Institutional Factors Affecting the Economic Performance of Peasant Special Cooperative Organization——A Case of Cuiping District,Yibin City,China

Literatures about the institutional arrangement of the Peasant Special Cooperative Organization are summarized.Based on the introduction of theoretical background,the overall level of annual earnings in the year 2008 is selected as a dependent variable to evaluate the economic performance of cooperative organizations,according to the investigation on 54 Peasant Special Cooperative Organizations in Cuiping District,Sichuan Province,China.A total of 13 institutional indices passing the correlation test are chosen as independent variables.Relationship between the development level and the institutional factors affecting the economic performance of cooperative organizations is studied by using factor analysis method.Result shows that there is relatively high consistency between the score of institutional factor and the development level of cooperative organization.Both macroscopic support system and internal benefit distribution system have greater impacts on the Peasant Special Cooperative Organization;the internal supervision factor and the interest factor of core members have insignificant impacts on the economic performance;and the production management factor has little effect on economic performance.Based on this,several suggestions are put forward,including standardizing and reforming the system,improving the countermeasures for economic performance,strengthening the support and policy guidance for Peasant Special Cooperative Organization,improving and standardizing the distribution of benefit system,the security system and monitoring system for core members' interests,and fully reflecting the interests of core members.

Factors in fluencing farmers' participation in crop intensification program in Rwanda

The crop intensification program（CIP）was introduced in Rwanda in 2007 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources（MINAGRI）,Rwanda,as a solution to the land fragmentation,low use of agricultural inputs and low access to extension services.However,due to the voluntary nature of farmers’participation and their reluctance to participate,this study aimed at assessing the factors that influence their participation.Data were collected from 340 respondents through a household survey in Mayange and Rusarabuye sectors.Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression model were used to analyze the data.Results show that the factors that significantly influenced the farmers’participation in the CIP include gender,non-farm income,farmland size,farming experience,land acquisition means,market access,trust and agro-ecological conditions.In fact,the non-farm income significantly increased the farmers’decisions to participate in the CIP（P〈0.001）as it eases the financial capital needed to invest in the CIP activities.On the land acquisition means,the farmers who inherited or bought the land positively and significantly participated in the CIP（P〈0.05）because they had the land tenure security.However,the participation in the CIP was hindered by inadequate irrigation and mechanization facilities,lack of farmers’participation in the CIP planning process,inadequate extension services,inadequate agricultural inputs and inadequate post-harvest technologies.Closer collaboration between farmers,local leaders,extension agents and agricultural service providers as well as the farmers’practical skills in irrigation and mechanization could enhance the participation to the program.Therefore,there is a need on the part of policymakers to empower farmers with adequate knowledge on better cropping practices and agricultural technologies through appropriate extension services and bottom-up based program.

China＇s Bilateral Currency Swap Lines

We study the determinants of China ＇s bilateral local currency swap lines that were established following the recent global finance crisis. It is found that economic factors, political considerations and institutional characteristics, including trade intensity, economic size, strategic partnership, free trade agreements, corruption and stability, affect the decision to sign a swap line agreement. Once a swap line agreement decision is made, the size of the swap line is then mainly affected by trade intensity, economic size and the presence of a free trade agreement. The results are quite robust with respect to the choices of the Heckman two-stage framework or the proportional hazard model. The gravity effect captured by distances between China and its counterparts, if present, is mainly observed during the early part of the sample period under consideration.