Dependent development in South America: China and the soybean nexus

This article examines the expansion of the soybean complex in South America and the role of Chinese firms in expanding their presence in different sectors of the oilseed complex. The growth in trade relations between the two parties has been built on the export of primary commodities from South America and the import of Chinese manufactures—a trade pattern that reproduces core‐periphery dynamics identified by dependency theory scholars. Of particular importance in this bilateral trade is soybean, a crop that has been consolidated as the main export for several South American countries, fuelled by growing demand from China. This article explores China's role in the global political economy as a key agri‐business player and the implications for new relations of dependency by studying the strategies deployed by Chinese firms to increase their influence in the governance of the soybean nexus.     

美国渔业及其管理简介

本文阐述了美国渔业管理体制、渔业资源保护措施、相关法律法规.发展渔业与保护环境的理念,并有针对性地提出了加强我国渔业管理、改变渔业发展方向的新观念.     

Reducing tourism's threats to biodiversity: effects of a voluntary sustainability standard and training program on 106 Latin American hotels,lodges and guesthouses

The tourism industry can negatively affect wildlife, plants and natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and visitor impacts to sensitive ecosystems. One approach to mitigate such threats is the application of voluntary sustainability standards, supported by training of tourism enterprises and verified by external audits. The Rainforest Alliance standard defines 78 criteria (requirements) for sustainable environmental, social and business practices, and has been adopted by over 600 tourism enterprises – including hotels, lodges and tour boats – in 12 countries. We examined the performance of 106 hotels in six Latin American countries against 29 of the sustainable tourism criteria most directly related to biodiversity conservation. Independent audits were used to assess hotel performance at baseline followed by a repeat assessment after training, about two years later. Mean conformance with the 29 biodiversity criteria increased significantly during this interval, from 44% to 58%. Improvements were greatest for businesses in the lowest third of performance at baseline (laggards) and smallest for hotels in the highest third (leaders). The results indicate that a voluntary sustainability standard and training program can serve both to recognize existing good actors and to drive incremental improvement in enterprises that were previously less sustainable.     

Trade policy and specialization in developing countries

This paper examines the impact of trade policy on specialization patterns in ten Latin American countries over the period 1985–1998. These countries are natural case studies because in the last decades they implemented comprehensive trade liberalization programs, both generally and preferentially, starting from relatively high tariff protection levels. Our econometric results suggest that reducing own most favored nation tariffs is associated with increasing manufacturing production specialization. Furthermore, we find that preferential trade liberalization and differences in the degree of unilateral openness have resulted in increased dissimilarities in manufacturing production structures across countries. These results are robust across specialization measures and estimation methods.

National parks in the third world and associated national characteristics

Abstract

For 102 third world countries, presence and absence of national parks is used as the dependent or classification variable in a discriminant analysis. Eleven variables suggestive of diverse tropical savanna habitats contribute to a single canonical discriminant function. Socioeconomic variables are poor contributors to the function. Seventy‐nine of the countries are properly classified in their group by the canonical discriminant function. Misclassification focuses on sub‐Saharan Africa where many countries have established parks under “improper”; conditions, and strong positive association with the function calls attention to Latin America.     

美国社会福利制度的现代化进程

美国社会福利制度的现代化开始是以1935年通过的《社会保障法》为标志的,美国社会福利制度现代化的完成是以林登·约翰逊总统的＂伟大社会＂计划的提出和实施为标志。美国的社会福利制度的现代化有其自己的特点和不足,在西欧社会福利陷入困境的21世纪,美国的社会福利是非常值得研究的。     

美国流动人口管理及对我国的启示

人口作为生产者和消费者以及科学技术的载体,其流动不是简单的转移,人口流动是市场经济机制内在规律作用的必然结果,同时,又是导致生产方式和生活方式的改变以及社会经济结构变化的重要因素。美国是世界上人口流动最高的国家,每年大约有20%的人口在流动。包括国际人口流动和国内人口流动,这两股潮流汇集形成美国人口流动的总体特征。本文对美国的人口现状及特点分析的基础上,简要介绍了美国人口管理体制与相关政策,最后总结出可供我国在流动人口管理中借鉴的经验。     

论冷战结束后美国的"人道主义干预"

冷战结束后,尤其是20世纪90年代末,美国提出"新干涉主义",其核心是进行"人道主义干预".一方面,美国在今后相当长的时期内仍将继续推行"人道主义干预",另一方面,在国际社会包括国际性组织和主权国家的共同努力下,美国以人权谋求霸权的阴谋必将破产.     

QFII及QDII制度引入后的中美股市联动性研究

中国股市最近几年得到了迅速的发展,特别是2002年11月QFII制度及2006年4月QDII制度引入后,中国股市与国际主要股市的联动性也随之增强。美国股市作为全球最发达的股市,对中国股市与美国股市间的联动性研究具有重要的意义。通过采用相关分析和单位根、协整、格兰杰因果检验、误差修正模型等方法对中美股市在QFII及QDII制度实施后的联动性进行研究,研究结果表明,中国股市与美国股市之间的联动性正在逐步加强,投资者可以根据双方的股市的变化来预测股市的发展趋势。这一结论进一步表明,如何应对危机、保持中国股市的稳定已成为政策制定者迫切需要解决的课题。