Got milk? The rapid rise of China’s dairy sector and its future prospects

This paper synthesizes recent research and new empirical findings to build a more comprehensive understanding of developments in China’s dairy sector. China’s tremendous rise in dairy demand has been driven by several mutually reinforcing factors: including rapid income growth, promotion by the government and dairy industry, changes in urban lifestyles, and the development of new, more sophisticated marketing channels. Domestic milk output has grown to satisfy rising demand largely by increasing the dairy herd. Substantial increases in productivity have been achieved through technology adoption, but there is evidence that the torrid growth has created inefficiencies because adaptations to marketing rules, infrastructure, and institutions have not kept pace with the changing environment. These results suggest there is ample room for future growth in both domestic milk production and dairy demand, but multinational firms and imported products will likely play and increasing role as China’s dairy market continues to develop.     

The emergence of convergent price clusters in China

This paper reports new evidence on the existence of both large and small price divergent clusters for China's energy markets, 2000–2009. The largest convergent price clusters suggest that the coal and gasoline markets are well integrated, however, small convergent price clusters suggest that electricity and diesel markets are proving harder to integrate. The paper argues that the traditional approach to price convergence analysis should be applied with caution, especially in a transitional economy such as China where questions to be asked should relate to the ‘degree of market‐orientation’ and not simply whether it is a market‐based economy or not.     

上海石化外贸之路的探索

上海石化经过30年的发展，外贸工作取得了较大的成就，但就目前面临的机遇与挑战而言，仍存在着许多问题，建议上海石化应从加强和改善发展战略、确立全球性的营销观念、改进产品结构、逐步形成有上海石化特色和优势的拳头产品等方面着手，不断提高上海石化的市场竞争力。     

社会网络和同伴效应视角下农户农业绿色技术采用研究综述

[目的]农业绿色技术的推广和应用有助于促进农业集约经营、实现农业生态良性循环、推动农业由“量”到“质”转变。文章旨在对社会网络、同伴效应与农户技术采用之间关系进行系统阐述与分析,发现现有研究不足,提出进一步研究方向。[方法]采用文献研究法和总结归纳法,以社会网络、同伴效应与农户技术采用之间关系研究的主要内容为主线,从农业技术采用、社会网络与农户技术采用、个体行为与同伴效应识别、同伴效应形成机制四个方面对现有研究进行梳理、概括和评价。[结果]目前政府和学界对农户绿色技术采用行为展开了大量研究,但大多强调农户自身特征或决策对绿色技术采用行为的影响,在很大程度上忽略了社会网络,以及同伴效应对农户绿色技术采用所起的作用。[结论]未来应深化社会网络、同伴效应对农户技术采用的影响机制的定量及动态研究;应进一步探索社会网络和同伴效应的“中国特色”;应丰富和改进研究方法和实验技术。     

Analyzing Non-Participation in Domestic Tourism: a Combined Framework

Non-tourists comprise a large potential market, but are rarely studied in research. This paper aims to examine the reasons behind the non-participation of individuals in domestic tourism through a proposed combined framework which incorporates concepts presented in the psychological continuum model and constraint negotiation model from the field of sports and leisure respectively. Data were analyzed using binary logit regression and comparative analysis. The findings indicate that tourism cognition/awareness, tourism affection/interest, and tourism behavior intention, have a significant effect on the non-participation of individuals in domestic tourism while intrapersonal and economic constraints are regarded as the most difficult constraints to be negotiated by non-tourists.     

