政府主导、人口流动与城乡收入差距

中国经济增长具有典型的政府主导特征,通过构造一个包含城镇和农村经济产出的社会福利函数来分析政府主导型经济增长对城乡收入差距的影响关系,并基于中国城镇化发展实际分析了人口流动对城乡收入差距的影响,在此基础上提出研究假说,统计中国1997—2014年省际面板数据,采用泰尔指数测度城乡收入差距并分别进行静态和动态回归分析与检验。静态研究发现政府主导和人口流动显著地拉大了城乡收入差距,但是二者的交互项对城乡收入差距的确具有收敛效应,即随着人口流动的增加,政府主导对城乡收入差距的边际贡献会降低,同样随着政府主导的提升也会降低人口流动对城乡收入差距的边际贡献,这种影响关系在分区域的回归中依然成立,并通过了稳健性检验;动态研究发现全国和分区域中城乡收入差距的变动存在显著的正向路径依赖特征,全国层面政府主导显著地拉大了城乡收入差距,而人口流动及其与政府主导的交互项则显著地缩小了城乡收入差距,但分区域来看政府主导和人口流动对城乡收入差距的影响存在显著的区域异质性,并通过了稳健性检验。因此缩小城乡收入差距不应设置单一的政策目标,需要建立多方面的政策配套体系,逐步矫正政府主导型经济中造成的政府职能异化,精准识别地方财政收支量的规模和结构条件,扩大涉农业务投资的规模,激活农村经济发展活力;在城乡户籍制度改革中进一步打破城乡分割藩篱,大力发展非农产业,增加农民的非农就业机会,促进农民的非农化就业和城镇化迁移,提升城镇化发展质量;最终通过一系列的配套性制度安排,旨在加强支持农业发展和农村建设,促进农民收入增长的制度供给,实现城乡共享发展。     

Quantitative Assessment of a Tanzanian Integrated Conservation and Development Project Involving Butterfly Farming

Abstract: Scientific understanding of the role of development in conservation has been hindered by the quality of evaluations of integrated conservation and development projects. We used a quasi‐experimental design to quantitatively assess a conservation and development project involving commercial butterfly farming in the East Usambara Mountains of Tanzania. Using a survey of conservation attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and behavior, we compared 150 butterfly farmers with a control group of 170 fellow community members. Due to the nonrandom assignment of individuals to the two groups, we used propensity‐score matching and weighting in our analyses to control for observed bias. Eighty percent of the farmers believed butterfly farming would be impossible if local forests were cleared, and butterfly farmers reported significantly more participation in forest conservation behaviors and were more likely to believe that conservation behaviors were effective. The two groups did not differ in terms of their general conservation attitudes, attitudes toward conservation officials, or knowledge of conservation‐friendly building techniques. The relationship between butterfly farming and conservation behavior was mediated by dependency on butterfly farming income. Assuming unobserved bias played a limited role, our findings suggest that participation in butterfly farming increased participation in conservation behaviors among project participants because farmers perceive a link between earnings from butterfly farming and forest conservation.     

EFFECTS OF RATE STRUCTURE KNOWLEDGE ON HOUSEHOLD WATER USE1

ABSTRACT: Socioeconomic determinants of individual household water use were estimated using regressions of these characteristics with actual household water use for winter and summer. Results were disaggregated between those consumers who were aware of an increasing block rate price structure and those who were not. Most of the informed group members believed that this price structure did result in significant reductions in water use. Nevertheless, overall water use was greater for the informed group. The determinants of water use were found to differ between informed and uninformed users as well as between winter and summer. The uninformed users were influenced by a larger set of variables in each season than the informed group. In winter, the informed group members with swimming pools and/or arid landscaping used less water than their uninformed counterparts. Summer water use increased with length of tenancy in home for the uninformed group but not for informed, while increasing with ownership for informed consumers.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION IMPACTS OF A WATER DEVELOPMENT PROJECT - BOISE PROJECT,IDAHO, 1950–19701

ABSTRACT: Public investments in water resource development projects are continually under scrutiny in terms of economic, environmental, and social impacts. Results of an analysis of a water development project that supplies irrigation water in Idaho are discussed in terms of the impact on income distribution and income growth 44 to 64 years after the project was initiated. Gini ratios for the rural farm population of these counties were consistently lower than they were for the United States as a whole and for the state of Idaho. In addition, income distributions tended to become more equitable over time in the water project counties. Rural farm population income growth rates were found to be similar to those for the nation as a whole. Some of the reasons for these results may be related to the tendency for income distribution to become more equitable as income increases, and the fact that average farm size is relatively small.     

Pigou meets Mirrlees: On the irrelevance of tax distortions for the second-best Pigouvian tax

This paper extends the Mirrlees (1971) model of optimal income redistribution with optimal corrective taxes to internalize consumption externalities. Using general utility structures and exploring both linear and non-linear taxes, it is demonstrated that the optimal second-best tax on an externality-generating good should not be corrected for the marginal cost of public funds, since it equals one in the optimal tax system. In the optimum, distortions of income taxes are equal to marginal redistributional gains. If the government does not have access to a non-distortionary marginal source of finance, the marginal cost of public funds can be either larger or smaller than one depending on subjective preferences for income redistribution. The optimal second-best corrective tax is then either higher or lower than the Pigouvian level. The findings in this paper generalize and amend prior results based on representative-agent models, shedding new light on the weak double-dividend hypothesis, and on the welfare gains of recycling revenue from environmental taxes.     

