Conservation finance and sustainable tourism: the acceptability of conservation fees to support the Tambopata National Reserve,Peru

Protected areas are key to the conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem services; however, their success is contingent upon adequate funding. One possibility to increase funding for park management is to “sell” a wider suite of ecosystem services “produced” by protected areas, such as carbon sequestration. We conducted 420 tourist surveys to analyze willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service benefits via a conservation fee in the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru. We also interviewed eight tour operators about their perceptions of the proposed fee. The average stated WTP was 15 USD. Sixty-six percent of tourists stated they would pay 10 USD or more, which, if actually paid, would have resulted in 318,000 USD for park management in 2015. Most respondents stated they would pay an additional fee if it supported biodiversity conservation or local ecosystem services, such as water, but less than 10% of tourists were motivated by carbon sequestration as a reason to pay the fee. Most tour operators supported the additional fee. Our findings suggest that tourists are willing to pay higher fees to support conservation but that interest in paying for additional ecosystem services from parks may not extend to global and intangible benefits such as carbon sequestration.     

Real exchange rates: are they dominated by fundamental factors?

Using Bayesian model averaging, we determine which fundamental pair-wise differences suggested by the literature on optimum currency areas give the best explanation of medium-term variability of bilateral real exchange rates. The intercept in the best specification is statistically insignificant, implying that for a hypothetical pair of economies for which the differences were zero, the bilateral real exchange rate would not move. Thus, the ‘non-fundamental’ element of the medium-term real exchange rate variability is, in our sample at least, negligible on average. In other words, floating exchange rate does not in itself imply, on average, more real exchange rate variability in the medium term than an exchange rate peg.     

红砂岩地区基坑开挖对周边建筑物的影响

本文通过对衢州地区的一个深基坑工程周边的学校食堂、宿舍的建筑物沉降的监测和分析,探讨了红砂岩基坑开挖对周边建筑物产生的影响。监测结果表明,基坑开挖会引起周边建筑物不同程度的沉降变形,且主要发生在基坑开挖前的打桩阶段和基坑开挖阶段。两栋建筑物的沉降累计值基本已超过20mm,且最大的沉降量已接近40mm,较大程度超过房屋沉降监测警戒值,说明开挖的施工方案有待于进一步优化,此结论对于红砂岩地区基坑工程施工具有重要的工程意义。     

大数据时代进行服务创新的思考

在大数据时代,服务创新必须与超级计算技术密切结合,同时要注意一些应该充分体现的原则。可以开展服务创新的领域是极其广泛的,在经济管理领域,主要可以在企业经营决策、金融理财、商业模式、选择业务外包等诸多领域提供创新的服务。     

Is green growth relevant for poor economies?

To be relevant to developing countries, green growth must be reconciled with the two key structural features of natural resource use and poverty in these countries. First, primary products account for the majority of their export earnings, and they are unable to diversify from primary production. Second, many economies have a substantial share of their rural population located on less favored agricultural land and in remote areas, thus encouraging “geographic” poverty traps. If green growth is to be a catalyst for economy-wide transformation and poverty alleviation in developing countries, then it must be accompanied by policies aimed directly at overcoming these two structural features. Policies and reforms should foster forward and backward linkages of primary production, enhance its integration with the rest of the economy, and improve opportunities for innovation and knowledge spillovers. Rural poverty, especially the persistent concentration of the rural poor on less favored agricultural lands and in remote areas, needs to be addressed by additional targeted policies and investments, and where necessary, policies to promote rural-urban migration.     

