The incentives of China's urban land finance

Land grant premiums and land tax revenues have become two major sources of fiscal revenue for city governments in China. This type of fiscal revenue strategy for city governments is generally referred to as “land finance”, and it has drawn increasing research attention in recent years. This paper explores the institutional causes of the “land finance” strategy of city governments in China. We first analyze the institutional foundation of “land finance” (including China's urban land use system and land expropriation system). We then propose two hypotheses about the institutional causes of “land finance”. The first hypothesis is that the current system of fiscal decentralization is a major reason city governments choose the “land finance” fiscal strategy. The second hypothesis is that under the current personnel control system, which uses local economic performance as the most important indicator for evaluating local government officials, the competition between city governments to promote local economic growth is another major reason city governments choose the “land finance” fiscal strategy. We test the hypotheses by estimating econometric models using data for 31 provincial-level regions for the period 1999–2008. The empirical results suggest that fiscal decentralization and competition between city governments to promote economic growth are two major causes of “land finance”.     

Factors affecting municipal land use cooperation

This paper evaluates the factors affecting voluntary municipal land use cooperation in Michigan where neither substantial mandates nor incentives for such cooperation exist. Cooperation is conceptualized as the formality of land use cooperation. This paper uses quantitative data obtained through surveys of chief elected officials and finds that the extent of internal municipal support for cooperation, whether elected officials anticipate benefits from cooperation, and the effectiveness of regional institutions at providing supportive services for cooperation have positive impacts on the formality of land use cooperation. The amount of cooperation on services and a regional cooperative culture impact the formality of land use cooperation negatively.     

How do centrality,population growth and urban sprawl impact farmland conversion in Norway?

A strong link has been observed between urbanization processes and conversions of farmland to built-up land. Most previous research has addressed such conversion of farmland in relation to the expansion of larger cities. However, broader analysis of both rural and central areas is needed to increase the empirical basis for these claims. Based on GIS analysis of farmland conversions, this paper aims to expand our understanding of how urban sprawl affects conversion of farmland. We find that most farmland in Norway is converted to built-up areas in relation to existing urban settlement areas. In line with population growth, urban areas in the most central municipalities experience the most significant urban sprawl and loss of farmland. Moreover, the remaining farmland is located in the same areas that already have converted the most. These areas also experience significant pressure for continued land take. Assuming current trends continue, future urban sprawl will pose great challenges for the preservation of farmland in land-use planning. New research and policies are required to handle these challenges more effectively.     

Landowner willingness to supply marginal land for bioenergy production

This study elicits willingness to supply marginal land for biomass cultivation in Southern Lower Michigan. Most of the surveyed landowners are not interested in renting land for bioenergy crop production. Those who are interested offer relatively little land for bioenergy crops, even at rental rates three times current levels. Willing landowners would prefer to grow a significant portion of these crops on cropland rather than non-crop, marginal land. Hence, the area of marginal land that owners are willing to supply for bioenergy crop production falls far short of area estimates based on remote sensing that ignore landowner preferences.     

Drivers of land change: Human-environment interactions and the Atlantic forest transition in the Paraíba Valley,Brazil

Human societies constantly interact with the environment through mutual feedbacks and adaptations. The aim of this research was to analyze human and environmental dimensions so as to understand how the dynamic processes of land use and land cover change are contributing to the increase of forest cover observed between 1985 and 2011 in the Paraíba Valley, Brazil. The forestry sector, based on eucalyptus plantations, is given particular attention due to its role in these change processes. Multi-layer perception neural network (MPNN) models were adopted to evaluate the influence of independent variables in the process of the forest transition. Based on the model's results, we conclude that the process is conditioned by a set of biophysical and socioeconomic variables that operate during different historical periods and in different landscape settings. The proximity of Atlantic forest remnants was influential in the forest transition for the three periods analyzed: 1985–1995, 1995–2005, and 2005–2011. In the first period of change (1985–1995), topography was most influential. Between the periods of 1995–2005 and 2005–2011, the proximity to eucalyptus plantations was an important factor, indicating a high probability of native forest recovery occurring in the vicinity of these monocultural areas. The forest transition tends to occur in areas less suitable for agriculture at the outset, but as these areas are replaced by forest cover, socioeconomic drivers such as farm credit and economic development play important roles in forest recovery.     

“三权分置”下的土地经营权登记

研究目的:研究探讨"三权分置"改革下的土地经营权登记的原则和方法。研究方法:历史研究法、规范分析法。研究结果:(1)土地经营权应当具备物权性质,应当进行不动产权利登记;(2)土地经营权与土地承包经营权之间的关系,决定其不动产登记该如何进行,对土地经营权做怎样的不动产登记,又能直接反映出它的法律地位和权利性质。研究结论:在中国土地公有制背景下,土地使用权不属于土地的他项权利。为保证"三权分置"改革目标实现,亦当将土地经营权视作土地使用权性质,并进行不动产首次登记。     

Why Do Some Bt-Cotton Farmers in China Continue to Use High Levels of Pesticides?

