Did households’ time preference change due to the Great Recession?

Household time preference for US households, as measured by the planning horizon, was fairly stable for many years, but sharply changed with the onset of the Great Recession. Based on an analysis of a combination of the 1992–2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) datasets, time preference increased in 2010 and remained high in 2013, indicating households were less patient after the onset of the recession. This pattern held up even after controlling for household characteristics.     

大庆地区高等院校英语教育教材使用的研究--从《大学英语教程》修订看专业英语的发展

大庆地区高等院校英语教育一直使用北京外国语大学编写的<大学英语教程>,把它作为基础课的教材.对于该教材使用情况的研究有利于其他院校的借鉴,也有利于英语院系的改革和发展.     

Site selection to test an integrated approach to agricultural research for development: combining expert knowledge and participatory Geographic Information System methods

The sub-Saharan Africa challenge programme is designed to address the problems of failures of agricultural markets, inappropriate policies and natural resource degradation, that contribute to the continuing deterioration of livelihoods and food security in the region. It is seeking to do this by redefining the roles of scientists and farmers through collaborative learning processes, addressing questions about the level, timing, type and formof participation, as well as themost effective approaches andmethods to foster them. The research domains of the programme deal with sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture, the sustainable management of natural resources, the development of efficient markets, and the promotion of enabling policies. One question that was addressed in designing the initiative was deciding where to work so as to maximize the chances of successful testing of this new approach, so that it would lead to significant reductions of rural poverty. A participatory process was put in place to design a framework to accomplish this site selection, and then to apply it in west, east and southern Africa. A mixture of spatial data analysis and expert knowledge on spatial and non-spatial factors was used, and one primary site in each region was identified to form the basis for the next phase of the challenge programme. Several lessons were learnt from the process, including the importance of adapting themethods to actual conditions, the increased utility of targetting when the quantitative and the qualitative are freely combined, and the continued need for baseline spatial and non-spatial data to improve the targeting of research in the future that is designed to alleviate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Building knowledge systems for sustainable agriculture: supporting private advisors to adequately address sustainable farm management in regular service contacts

Advisory service provisioning on sustainability issues such as environmental care and food safety is considered suboptimal in privatized extension systems, which comprise a diverse set of private advisors. Apart from funding dedicated ‘public good’ projects, government also relies on these advisors to address sustainability issues in their regular service contacts with farmers. Policy measures have hence been proposed to stimulate farmer demand for such sustainable farm management (SFM) advice (pull measures) and to build capacity among advisors (push measures). This paper assesses two interventions, in nutrient management and mastitis prevention, that integrate pull measures (awareness building and economic incentives) and push measures (promoting facilitative advisory styles and optimizing knowledge system linkages) to stimulate advisory service provisioning on SFM. Results indicate that effectiveness appears to depend on an adequate mix of, and balance between, push and pull measures. Awareness building is a prerequisite to creating demand for such services and appears more important than economic incentives. However, awareness is not built by the interventions alone; indeed, a lack of awareness may not be the main problem: the broader institutional context may not be conducive to a proactive approach to addressing SFM if regulatory frameworks are unclear and inconsistent. The main conclusion is that, despite interventions having an impact, it is uncertain whether the demand for, and supply of, SFM advice will be sustained after interventions are withdrawn.     

Planning road networks in landslide-prone areas: A case study from the northern forests of Iran

Road development in mountainous forestlands can lead to naturally formed slopes being disturbed. Efficient planning methodologies can assist forest engineers in either preventing or reducing the environmental impacts of forest roads. In this study, we first prepared an inclusive landslide susceptibility map for our study area using a Bayesian model. We next designed 12 road network alternatives using PEGGER, an ArcView GIS extension. We extracted the values of these alternatives from the susceptibility map to evaluate their environmental feasibility. We also evaluated the alternatives from an economic perspective using a model for conducting cost estimates of the forest roads. Our results show that this approach is useful for identifying the alternative that meets environmental and economic goals. The policy implications of this study suggest that if the development of road networks in mountainous areas is an important forestry goal, mechanisms should be aimed primarily at controlling slope instability.     

国外关于旅游地水供需矛盾的研究

旅游业是地表水和地下水的主要使用者之一。随着旅游业的不断发展，对水资源的影响日益凸现，水供需矛盾已成为全球旅游可持续发展的主要制约因素之一。本文在阐述国外水供需矛盾旅游地主要区域特征的基础上．从系统角度深入分析了国外旅游地水供需矛盾及其主要影响因素，并从管理、技术、经济和教育等方面总结了国外水供需矛盾的主要调控措施与实施情况．以期丰富旅游水环境的研究视角，为我国旅游地水供需管理提供帮助。     

Natural and anthropogenic influences on the year-round temperature dynamics of air and water in Postojna show cave,Slovenia

Air and groundwater temperatures were measured in a rimstone pool in Postojna Cave, to advise evaluation of the impact of natural and anthropogenic influences related to heat being initially transmitted into cave air by visitors. Such heat can accumulate both in the rock mass and in water. Results show that attention must be paid to temperature changes of rimstone pool water rather than those of cave air, especially during the winter. Thanks to good ventilation deep inside the cave, short-term air temperature increases related to higher visitor numbers have not influenced flowstone precipitation or the cave fauna. However, this situation might change if winter visitor numbers increased greatly. This study does not support a suggested increase in winter visits (currently the tourism low-season) and reduction of summer visits (currently the tourism high-season).     

公司治理结构与多元化经营

2003年我国721家A股上市公司的多元化和相关财务数据表明,近一半的企业选择或维持多元化经营.经研究发现:股权结构对公司多元化经营决策和多元化绩效有显著影响:非国有控股公司较多实行多元化经营并且多元化绩效较好;控股股东持股比例越高,越不可能实行多元化经营,多元化绩效也越好.董事会特征、管理层持股对多元化经营决策和多元化绩效基本没有影响.公司负债率越高,实行多元化经营的可能性越大,多元化绩效越好.研究结果支持代理理论,多元化经营是控股股东谋取私利的方式.     

乡镇财政自给能力分析

乡镇财政危机目前作为一个重要问题成为各界关注焦点,乡镇财政赤字和负债数额巨大,乡镇财政自给程度到底有多大,本文运用财政能力系数指标来定量探讨乡镇财政的危机程度,通过全国五级财政自给系数纵向对比、分省区四级财政自给能力纵向和横向对比以及两个乡镇个案的财政自给系数,来揭示乡镇财政危机的制度内涵.     

Arbitrators’ characteristics and decision-making records,gender of arbitrators and grievants,and the presence of legal counsel as predictors of arbitral outcomes

Labor arbitration helps define employee and employer rights and responsibilities. Evidence indicates that the advocates at arbitration tend to concern themselves with issues unrelated to the facts of the case or to the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. More specifically, before the hearing, management and union advocates often dwell on issues such as the importance of the arbitrators’ personal characteristics and their decision-making history, the likely effects of the gender of arbitrators and grievants, and whether the presence of legal counsel impacts the arbitral outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine whether these non-case-related factors actually can be associated with differing awards by arbitrators. This study may be the first in which the arbitrators’ decision-making history (award orientation) is a primary issue. Of all the issues studied, the arbitrator’s disciplinary award orientation is the only one with a consistent impact on arbitral outcomes. We conclude that the energy and resources expended by the advocates concerning non-case-related issues would be better spent in preparing their cases for arbitration and in examining the potential impact of arbitration on the rights and responsibilities of management and its employees.