农业科技园区的经济发展带动效应——来自河北省县域的实证评估

目的 农业科技园区作为农业现代化的示范基地,发挥着拓展农业功能、促进农业经济增长的作用。文章将评估农业科技园区的经济发展带动效应。方法 将农业科技园区视为一项“准自然实验”,以2007—2020年河北省167个区县的面板数据为研究样本,运用多期双重差分模型,评估了河北省省级以上农业科技园区对农业经济的影响。结果 （1）农业科技园区总体上显著提高了农业产值,从而有效带动当地农业经济发展水平,这一结论在经过安慰剂检验、稳健性检验后依然稳健。（2）机制分析表明,农业科技园区能够通过科技创新促进农业经济的发展;异质性分析结果显示,农业科技园区对农业经济的影响在不同等级、不同地理空间、不同行政层级中存在差异。结论 河北省应继续加大农业科技园区的建设力度,持续提升科技园区创新水平以助力实现河北省农业高质量发展。     

农地经营规模对农村生态环境的影响机理与实证检验——基于农业要素投入的视角

目的 有关农地经营规模影响的研究主要集中在农业增效和农民增收等经济影响方面,文章基于农业要素投入的视角,就农地经营规模对农村生态环境的影响机理进行系统分析和实证检验,对我国建设宜居宜业和美乡村具有十分重要的理论和现实意义。方法 理论分析法、空间动态面板模型和综合评价法。结果 （1）农地经营规模对农村生态环境影响的总效应显著为正。（2） 从影响路径看,农地经营规模对农村生态环境影响的直接效应显著为正,中介效应为负;（3） 在农地经营规模对农村生态环境的间接影响中,资本中介效应显著为负,而劳动中介效应与要素组合中介效应并不显著,农地经营规模对农村生态环境的间接影响主要通过资本中介效应表现出来。结论 要大力发展农地适度规模经营,同时也应采取措施,降低这一过程中资本要素投入大量增加对农村生态环境造成的负面影响,实现经济效益和生态效益的双丰收。     

现代农业产业园集聚效应研究——基于北京8家园区的实证分析

目的 国家高度重视现代农业产业园的建设和发展,集聚发展是现代农业产业园发展的现实需要。对园区集聚效应进行评价,找出制约园区集聚效应发挥的影响因素并提出相应对策建议,可以为推动现代农业产业园进一步发挥集聚效应提供参考。方法 文章以北京市8家现代农业产业园为研究对象,从要素集聚、产业链集聚、功能集聚以及带动集聚4个层面构建指标体系,利用熵权TOPSIS法对产业园集聚效应进行评价,并在此基础上,采用障碍度模型分析影响产业园集聚效应的障碍因素。结果 （1）从产业园集聚效应来看,各园区要素集聚方面发展相对协调、产业链集聚上存在差距、功能集聚差距较大、带动效果上呈现两极分化。（2）对集聚效应产生最显著的制约因素是产业链集聚效应,其次为功能集聚和带动集聚,要素集聚对其发展的障碍程度不高。（3）主导产业产值占比较低对产业园产业链集聚效应的影响最大,产业园总产值不高以及农作物化肥利用率不足对产业园功能集聚效应影响较大,园区内合作社数量不足影响产业园带动集聚效应的发挥。结论 做大做强主导产业,打通产业链上下游,构建以主导产业为核心的集聚发展体系以及以绿色发展、科技应用和品牌建设为抓手,加强园区多功能建设,提升产业园本土市场竞争力是当前产业园发挥集聚效应的关键所在。     

我国城乡差距的政策性因素分析——基于亚当·斯密城乡发展思想

市场经济理论之父亚当·斯密曾在他的不朽名著《国民财富的性质和原因的研究》一书中阐述了有关城乡发展的思想。根据亚当·斯密的城乡发展思想,对当前我国城乡差距的原因,进行了宏观政策层面上的分析,可为缩小我国城乡差距提供借鉴。     

关于我国建立节水高效农业的对策和建议

21世纪我国农业水资源供需矛盾进一步加剧,农业水资源严重短缺,要解决我国粮食安全问题,走可持续发展之路,必须采取强有效的措施走节水高效之路,从而才能从根本上缓解农业水资源的短缺状况。首先论述了我国农业水资源的现状及存在的主要问题——节水设备不配套,灌溉水利用率低;然后,对其前景进行了预测;最后,重点提出了节水的对策和建议,指出发展农业节水不仅是技术问题,更主要的是管理体制和政策问题。通过这些对策的实施以期能对我国经济及社会发展有所助益。     