Community-based rural residential land consolidation and allocation can help to revitalize hollowed villages in traditional agricultural areas of China: Evidence from Dancheng County,Henan Province

The accelerated rural hollowing driven by vast and increasing out-migration of rural labors under urban–rural dual-track system has imposed huge obstacles on improving land use efficiency and coordinating urban–rural development in China. Taking Dancheng County in Henan Province as an example, this paper analyzes the status quo of rural hollowing and discusses two typical rural residential land consolidation and allocation (RRLCA) practices in traditional agricultural areas (TAAs) of China. The results show that, Dancheng experienced rapid rural hollowing characterized as the hollowing of rural industries, infrastructure, and residential population and settlements. However, Dancheng has considerable potential and the necessity of RRLCA, for the model-based estimation shows that the potential of increasing farmland by carrying out RRLCA was about 5649 ha. The two community-based RRLCA practices show positive effects on the improvement of local living conditions, increment of farmland area and development of rural industries. Their experiences, including self-organized rural planning, democratic decision-making, and endogenous institutional innovation may benefit future RRLCA. Overall, it indicates that promoting community-based RRLCA scientifically according to local conditions could provide an integrated platform for increasing farmland area, developing modern agriculture, promoting new countryside construction, and thus revitalize hollowed villages. On considering the limitations and obstacles of current initiatives, suggestions for future RRLCA in rural China have been put forward.     

Modeling the time varying volatility of housing returns: Further evidence from the U.S. metropolitan condominium markets

This study extends the literature on modeling the volatility of housing returns to the case of condominium returns for five major U.S. metropolitan areas (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco). Through the estimation of ARMA models for the respective condominium returns, we find volatility clustering of the residuals. The results from an ARMA‐TGARCH‐M model reveal the absence of asymmetry in the conditional variance. Dummy variables associated with the housing market collapse unique to each metropolitan area were statistically insignificant in the conditional variance equation, but negative and statistically significant in the mean equation. Condominium markets in Los Angeles and San Francisco exhibit the greatest persistence to volatility shocks.     

A study on the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in NUTS3 regions within the framework of digital agenda for Europe

This paper investigates the high-speed broadband situation in the EU and its prospects. It uses a deployment model to estimate the investment required to meet the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) broadband targets set by the European Commission in its Europe 2020 strategy at different stages: as of 2016, after expected operators’ deployment, after public subsidies and leveraged investment, and as expected in 2020. The model uses data at the NUTS3 level, which is the most granular level that has data available on the status of broadband deployment, to arrive at a coherent and comparable framework. From the different perspectives on the investment to meet DAE targets, the paper concludes on the need for an appropriate combination of incumbent and alternative operators investments, public subsidies and leveraged investments, and new investments, both public and private and non-existing as of 2016, examining their feasibility and the impact of different regulatory, technical, and policy strategies.     

The fortunes of air transport gateways

The paper explores the idea that the fortunes of some gateway cities are changing as airlines use modern aircraft to respond to new market opportunities. It uses data on inter-city journeys between Australia and Asia to identify a hierarchy of gateway cities, and then shows how the connections between them has changed over the 2000–2013 period. Results show that secondary, and smaller, gateways in both Australia and Asia have played more important roles in passenger movements over this time. In Melbourne in particular, stronger growth in the demand for international travel in that city along with more use made of the smaller long-haul aircraft by airlines, has strengthened its role as a gateway city relative to Sydney. These results confirm that the geography of inter-continental air networks are changing which may have important implications for the air transport roles of some cities in the immediate future.     

Do SMEs in deprived areas find it harder to access finance? Evidence from the UK Small Business Survey

Encouraging enterprise in deprived places is an important objective of the UK government policy. Evidence on the perceptions of entrepreneurs suggests that access to finance may be harder for firms in deprived areas, who may have fewer contacts, less collateral or worse access to mainstream banks. Yet there is little empirical evidence on whether this is actually the case. This paper investigates whether firms in deprived areas are more likely to find it hard to access finance than other firms, using a sample of around 3500 UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). We find that firms in deprived areas are more likely to perceive access to finance is a problem. However, controlling for SME characteristics, firm growth, credit scores and selection effects, we find no evidence that they actually do find it harder to obtain. The results suggest that geographical disparities in access to finance are unimportant for the average firm.