Assessing cost‐effectiveness when environmental benefits are bundled: agricultural water management in Great Barrier Reef catchments

Using economic analysis to prioritise improvements in environmental conditions is particularly difficult when multiple benefits are involved. This includes ‘bundling’ issues in agricultural pollution management, where a change in management action or farming systems generates multiple improvements, such as reductions in more than one pollutant. In this study, we conceptualise and compare two different approaches to analysing cost‐effectiveness when varying bundles of benefits are generated for a single project investment. Each approach requires data to be transformed in some way to allow the analysis to proceed. The index approach requires the transformation on the benefits side so that the effects of multiple pollutant changes can be combined into a measure for each project which can then be compared to costs. By comparison, the disaggregation approach requires the transformation on the costs side where costs for each project have to be apportioned across the different pollutants involved. The paper provides novel insights with an application to agricultural water quality improvements into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, demonstrating that while both approaches are effective in prioritising projects by cost‐effectiveness, the disaggregation approach provides more insightful results and values that may be relevant for use as upper value guidelines in future project selection.     

China feels the heat: negative impacts of high temperatures on China's rice sector

We analysed a county‐level data set of single‐season rice yield and daily weather outcomes in China to examine the effects of temperature on China's rice sector. We found that rice yield exhibited highly nonlinear responses to temperature changes: rice yield increased with temperature up to 28°C and decreased sharply with higher temperatures. Holding current growing seasons and regions constant, average rice yield in China is projected to decrease by 10–19 per cent by 2050 and 11–33 per cent by 2070 due to future warming under the global climate models HadGEM2‐ES and NorESM1‐M. These results imply that future warming poses a major challenge for Chinese rice farmers and that the effectiveness of adaptations will depend on how well they reduce the negative temperature impacts on rice yield because of very hot days.     

退耕还林背景下农户收入的社会网络效应分析 ——以四川南江县白滩村为例

研究目的:探讨退耕农户在生产力安排和收入结构方面是否存在同群效应或者互补效应,以及劳动力流动、退耕还林政策因素对农户收入结构的影响机制。研究方法:考虑农村社会网络内部农户间互动对其决策的影响,利用空间权重矩阵精确且全面地捕捉和定位社会网络复杂关系,构建空间计量模型展开分析。研究结果:(1)在白滩村社会网络体系中,农户的农业收入比增长1%,其亲戚邻居的家庭农业收入比降低6.7%,这一情况反映了劳动力由农业部门向非农部门转移而产生的社会网络"互补效应";(2)白滩村退耕程度越高的农户,其农业收入占家庭总收入比例就越高,退耕程度每增加1%,农业收入比将提高5.2%;(3)家庭总劳动力越多的,农业收入占总收入比例越低,其中家庭农业劳动力每流出1%,农业收入比减少3.2%。研究结论:(1)将白滩村社会网络的互补效应应用于其农村信息共享平台建设;(2)通过鼓励种植收入较高的经济林提高农民退耕还林积极性;(3)以就业为核心促进白滩村剩余劳动力转移。     

Determinants of island tourism development: The example of Dachangshan Island

Islands possess their own patterns of spatial and temporal evolution as tourist destinations. Taking Dachangshan Island as an example, two key stages were identified: a 'landscape-oriented' period from 2002 to 2009, and a 'background' stage from 2009 to 2012. Co-existing with both periods was changing spatial and land-use patterns of expansion and intensification. Using spatial mapping techniques, it was found that tourist resources were found to be the original driving force, tourist transportation and social and economic factors were endogenous determinants of change, and tourist enterprises and source markets subject to government policies the exogenous factors.     

