Picking on the poor: the contradictions of theory and neo-liberal critique. A response to Stasja Koot's paper on the contradictions of capitalism for Indigenous tourism in the South African Kalahari

The relevance of neo-liberal critique of a community-owned, but commercially managed lodge, is examined with regard to Stasja Koot's paper on “The contradictions of capitalism” published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism in 2016. Koot focuses on the ≠Khomani Bushmen's relationship with !Xaus Lodge in the Kalahari Desert. His argument locates this small facility as an exemplar of the global contradictions of capitalism in the tourism sector. My response critiques Koot's methodology, theory and conclusions. It provides the missing history of the project discussed, and details the financial evidence that cautions Koot's speculative interpretations. My analysis cautions the relevance and use of Koot's application of David Harvey's Marxist-derived theory of spatial and temporal fixes. This response's assessment is that Koot's conclusions are arrived at without sufficient supporting evidence, and that his theory-led argument conceals a myriad of contextual contradictions that question the unproblematic application of Harvey's theory into a political economic context for which it was not designed. Some comment is offered on researcher positions and responsibilities and on how to interpret responses offered by ≠Khomani sources, whose own playful (and sometimes wilful) exploitation of researchers results in information that must always be triangulated for accuracy.     

长沙市有机农业发展路径研究

发展有机农业是建设“两型社会”,保障农产品优质安全供应的重大举措。该文以长沙市为样本,研究探讨“两型社会”建设背景下大、中城市郊区有机农业发展的路径。研究分析了长沙市有机农业发展呈现出“三多三少”的特点、具有4个有利条件和4个不利因素,明确了渐进式推动农业由传统农业向无公害农业、绿色农业、有机农业有序发展的思路,围绕实现5个方面的发展目标,提出重点发展水稻、蔬菜、水果、茶叶、畜产品、水产品等六大有机农业产业,突出建好先导区和长沙县北部两大有机农业综合示范区,阐述了六大产业和两大示范区的建设布局、建设方向和建设目标,提出发展有机农业,必须抓好产地环境普查、区划和环境综合整治,建设好生态防控、有机肥供应、标准化生产和产品质量追溯四大体系,强化质量监督,制定落实产业发展和产品优惠补贴政策。     

Ecological Fallacy and Covariates: New Insights based on Multilevel Modelling of Individual Data

The paper provides a new and more explicit formulation of the assumptions needed by the ordinary ecological regression to provide unbiased estimates and clarifies why violations of these assumptions will affect any method of ecological inference. Empirical evidence is obtained by showing that estimates provided by three main ecological inference methods are heavily biased when compared with multilevel logistic regression applied to a unique set of individual data on voting behaviour. The main findings of our paper have two important implications that can be extended to all situations where the assumptions needed to apply ecological inference are violated in the data: (i) only ecological inference methods that allow one to model the effect of covariates have a chance to produce unbiased estimates, and (ii) there are certain data generating mechanisms producing a kind of bias in ecological estimates that cannot be corrected by modelling the effect of covariates.     

Multivariate statistical techniques and sociological research

Both the validity and the reliability of the statistical techniques used in data processing procedures constitute an important issue concerning the validity of inferences. A critical analysis developed on the data processing techniques takes into account both their correct application and their ability to provide information from which to draw inferences with a testable relationship of correspondence between a piece of information and an inferred sentence. This paper proposes an attempt to test the use of factorial techniques used to construct indicators and of scaling techniques in order to determine semantic areas in the sociological research praxis.     

Network analysis approach to map tourism mobility

The spatial distribution of tourists is uneven and it can include some areas at regional and/or sub-regional level. The social–economic and environmental impacts of tourism, are concentrated in different areas. Some recent contributions show the usefulness and the effectiveness of network analysis (NA) approach in revising the organization of tourist facilities and services. This paper proposes to apply methods borrowed from NA to map the spatial distribution of tourism mobility in Sicily. So, we analyze the network features of tourism in a multi-destinations net. By means of traditional measures of NA, we propose to measure the links among destinations. The study aims to connect destinations, represented as nodes, to define a territorial network of tourism demand. In the specific instance, the degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality are used to localize central areas and the main routes. We test survey data collected on a sample of tourists leaving from airports and ports of the main Sicilian cities, who visited two destinations at least. Then, we study tourism mobility on those areas selected by tourists. Finally, employing measures derived from NA, the work attempts to set out territorial networks. This approach could be useful to plane tourism development policies.     

Regional income mobility in large cities throughout China

We investigated the regional income mobility in China for the year 1994–2016. Using the data collected from 185 prefecture-level cities, we find evidence that the regional income mobility was increasing over past two decades. By connecting income mobility with inequality index, we could draw a graph indicating an inverse U-shape relation between the two variables. We also provide the regional income mobility of the world for comparison.     

小微贷款新政会影响银行体系的稳健吗? ——基于银行间复杂网络的研究

采用复杂网络研究方法,运用收集和模拟所得到的974家商业银行的同业拆借数据构建银行间同业拆借网络,基于小微贷款规模设计风险传染模型,研究了小微贷款规模和分布对我国商业银行系统的稳健性影响.发现小型农商行存在引发系统性危机的潜在风险,小微贷款更优质、份额在商业银行系统间分布更均匀以及同业拆借网络密度更高时均能显著提高商业银行系统的稳健性.据此,提出政策性建议:增加对小微企业运营的帮扶和指导,加强对小型农商行的风险把控和监管,倡导大中型商业银行进一步降低小微企业贷款放贷门槛,以及金融市场对同业拆借网络的进一步完善.     

影响河南农民收入增长的因素分析

作为农业大省的河南,农民增收是解决"三农"问题的重中之重.模型分析显示,农民收入的影响因素中,向第二、三产业转移的劳动力比重的影响效果最大,其次是农作物的种植结构、农产品收购价格和大型机械总数.应有主次地对农民给予相关的支持,使政策最大限度地发挥作用.