农业用水非农化对农户粮食生产用水行为的影响——基于山东省728份农户调查数据

[目的]农户作为微观经营主体,其节水技术的采用将提高粮食生产用水效率,达到节约水资源与保证粮食生产的双重目的。通过分析农户粮食生产用水行为,探讨水资源短缺约束对农户粮食生产技术采用的诱致效应。[方法]文章基于2019年对山东省728份农户的调查问卷数据,以农户行为理论为基础,综合运用统计分析、Logit模型等方法,对农业用水非农化约束下农户的粮食生产用水行为进行分析。[结果]在农业用水非农化态势下,作为理性经济人的农户倾向于采用节水技术,以保证粮食生产。农户年龄、家庭农业劳动力人数、灌溉水源与灌溉方式对其节水技术的采用影响显著为负,农业年收入、小麦及玉米种植面积对农户节水技术的采纳行为影响显著为正。[结论]规模化经营是大型节水设施应用的基本条件,应当加快农地流转,推进粮食生产规模化经营,提高粮食灌溉的规模化和标准化水平;同时加快建立科学合理的农业水价改革制度,促进农民节约农业用水,以此实现水资源利用效率提高与粮食生产能力稳定的双重目标。     

How and why large scale agricultural land investments do not create long-term employment benefits: A critique of the ‘state’ of labour regulations in Ghana

Support for large scale agricultural investments in Africa has been mainly premised on their employment prospects for local populations. However, despite earlier calls by Tania Li to centre labour in the land grabs debate, labour is generally invisible in both mainstream policy and academic research. This paper, through a governance lens, draws attention to the implications of the global land rush on wage labour. In principle, policy frameworks that emphasise the labour potentials from large-scale land investments also gravitate towards regulations that seek to facilitate capital accumulation and mitigate negative impacts on communities – congruent with Ghana’s policy direction. This paper assesses the political-economic context of the legislative gaps in the current governance framework for wage labour and large-scale agriculture in Ghana; characterised mainly by absent, illusively present and repressive institutions. It is supported with empirical findings from the nature of farm workers’ incorporation into a transnational oil palm plantation in Ghana, their struggles over the nature of the investment, and the political orientation of the existing regulatory institutions. The study calls for policy measures which address power relations that shape the distribution of benefits from land investments, and also recognise structural inequalities that exist in and outside of agriculture.     

Public preferences for post 2020 agri-environmental policy in the Czech Republic: A choice experiment approach

In November 2017 European Union commission presented a communication report summarizing the reform proposal of the post 2020 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). The reform aims to address the environmental degradation associated with agricultural production as well as change in the structure of CAP payments. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture in Czech Republic is preparing to set its priorities towards CAP’s reform. In this study we applied a choice experiment to investigate the public preferences for a set of environmental goods and services delivered by agri-environment-climatic voluntary measures (AECMs). A mixed logit model is employed to elicit preferences and explore their heterogeneity. We find that respondents oppose strongly funding removal. Among environmental attributes, water and food quality are the ones with the highest implicit marginal willingness-to-pay values. Preferences for no funding option are heterogeneous with socio-demographic and attitudinal variables explaining some sources of this heterogeneity. A continuation of national funding for the AECMs is expected to lead to a better state of environment with an anticipated positive welfare change of 669–932 mil EUR as opposed to funding removal. The change reflects the estimated welfare change resulting from moving from a low to a medium or to a high preservation state of agri-environmental attributes. We also project the budget change for AECMs considering the level of national funding and given the transfer share between Pillar I and II. Based on our results, we suggest that national funding can be informed by the welfare change scenarios and transfer shares are projected accordingly.     

Rent-seeking,R&D,and productivity

To investigate whether rent-seeking discourages productivity, we consider a third-market model, in which a domestic firm and a foreign firm engage in both Research and Development (R&D) and output competition. We show that the relationship between rent-seeking and productivity depends on two forces. On the one hand, rent-seeking increases the marginal benefit of R&D and encourages productivity. On the other hand, a lower production cost due to R&D enables the government to extract the rent from the firm to a greater extent and discourages the productivity. Which force is dominant depends on the level of corruption or, as an alternative interpretation, the weight the government attaches to political contributions. Unlike the monotonic relationship proposed by the literature, we find a non-monotonic relationship between rent-seeking and productivity.     

Research and development and trade policies for product innovation in the presence of foreign competition

This paper examines two policy instruments — a matching grant and import tariffs — for encouraging research and development (R&D) in product innovation by a domestic firm when it faces foreign competition. We do so by developing a theoretical model of product innovation where R&D effort is endogenous and its outcome uncertain. We examine the effects of a reduction in import tariffs on private expenditure on R&D, on public support for such R&D, and on total R&D expenditure. We find that in response to a reduction in import tariffs, the domestic firm always reduces its private R&D investments, but the total level of R&D expenditure (i.e., including public support) might go up depending on the level of tariffs. In particular, we find that it will go up if the initial level of tariff is higher than a critical level. When tariff is endogenous, we find that the socially optimal level of tariffs is positive. One finding that is of particular interest is that supporting private attempts to product innovate in the form of a matching grant program leads to a socially optimal level of product R&D.