an ordoliberal?

Léon Walras and the ordoliberals share the opinion that State intervention in favour of a competitive order is a central element of economic policy. Hence, can Walras be regarded as a forerunner of ordoliberalism? This study performs a methodological and ontological analysis of Walras’ and Eucken’s thoughts and sheds light on another common ground: philosophical idealism. By taking different inclinations – Walras’ Teleological Realism vs Eucken’s Historicist Conceptualism – these authors reveal different relations with reality and methodological stances, which result in opposing philosophies of History. Paradoxically, by revealing tenuous epistemological bonds, we set a new distance between Walras and the ordoliberals.     

产业政策的两大思潮及其架桥

激进发展经济学以及演化发展经济学与新结构经济学围绕产业政策的制定依据展开了激烈争论：前者推行技术拉动的产业政策，强调加快技术自主创新；后者主张资本推动的产业政策，强调提升要素禀赋结构。实际上，产业政策争论反映出了两种不同的技术内生观，进而表现为技术进步的两种路径依赖：内部路径依赖与本国研发投入和学习机会等内部特征有关，外部路径依赖则与要素禀赋和经济系统等外部条件有关。同时，考虑到要素的异质性和技术的专用性以及技术对要素相对价格的影响，一国的技术革新应该兼顾两类依赖路径。因此，看似对立的思维和范式之后实质上也存在很强的相通性，周全的产业和科技政策需要契合这两种视角的思维和认识。     

高新技术产业政策特征及演进趋势研究

为揭示高新技术产业政策特征及演进趋势，结合文献计量与内容分析法对199篇高新技术产业政策有效文本进行共现和聚类分析，得出高新技术产业政策在时空中的分类与演进关系，并采用多维标度法从多个维度分析政策内容的交叉特征。研究表明，高新技术产业政策在创新创业服务、科技成果管理、高新企业管理及高新区建设4个方面存在明显的主题变迁规律，且政策具有较强的内容交叉特征，这些特征的研究有利于管理部门看清政策的细微变化，更容易掌握政策形势，把握政策方向。     

Industry policy,cross-region investment,and enterprise investment efficiency

The introduction of industry policies creates a non-market-oriented policy arbitrage space, which in turn triggers enterprises to adopt "strategic" investments to obtain government policy preferences, which may induce irrational over-investment behaviors and even lead to long-term investment inefficiencies. For an empirical study of the impact of industry policy for the cross-region enterprise investment in specific locations, we manually collected information on industry policy in various regions, as well as data on the establishment of subsidiaries of Chinese listed companies from 2006 to 2019.The results show that enterprises are more likely to invest in regions supported by industry policies. If the enterprise's location is not supported by policies, the impact of this policy "gap" will be strengthened. We find that the higher the level of finance in the region where the enterprise is located, the greater the possibility of the enterprise's cross-region investment. Our research also shows that private enterprise has more substantial incentives to engage in "policy arbitrage", and state-owned enterprises are less affected. In china, a lot of enterprises in regions with high returns on capital have been investing in regions with low returns has increased. However, the increased intensity of investment in low-return regions will significantly inhibit the production efficiency of these enterprises. Our findings help clarify the effect of public policies on the enterprise's investment behavior and efficiency, which enriches the research on the impact of government macroeconomic policies on enterprise micro decision-making. We believe that, when promoting regional industrial upgrades through industry policies, it is necessary to guide enterprises to follow market rules to make market-oriented investments.