Getting Rich and Eating Out: Consumption of Food Away from Home in Urban China

The overall goal of this study is to better understand food‐away‐from‐home (FAFH) consumption in urban China. We use national statistical sources and our own data to examine the trends in FAFH during the late reform period and to analyze the determinants of FAFH demand, examining how different groups of consumers have participated in this new area of consumption. Besides the normal Tobit model for total food expenditure away from home, a system of multivariate Tobit equations was estimated simultaneously for three categories of foods consumed outside of the home. The results show that the rapid increase of FAFH demand, a rise that is fueled by higher incomes, is changing consumption patterns in China's post‐reform urban economy. We also use our findings to illustrate how omission of accounting for FAFH trends by China's official statisticians has affected the reported trends in national meat supply and demand statistics. La présente étude visait à mieux comprendre le phénomène de la consommation de repas à l'extérieur en Chine urbaine. Nous avons utilisé des données de sources nationales et nos propres données pour étudier le phénomène au cours de la dernière réforme et pour analyser les déterminants de la demande de repas à l'extérieur en examinant la participation de divers groupes de consommateurs à ce nouveau créneau. Outre le modèle Tobit simple pour évaluer les dépenses totales de repas à l'extérieur, nous avons estimé simultanément un système d'équations Tobit à plusieurs variables pour trois catégories d'aliments consommés à l'extérieur du foyer. Les résultats ont montré que la croissance rapide de la demande de repas à l'extérieur, alimentée par une hausse des revenus, est en train de modifier les habitudes de consommation dans l'économie urbaine de la Chine post‐réformiste. Nous avons également utilisé nos résultats pour illustrer de quelle façon le fait que les statisticiens officiels de la Chine ne tiennent pas compte des tendances de consommation de repas à l'extérieur a une influence sur l'évaluation des tendances dans les données nationales de l'offre et de la demande de viande.     

Enhancing productivity on suburban dairy farms in China

Dairy farms in China's suburban areas have been playing an important role in providing urban markets with fresh milk. With the rising demand for fluid milk and dairy products in the cities, there is a perception that small and scattered dairy farms in China's provinces are gradually disappearing and more concentrated dairy cattle farming is being formed near suburban areas. This article uses farm‐level survey data and stochastic input distance functions to make estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) on suburban dairy farms, as well as for the entire dairy sector. The results show that over the past decade TFP growth has been positive on suburban dairy farms, and this rise in productivity has been driven mostly by technological change. However, at the same time we find that, on average, the same farms have been falling behind the advancing technical frontier. We also find one of the drivers of the suburban dairy sector is the relatively robust rate of technological change of these farms, which has been more rapid than on farms in the dairy sector as a whole. The results suggest that efforts to achieve greater adoption of new technologies and better advice on how to use the technologies and manage production and marketing within the suburban dairy sector will further advance productivity growth in the sector.     

Chinese animal product consumption in the 1990s

Chinese animal product consumption behaviour was analysed for both urban and rural households using a complete regional consumption dataset that was augmented to include away-from-home consumption. Seven animal product expenditure share equations were estimated with an extended Almost Ideal Demand System model. The results suggest that Chinese consumers will continue to increase their consumption of animal products, but that consumption patterns have changed in the 1990s. A large percentage of household animal product expenditure is still on pork. However, the shares for aquatic and poultry products consumption will increase substantially. As a consequence, the pork expenditure share will be gradually reduced as incomes grow and diet preferences change in both urban and rural households. There are significant differences in animal product consumption preferences across regions of China. As a result, studies that omit regional dummy variables in their demand systems can produce different expenditure and price parameters. The present paper also found that many of the estimates of elasticities and marginal expenditure shares would be rather different if the data ignored consumption away from home.     

我国不同规模奶牛场的技术效率及其影响因素分析——基于新分类数据和随机距离函数

运用2004—2008年我国23个主要奶牛养殖省牛奶生产的新分类数据,使用随机距离函数计算了中国牛奶生产的技术效率及其变动趋势。研究结果表明:全国牛奶生产的平均技术效率为78.3%,年均增长速度5.5%,效率的进步特征明显;不同规模奶牛场的技术效率差异显著,适度扩大养殖规模有利于提升效率水平;卫生防疫、饲料投入结构、市场的消费需求和养殖户收益等因素对牛奶生产的技术效率具有显著的正向影响。