1996-2010年云南省旅游总收入差异的时空变化分析

选取1996-2010年云南省16个市州的旅游总收入为研究对象,综合运用标准差、变异系数、泰尔指数、累计比重等方法分析云南旅游总收入的总体差异,探讨近15年来全省旅游总收入在地带间、地带内和市州际的差异及其变动演进.研究表明,时间上云南省旅游总收入呈现绝对差异不断扩大但相对差异在小幅增长后逐步收敛的特征;空间上,云南省旅游总收入差异明显但不平衡特征正在逐步缩小.云南省旅游总收入的差异主要是由于地带间差异和地带内差异共同导致,地带间差异已有所缓和;滇西北、滇西南、滇东南和滇中地区是地带内差异的最重要来源;旅游资源禀赋、旅游基础设施、旅游发展政策和经济发展水平是云南省旅游总收入的时空差异及其变动的的主要原因.     

An Assessment of the Valuation Methods Used to Calculate the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and Sustainable Net Benefit Index (SNBI)

For some time now, ecological economists have been putting forward a ‘threshold hypothesis’ – the notion that when macroeconomic systems expand beyond a certain size, the additional cost of growth exceeds the flow of additional benefits. In order to support their belief, ecological economists have developed a number of similar indexes to measure and compare the benefits and costs of growth (e.g., the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and the Genuine Progress Indicator). In virtually every instance where an index of this type has been calculated for a particular country, the movement of the index appears to reinforce the existence of the threshold hypothesis. Of late, a number of observers have expressed concerns about whether these alternative indexes reflect concrete reality or the prejudices of ecological economists. In view of these concerns, this paper closely examines the valuation methods used in the calculation the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, the Genuine Progress Indicator, and the Sustainable Net Benefit Index. It is argued that a consistent and more robust set of valuation techniques is required in order for these alternative indexes to gain broad acceptability.*Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

收入差距是否影响环境质量?——国内外研究综述

近年来,收入差距扩大与环境质量恶化成为许多国家同时面临的问题,也让一些经济学家开始思考,这两者之间是否存在关联。继20世纪90年代环境库兹涅茨曲线提出以来,一些研究发现不仅收入的绝对水平会对环境质量产生影响,收入差距对环境质量也有影响。本文对这一课题的理论研究进行了梳理,发现现有理论中收入差距对环境质量的影响途径主要有三条。第一条途径是消费者途径,即收入差距影响着以消费为主的个人经济行为,进一步影响着社会消费总量和消费结构,及其过程中产生的污染总量。第二条途径是企业途径,即认为收入差距的扩大会削弱环保型产品的正外部性,不利于环保技术的创新活动,对未来环境质量的改善产生动态影响。第三条途径是政府途径,即认为收入差距会影响相关的环境政策方式与强度选择;而且在不同的社会政策决策机制下,收入差距对环境政策的影响也是不同的,现有的社会决策机制分析框架主要有两种——权利权重型社会决策规则和简单多数规则。此外,本文还对现存的主要实证研究进行了总结,发现大多数研究结论都支持收入差距对环境质量存在着影响,但这种影响并不是线性的。一方面,收入差距对环境的影响与研究的污染物种类有关,大多数研究都显示,收入不平等对CO 2排放和土壤污染存在着负向影响,但有关收入差距对空气污染和水污染影响的研究结论并不统一或并不显著。另一方面,这种影响还与经济发展水平相关,在高收入国家与低收入国家是不同的,存在着阈值效应。最后本文总结了针对中国的研究现状,讨论了其在我国的适用性。     

植物吸收修复对土壤镍及其主要化学性质的影响

采用室内盆栽试验方法,研究了外源镍污染土壤的植物吸收修复对土壤镍形态和土壤主要化学性质的影响。试验用水稻土添加NiSO4·6H2O(100～1600mgkg-1)经过12周的驯化培养后,种植了镍超累积植物Alyssu mmurale,110 d后收获植物并进行了试验土壤镍的形态和主要化学性质的分析,采用再分配系数和结合强度系数对植物修复效果进行了定量分析。结果表明,根区土壤中DTPA提取态镍的数量明显减少,根区土壤DTPA-Ni与非根区土壤DTPA-Ni之比的范围在0.33～0.61之间。每盆植物提取镍量为6.61～31.18mg,植物提取量随着添加镍量增加而增加,地上部分最大镍含量达到12454.1mgkg-1。根区的再分配系数在2.17～4.19之间,而非根区的再分配系数在6.87～15.91之间,再分配系数随着镍添加量的增加而增大;根区的结合强度系数为0.84～0.39,而非根区的则为0.88～0.26,随着土壤中镍添加量的增加,结合强度系数逐渐减小。植物吸收修复后,根区土壤镍的再分配系数降低、结合强度系数增大,表明土壤镍各形态之间的稳定性增加,因此植物修复可以加快外源镍在土壤中的稳定。试验结果也表明,根区土壤中pH随着镍添加量的增加呈下降趋势、但较非根区土壤的高;根区土壤有机碳亦较非根区的高。     

外加镍在土壤中的形态与再分配

镍处理土壤经室内培养12周后,采用连续提取技术对试验土壤中镍的形态与再分配方式进行了研究。研究结果表明,外加的水溶性镍进入土壤后的主要存在形态与添加的剂量有关:低剂量时,以铁锰氧化态为主,这一形态在100mg·kg-1处理土壤中占比例最大,达到31.6%;高剂量时,以交换态为主,这一形态在1600mg·kg-1处理土壤中占比例最大,达到48.4%。随着镍添加剂量由0(对照)增加到1600mg·kg-1,再分配系数逐渐由1.00增大到30.65;金属结合强度系数则由0.90减小至0.25,也反映出进入土壤中镍的剂量较大时,镍是以不稳定的形态占优。试验结果也证实了土壤具有减小镍的环境危害的作用,但这种缓冲能力是有限的。随着时间的推移,镍的形态会继续发生变化,但这一转化过程是缓慢的。因此,一旦土壤发生重金属污染,其对土壤环境的影响将是长期的。