Integrating public demands into model-based design for multifunctional agriculture: An application to intensive Dutch dairy landscapes

The contribution of agriculture to the welfare of society is determined by its economic, social and environmental performance. Although theoretical discussions can be found in the literature, few reports exist that integrate the social demand for multifunctional agriculture in the evaluation of the sustainability and the global welfare of society. This paper presents a methodology that combines economic valuation, integrated modelling, stakeholder analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation. It consists of three steps to determine: (1) social demands for multifunctional agriculture; (2) feasible technical alternatives available from the supply part of the market; (3) the net utility of alternatives for society measured as the change in social net benefit, i.e. the sum of changes compared to the current situation expressed in utility of market and non-market net benefits. Market net benefits are represented by their monetary value. Quality Function Deployment combined with Analytic Network Process (QFD/ANP) were used to estimate the non-market net benefits. The methodology is applied to the case study of a dairy-farming based agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands, The Netherlands. Social net benefit depended on land use, i.e. pasture management regimes on each of the agricultural fields and on presence or absence of hedgerows around the fields. Changes in market net utility were expressed in terms of changes for farmers, consumers and government. Changes in non-market net utility were expressed in terms of changes in landscape quality, nature value and environmental health for Dutch society as a whole, as estimated from European public surveys (Eurobarometer). The complete solution space defined by the market and non-market net benefits of landscapes with alternative patterns of land use was estimated to offer insight in the trade-off between market and non-market performance and enable selection of ‘icon’ landscapes to target or avoid. Improvement of the current landscape towards the social optimum would involve changes in pasture management resulting in higher gross margin for farmers, slightly relaxing current environmental restrictions, which could be reached at lower levels of subsidies in agri-environmental programs. In addition to such overall optimum the results demonstrate the trade-off between market and non-market benefits and the characteristics of current, utopian and dystopian landscapes. The approach provides an alternative to current economic valuation methods which focus on assessment of economic value as an input to analysis. Here, economic value emerges as the trade-off between market and non-market functions which is an output of the analysis.     

基层政府应对群体事件网络舆情管理策略

群体性事件近年来的扩大趋势已成为不争盼事实,这与中国当前正在经历的深层次全方位社会变迁有关。在有关群体性事件“新特点”的研究中,以网络为代表的新技术在群体性事件的诱发、促进、形成、激化抑或化解的过程中,开始扮演令人侧目的角色和作用。在一个信息化程度不断加深的中国,在一个网络社会,如果要想深化对群体性事件的进一步认识,如果要想实现更多群体性事件由“危”到“机”的转变,决不能忽略对群体性事件网络舆情的深入分析。本文在转型社会的历史场景下,通过对群体性事件中角色冲突的深入分析,从体制层面探求其产生和发展的社会根源,进而寻求解决群体性事件的制度化整合机制与协调机制;同时,文章分析了网络舆情在社会公共空间建设以及民意代表方面的特性。在此基础上,提出了基层政府应对群体事件网络舆情中存在的问题以及基层政府应对群体事件网络舆情的管理策略,并在转型社会的秩序构建层面做出了更深入的思考。     

农村公共产品供给地区差距的实证分析

本研究利用第二次全国农业普查数据,对我国东、中、西部农村公共产品供给的地区差距进行了实证分析,探讨了造成农村公共产品供给地区差距的原因,提出了通过改革农村公共产品供给制度、加大中央财政向中西部地区的转移支付力度、促进中、西部地区的经济发展等措施来缩小地区间基本公共产品和服务的差距,从而实现地区间基本公共产品和服务的均等化。     

Informality,public employment and employment protection in developing countries

This paper proposes an equilibrium matching model for developing countries’ labor markets where the interaction between public, formal private and informal private sectors are taken into account. Theoretical analysis shows that gains from reforms aiming at liberalizing formal labor markets can be annulled by shifts in the public sector employment and wage policies. Since the public sector accounts for a substantial share of employment in developing countries, this approach is crucial to understand the main labor market outcomes of such economies. Wages offered by the public sector increase the outside option value of the workers during the bargaining processes in the formal and informal sectors. It becomes more profitable for workers to search on-the-job, in order to move to these more attractive and more stable types of jobs. The public sector therefore acts as an additional tax for the formal private firms. Using data on workers’ flows from Egypt, we show empirically and theoretically that the liberalization of labor markets plays against informal employment by increasing the profitability, and hence job creations, of formal jobs. The latter effect is however dampened or even sometimes nullified by the increase of the offered wages in the public sector observed at the same time.     

Policy tolerance of economic crime? An empirical analysis of the effect of counterfeiting on Italian trade

Some governments seem ambivalent towards economic crime because, on the one hand, there are adverse effects on competition and legal businesses; on the other hand, there are benefits through (shadow) employment and income in less-developed areas, as well as benefits through relations of political clientage. We focus on counterfeiting and its economic effects on trade in Italy during the economic crisis. Using a newly built regional dataset and a dynamic panel model, we find evidence of the dual impact of counterfeiting. The production (and exchange) of fake goods depresses the legal market that relies on intellectual property rights but supports shadow-economic activities for the benefit of illegal workers, criminal organisations, and political clientele. We show that the negative effects outweigh the positive effects.     

Idea Competitions under scrutiny: Acquisition,intelligence or public relations mechanism?

Idea Competitions (ICs) are becoming a popular mechanism chosen by firms to perform Open Innovation. They are a way to engage with external sources of knowledge such as individual entrepreneurs and small firms who are asked to submit ideas and compete for a prize. However, little is known about the success of ICs as acquisition mechanisms. The researchers conducted interviews in five multinational companies to evaluate the effects of using ICs as an acquisition mechanism. Although still preliminary, the results of this study show that the success of ICs as an acquisition mechanism remains uncertain because their output (i.e. the number of ideas acquired) is often low compared to the input (i.e. the number of ideas submitted) and effort required to run them (e.g. to vet ideas). Across the cases observed, ICs appear to be more successful at identifying and acquiring early-stage ideas, particularly those outside the current business focus. The study shows that ICs deliver other functional benefits such as improved intelligence and public relations and that these need to be considered as part of the evaluation of the IC's success. The paper concludes by discussing the conditions in which ICs are implemented and the implications for Open Innovation theory.     

Equilibrium play and best response to (stated) beliefs in normal form games

We report experimental results on a series of ten one-shot two-person 3×3 normal form games with unique equilibrium in pure strategies played by non-economists. In contrast to previous experiments in which game theory predictions fail dramatically, a majority of actions taken coincided with the equilibrium prediction (70.2%) and were best-responses to subjects' stated beliefs (67.2%). In constant-sum games, 78% of actions taken were predicted by the equilibrium model, outperforming simple K-level reasoning models. We discuss how non-trivial game characteristics related to risk aversion, efficiency concerns and social preferences may affect the predictive value of different models in simple normal form games.