China was the first developing country to introduce Bt cotton on a large scale. This paper provides an indepth economic analysis of Bt cotton production by small-scale farmers in China. Data were collected in 2002 in Linqing County, in Shandong Province and comprised a season-long cotton production monitoring with 150 farmers and complementary household interviews. For quality assessment, the Bt toxin concentration of the various Bt varieties used by the farmers was determined for each plot. All farmers were growing insect resistant Bt cotton varieties. Yet, they sprayed high amounts of chemical insecticides, out of which 40% were extremely or highly hazardous. The paper reviews methodological issues inherent to impact assessment of crop biotechnology and identifies market and institutional failure as possible reasons for continued high pesticide use. Using the damage function methodology the coefficients for both damage control inputs, i.e., Bt varieties (measured as toxin concentration), and insecticide quantity were not significantly different from zero. Results show that absence of enabling institutions and lack of farmer knowledge can considerably limit the benefits of Bt cotton for small-scale farmers. The paper points out the importance to include the institutional conditions in the evaluation of agricultural biotechnology in developing countries.     

Policies to attract drivers out of their cars for short trips

This paper examines the policies and personal actions that might attract motorists out of their cars onto the alternatives for short trips. The analysis is based on the results of surveys carried out on a project for the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The various events that car drivers say could attract them to an alternative are examined. The actions associated with each of the alternatives to the car are identified. According to the respondents, the most significant action to reduce the number of car trips would be to improve public transport. The potential impact of the implementation of all the actions identified on the number of short car trips nationally is calculated.     

Institutionalization of common land property in Portugal: Tragic trends between “Commons” and “Anticommons”

The use and exploitation of natural resources is generally structured by institutions, especially by property institutions. The main objective of this paper is to present a diachronic analysis of the institutionalization of common land property in Portugal. The several types of ownership may be largely explained by common land history. We intend to draw an outline of the emergence, evolution and transition of common land from the late nineteenth century to the present day, using the matrix proposed by Heller. The economic problem of the optimal level of appropriation is recurrent in studies that analyze the economic implications of property rights. Thus, it is imperative to analyze whether or not the dimension of common land ownership is relevant to its efficient exploitation.In essence, we infer that common land ownership in the 1st period (1850–1926) may be classified as limited-access commons (limited access to commoners) with a relatively small average size of 50 ha. This common land was primarily used for grazing, firewood collecting and shrub extraction. In the second period (1926–1974), the State dictatorship invoked the public interest (forest easements) and took possession of more than 80% of common land, promoting the transition from limited-access commons to state ownership. The units of commons were aggregated in forest perimeters for Silviculture activity, the average size being greater than 3400 ha. Finally, we analyzed the institutionalization of common land ownership in the period after the democratic revolution on April 25th 1974. We concluded that the incipient legal and institutional frameworks revealed an inability to integrate an effective title to these territories to give way to a better classification of limited-exclusion anticommons. The Heller matrix approach revealed to be a useful tool, however insufficient to study holistically Portuguese common land institutionalization. In our preliminary conclusions the Heller matrix appears to be an ill-posed problem (no continuum). It allows for the reversibility between different property regimes that involve great simplifications in the epistemology of property rights.     

A conceptual framework and its software implementation to generate spatial decision support systems for land use planning

In a context where several sectors of society compete for space, land use types must be carefully designed and spatially allocated to guarantee a sufficient level of relevant ecosystem services (ES) in a territory of interest. In this respect, contemporary land use planning involves multiple, often conflicting objectives and criteria. Consequently, major benefits can be expected from spatial decision support systems (sDSS) designed to deal with complex spatial allocation problems.This paper presents the generic conceptual framework ‘OSMOSE’ and its free and open source software implementation, for the generation of specific sDSSs for spatial land use planning. The specific sDSSs generated with OSMOSE are meant to (i) identify land units which meet multiple predefined ES-attribute values for a specific land use type (LUT) and (ii) rank land units for a given LUT according to these multiple ES-attributes. A complementary purpose is to (i) identify and (ii) rank LUTs for a given land unit. Whereas ‘identification’ is done by means of a threshold query, ‘ranking’ is based on the Iterative Ideal Point Thresholding (IIPT) method. The proposed framework is extremely flexible as it can accommodate differentially weighted, continuous and/or ordinal attributes with, for the latter, equal or unequal number of classes, alternative land unit definitions and land use types. Moreover, assessments cannot only be made using ES-levels for the land unit/LUT combinations but also in terms of changes in ES-levels after a particular change of LUT.The OSMOSE framework is illustrated by means of the specific sDSS BoLa which is generated to support land use planning in the region of Flanders (Belgium) with focus on soil protection. Four cases are presented in which the decision support varies between the available approaches (threshold – selection, threshold – ranking, IIPT – selection, IIPT – ranking).