城市工业用地产出率影响因素及区域比较—— 地级城市面板数据分析

研究目的:发现城市工业用地产出率影响因素及其影响程度和区域差异,提出相应对策以促进工业集约用地。研究方法:根据土地功能理论和经济主体动力学关系导向原则构建城市工业用地产出率双向固定效应模型,利用地级城市面板数据估计并检验工业用地产出率影响因素及作用程度并进行区域比较。研究结果:城市工业用地投资强度、就业密度和全要素生产率对1999年来城市工业用地产出率增长的贡献率分别为21.3%、-7%和85.7%;它们对工业用地产出率的边际贡献由于东中西部工业用地集约度、产业类型、劳动素质不同而呈现出区域差异。研究结论:应遏制各地尤其是中西部工业新区建设中粗放用地行为、促进工业投资并加强工业区生活配套以提升投资强度和就业密度,应在工业用地配置和评价中更加重视全要素生产率指标,应推动中西部地区工业升级并在营商环境、基础设施等方面缩小与东部的差距。     

Calendar Effects on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange

For daily data on a value-weighted index of all shares in the Netherlands (1981-1998), we find abnormally high returns in the pre-Christmas period of the second half of December and around the turn of the month, whereas returns are negative and volatility is relatively high on the Mondays where the previous week's return is below zero. Furthermore, our evidence indicates the presence of an ARCH(1) effect. Our intraday results based on an equal-weighted index of the leading shares in the Netherlands (1986-1993) reveal a U-shaped return pattern over each trading day, Monday morning excluded. Moreover, our tests reveal repeated price adjustments mostly in the same direction around and over non-trading periods. We argue that the arrival of private information is affected by strategic and behavioral factors incompatible with the risk-return paradigm.     

局部网络效应与企业标准竞争

传统理论观点认为,在网络效应的作用,标准竞争通常会导致一个赢者通吃的市场结果。然而在大多数情况下,网络效应对于用户而言并不是同质的,局部网络效应为我们提供了一个新的解释工具。局部网络效应的存在在很大程度上改变了标准竞争的结果,更容易带来多种技术共存的局面。     

基于LMDI的我国能耗增长总量分解

本文运用迪氏对数指标分解法（LMDI）对我国6个行业在1985～2005年的能耗增长进行研究,将总能耗增长量分解为3个部分：生产效应,结构效应和强度效应。研究结果表明,我国过去20多年来能耗消费增长的主要动因是生产规模的扩大和经济结构的调整,而我国能耗强度的降低则大大地延缓了能耗总量的增长。本文最后根据研究结果提出了相关的政策建议。     

人民币汇率形成机制改革的多层面考察

人民币汇率形成机制改革的经济效应可以从宏观、微观和金融市场三个层面进行考察。从宏观层面看,汇率改革能够提高我国货币政策的独立性,但是对减少贸易失衡和调整国际收支的作用并不明显,反而由于持续的升值预期导致大规模资本流入,影响经济金融稳定。从微观层面看.人民币升值对纺织业等行业产生了比较明显的冲击,非贸易品部门则受益于人民币升值,FDI 投资区位的选择也发生了变化,这些都有利于我国转变过度外向型的经济结构。从市场层面看,更大的汇率弹性使企业和金融机构面临的外汇风险上升,但同时也有利于促进外汇市场发展和推动资本账户开放。     

THE INFLUENCE OF FUNDAMENTALS ON EXCHANGE RATES: FINDINGS FROM ANALYSES OF NEWS EFFECTS

Abstract As we survey the literature of macroeconomic news in the foreign exchange market, we can by now look back on nearly 30 years of research. The first studies which analysed news effects on exchange rates were established in the early 1990s (see, for example, Dornbusch). Almost at the same time Meese and Rogoff published their influential paper, revealing the forecasting inferiority in exchange rates of structural models against the random walk. This finding has shocked the pillars of exchange rate economics and thus cast general suspicion on research focusing on fundamentals in this field. The eventual rising popularity of event studies can partly be attributed to the re‐establishment of the raison d’être of exchange rate economics. This work focuses on systematically surveying this literature with particular respect to its primary goal, i.e. shedding light on the analytical value of fundamental research. Thus, its major findings are, first, fundamental news does matter, whereas non‐fundamental news matters to a lesser degree. Second, news influences exchange rates via two separated channels, i.e. incorporating common information into prices directly or indirectly based upon order flow. Third, with a few exceptions the impact of fundamental news on exchange rates is fairly stable over time.