大宗商品价格下跌利好亚洲吗？

迄今为止，食品通胀放缓对亚洲产生了积极影响。然而，粮食价格进一步走弱的空间有限。要提高粮食之外消费增长的可能性，让亚洲消费者充分享受全球粮食价格下行的益处，亚洲各国对农业部门的改革比以往更为必要。     

Expected purchasing power parity

Conclusions The results of this study indicate that movements in the exchange rate are determined primarily by expected purchasing power parity. Expected future wholesale and consumer prices were both significantly related to the exchange rate. The coefficients were negative and close to unity. Finally, the results imply that expected future inflation can have an impact on a country’s terms of trade.     

Urban encroachment,forest regrowth and land-use institutions: Does zoning matter?

As concern grows regarding urban sprawl and forest and agricultural land preservation, the effectiveness of land-use policies in shaping land-use change warrants further study. We evaluate the impact of county-level zoning laws, the most predominant land use policy in the USA, and land rents on the relative amounts of forest, agricultural, and developed land, while controlling for demographic information and taxation rates. Over the past decades, southern Indiana has experienced forest regrowth on private lands, but this regrowth has declined in recent years with increased conversion of open space for urban residential development. We develop a model of land-use shares in 40 southern Indiana counties based on the net benefits to agriculture, forestland, and urban uses using a maximum likelihood estimation of a Dirichlet distribution. We find agricultural land rent and indicators of land productivity are the most important predictors of the proportion of agriculture and urban uses. Forest use is better explained by shifting regional economic structure and hilly terrain. Counties with a greater proportion of their work force in the service sectors have a greater proportion of land forested. Finally, to some extent zoning may protect agricultural land in the region, although land rents, land characteristics, and population are strong predictors of the ratio of agriculture to urban use.     

Space matters: the importance of amenity in planning metropolitan growth

Most Australian capital cities require many 100,000s of additional dwellings to accommodate demographic change and population pressures in the next two or three decades. Urban growth will come in the form of infill, consolidation and urban expansion. Plans to redevelop environmental amenities such as parks and open green spaces are regularly being put forward to local councils and State governments. Maintaining parks and reserves represents one of the largest costs to local councils. To aid in the evaluation of some of the different propositions, we report the results of a spatial hedonic pricing model with fixed effects for Adelaide, South Australia. The results indicate that the private benefits of a close proximity to golf courses, green space sporting facilities, or the coast, are in the order $0.54, $1.58, and $4.99 per metre closer (when evaluated at the median respectively). The historic Adelaide Parklands add $1.55 to a property’s value for each additional metre closer. We demonstrate how the estimated model could be used to calculate how local private benefits capitalized in property values change with changes in the configuration of a park.     

Expected inflation,wealth effects and personal expenditure

Zusammenfassung Inflationserwartungen, Verm?gen und pers?nliche Ausgaben. — In dem Artikel wird ein Modell entwickelt, mit dem die Beziehung zwischen pers?nlichen Ausgaben und Inflationserwartungen getestet wird. Danach ist die Wirkung einer erwarteten Steigerung der Preise von dauerhaften Gütern auf die Ausgabenquote signifikant positiv, aber die einer erwarteten Preissteigerung bei Verbrauchsgütern und Dienstleistungen signifikant negativ. Schlie\lich wirken sich in übereinstimmung mit Friedmans Hypothese vom permanenten Einkommen Ver?nderungen des Realeinkommens in signifikanter Weise negativ auf die Ausgabenquote aus.

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Résumé L’inflation anticipée, les effets de patrimoine et les dépenses personnelles. — L’auteur a développé et testé un modèle pour explorer la relation entre les dépenses personnelles et l’inflation anticipée. L’effet d’une montée anticipée du prix des biens durables sur le rapport dépense/revenu est positif et significatif pendant que l’effet d’une augmentation anticipée du prix des biens non-durables et des services sur le rapport dépense/revenu est négatif et significatif. Finalement, en conformité avec l’hypothèse du revenu permanent de Friedman, l’effet des changements du revenu réel sur le rapport dépense/revenu est négatif et significatif.

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Resumen Inflaci?n esperada, efectos de riqueza y gasto personal. — Se desarroll? y someti? a prueba un modelo para relacionar el gasto personal con la inflaci?n esperada. El efecto de la inflaci?n esperada para los precios de bienes durables sobre la proporci?n del gasto es positivo y significante, mientras que el efecto de la inflaci?n esperada para los precios de los bienes no durables y servicios sobre la proporci?n del gasto es negativo y significante. Finalmente, de acuerdo con la hip?tesis del ingreso permanente de Friedman, el impacto de cambios en el ingreso real sobre la proporci?n del gasto es negativo y significante.

     

Quotas and the structure of consumer demand

In the direct utility function, quantities axe exogenous, while prices and total expenditure are endogenous. Consequently, this utility function is appropriate for analyzing the impact on prices and total expenditure from an exogenous change in the quantity of a commodity. Such an exogenous change in quantity could occur when quotas change. The direct translog utility function is estimated for a four commodity breakdown of U.S. expenditure. Estimates of quantity elasticities of price and expenditure indicate that domestically produced non-durables are necessities. As a result, the imposition of quotas on these goods will be particularly deleterious to lower income consumers.     

Designing, testing and implementing a trial dryland salinity credit trade scheme

This article describes implementation and outcomes of a credit trading trial focussed on dryland salinity in Victoria, Australia. In lieu of extant specified property rights, participants were invited to agree to obligations to provide groundwater recharge credits in exchange for pecuniary compensation. Participants were able to meet their obligations to supply groundwater recharge credits through land management actions resulting in monitored outcomes consistent with contractual obligations to reduce recharge. Alternatively, those in deficit were provided the option to obtain sufficient credits through market exchange. Surplus transferable recharge credits were produced by those participants who exceeded their own contractual obligations through improved land management. The paper describes the process of contract design and implementation. The trial involved a design and testing phase and an on-ground implementation phase. We describe composite methodologies deployed in the design and testing of alternative policy instruments and institutional arrangements, conducted prior to implementation. These involved community consultation, an attitudinal and behavioural survey, experimental economics and the development of a transparent and credible monitoring protocol. The conclusions drawn as a result of this analysis provided an empirical basis to implement the on-ground trial phase. Results of on-ground implementation are described. Finally, the methods and results of a Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) of the on-ground trial implementation are outlined. The BCA accounted for salinity damage reduction, forgone river flow, carbon sequestration, production benefits and costs. The result of BCA was an estimated net benefit.     

A comparison of compensating surplus and budget reallocation with opportunity costs specified

The use of most nonmarket valuation techniques is predicated on respondents paying additional amounts of money for increased provision of a public good. However, in many circumstances this may not be appropriate. Treaty rights or the capacity of a government to raise and collect taxes in the context of a developing country may preclude the introduction of new taxes. Alternatively, there may be settings where respondents reject the notion of an additional payment and a different approach to estimating nonmarket values is needed. This article demonstrates a methodology for estimating compensating budget reallocation, which is the amount of expenditure on other public goods that respondents are willing to forego for the government to provide more of another public good. One of the main contributions of this article is a demonstration of how to improve the specification of the opportunity costs of budget reallocations. Second, using choice modelling for the estimation of budget reallocations is compared with the standard approach of estimating compensating surplus. The two approaches produce aggregate results that are of a similar magnitude, however the relative importance of the environmental attributes differs. We also investigate the similarity of value estimates across income groups, and similar to Swallow and McGonagle (2006), we find that budget reallocations produce a different set of preferences for lower income earners.