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Developmental Dilemmas singles out land as an object of study and places it in the context of one of the world's largest and most populous countries undergoing institutional reform: the People's Republic of China. The book demonstrates that private property protected by law, the principle of 'getting-the-prices-right', and the emergence of effectively functioning markets are the outcome of a given society's historical development and institutional fabric. Peter Ho argues that the successful creation of new institutions hinges in part on choice and timing in relation to the particular constellation of societal, economic, political and cultural parameters. Disregarding these could result in rising inequality, bad land stewardship, and the eruption of land-related grievances.
It took me over five years to write this book. Finishing my research project and thus finishing this book would not have been possible without the help of many friends of mine. Thus, the first thing to do is to say 'Thanks a lot' . This means at first place the Evangelisches Studienwerk Haus Villigst. They gave me a grant for my work, thus laying the important financial grounds of everything I've done. There is such a large number of friends I worked and lived with over the last few years that I cannot possibly mention them all by name, but I'll try, anyway: So, thanks Christiane, Gilbert, Maik, Karl, and everybody else feeling that his or her name should appear in this list. And, of course,...
As in many other sectors, in agribusiness major changes are taking place. On the demand side, consumers are changing lifestyles, eating and shopping habits, and increasingly are demanding more accommodation of these needs in the supermarket. With regard to the supply: the traditional distribution channel dominators - manufacturers of branded consumer products - are trying hard to defend their positions against retailers, who gather and use information about the consumer to streamline their enterprises and strengthen their ties with the consumer. The agricultural producers, meanwhile, face increased regulations with regard to food additives, pesticides, and herbicides. Pressures rise as their...
China's Rural Economy after WTO discusses and analyses China's rural sector problems in detail, including the areas of poverty, income inequality, the gender gap, barriers of rural-urban migration, discrimination against rural workers, poor rural governance and the impact of WTO membership. It also tackles the important subjects of inadequate infrastructure and discriminatory credit services. Strategies to modernize China's rural economy are proposed and the relevant experiences and lessons of other countries are analyzed.
Among the concepts used to assess the sustainability of fiscal policy in a changing demographic environment, generational accounting has become the most prominent. This book gives a complete and up-to-date introduction to the theory and practice of the method. It reveals deficiencies of the original residual concept and discusses various measures of intergenerational redistribution based on the recent sustainability approach to generational accounting. An application using data on German public finances serves to provide an in-depth explanation and practical illustration of the technique. The study develops new procedures to evaluate the fiscal externalities of migration and the redistribution of net wealth among living generations resulting from Social Security reform. The book is an indispensable source of reference for analysts employing generational accounting and for those wishing to study intertemporal redistribution through fiscal policy.
This book identifies the main challenges Chinese agriculture is confronting and considers how these challenges might be met. The performance of China's agricultural production is comprehensively assessed while the factors that affect agricultural productivity are examined through detailed econometric analysis and up to date nationally representative data.
The book provides a thorough and sophisticated descriptive analysis of business cycles in a historical perspective. The study is based on the latest available time series as well as latest techniques from the frequency domain. A combined univariate and bivariate analysis is conducted on the national as well as supranational (G7- and Euro-Area wide) level. Issues of stability, volatility, and cyclicality are investigated jointly. An extensive analysis of US manufacturing investment series on the fairly disaggregated four-digit level highlights the limits of linear models to capture the sectoral aggregation process. Synchronization is modelled by a mode-locking mechanism of industrial investment cycles induced by informational externalities. The model in its stochastic version is numerically simulated to assess an agreement between model and data.
This book assesses China’s reputation as a global clean energy champion, and applies institutional and public policy theories to explain how the country has achieved so much and why there continue to be so many unintended consequences and constraints to progress. It considers the extent to which the government has successfully boosted the manufacture and deployment of low-carbon electricity generating infrastructure, cleaned up thermal power generation, and enhanced energy efficiency, dramatically constraining China’s rising carbon dioxide emissions, but also examines the substantial political and financial capital required to reinforce the predominantly administrative policy instruments and the mix of special interests and poor coordination that are endemic to the energy sector. Arguing that the current approach seems to be encountering ever diminishing returns, the book considers whether ongoing sector reforms and the new national emissions trading scheme can reinvigorate the nation’s clean energy trajectory.
During the first decade after the turn towards democracy and market economy, Hungary's society experienced profound changes. The book analyses related political, legal, institutional and socio-economic structures and processes in order to contribute to a further understanding of Hungary's ongoing transformation processes and its current situation as one of the leading candidates for EU membership. The topics include constitutive elements of a modern market economy as well as education, income structures, the poverty situation, post-communist voting behaviour, regional and urban development and Hungary's cross-border co-operations. The role of Budapest within the European city system and Hungary's economic situation within Europe are also discussed. Drawing together comprehensive empirical data and a geat variety of viewpoints, the book offers innovative examples of the application of different theoretical approaches to transformation studies and studies of economy and society in general.
"This volume in the Mansholt series presents state of the art discussions on a wide variety of topics in the field of (agricultural) development. More than 20 chapters have been prepared by internationally known scholars and policy analysts, providing a concise overview of a variety of recent debates in development economics. While the background of most contributors is in economic science, the chapters are prepared so that they feed into ongoing policy discussions and are accessible to a wide readership. The contributions in this volume are organized around five themes: prospects for rural poverty alleviation, sustainable management of natural resources, strategies for enhancing food securi...