Repositioning fertilizer manufacturing subsidies for improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in China

China removed fertilizer manufacturing subsidies from 2015 to 2018 to bolster market-oriented reforms and foster environmentally sustainable practices.However,the impact of this policy reform on food security and the environment remains inadequately evaluated.Moreover,although green and low-carbon technologies offer environmental advantages,their widespread adoption is hindered by prohibitively high costs.This study analyzes the impact of removing fertilizer manufacturing subsidies and explores the potential feasibility of redirecting fertilizer manufacturing subsidies to invest in the diffusion of these technologies.Utilizing the China Agricultural University Agri-food Systems model,we analyzed the potential for achieving mutually beneficial outcomes regarding food security and environmental sustainability.The findings indicate that removing fertilizer manufacturing subsidies has reduced greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions from agricultural activities by 3.88 million metric tons,with minimal impact on food production.Redirecting fertilizer manufacturing subsidies to invest in green and low-carbon technologies,including slow and controlled-release fertilizer,organic-inorganic compound fertilizers,and machine deep placement of fertilizer,emerges as a strategy to concurrently curtail GHG emissions,ensure food security,and secure robust economic returns.Finally,we propose a comprehensive set of government interventions,including subsidies,field guidance,and improved extension systems,to promote the widespread adoption of these technologies.

Influence mechanism of government subsidy on the green transformation of coal company in China

The optimization of government subsidies to enhance the efficiency of coal companies’green transformation constitutes a critical component in the pursuit of global sustainability.We investigate the influence mechanism of government subsidies on the green transformation using data from the listed coal companies in China from 2007 to 2022.According to our findings and hypothesis testing,previous government subsidies did not have a significant direct impact on coal companies’green transformation.Nevertheless,government subsidies can help coal companies transition to greener practices by promoting innovative green initiatives.Furthermore,we confirmed an indirect route:that government subsidies enable the adoption of low-carbon initiatives,which in turn could facilitate the transition of coal companies towards green practices.In addition,we discovered that the coal company’s digitization will improve this indirect route.Thus,we propose increasing the effectiveness of government subsidies in facilitating coal companies’transition to green practices by focusing on technological advancements and enhancing company digitalization.

Carbon Abatement Cost-Sharing Strategy for Electric Power Sector Based on Incentive and Subsidy Mechanisms

The green and low carbon transition and development of the electricity industry is the most crucial task in realizing the“dual-carbon target”,and it is urgent to explore the incentive and subsidy mechanism to promote green electricity consumption and the cost-sharing strategy of carbon reduction,to alleviate the pressure of carbon abatement cost of each subject of the electricity supply chain.Against this background,this paper takes into account the low-carbon subsidies provided by the government and the incentive subsidies for users,and studies the optimal decision-making of each subject in the electricity supply chain,so that each of them can obtain the optimal profit and achieve carbon emission reduction at the same time.Firstly,taking into account the direct power purchase mode of large users and the electricity-selling companies emerging after the reform of the power sales side,we have established a cooperative mechanism for sharing the cost of carbon emission reduction in the electricity supply chain and clarified the relationship between the supply and demand of electricity among the main parties.Subsequently,considering government low-carbon subsidies and user incentive subsidies,the optimal decisionmaking model is established under two scenarios of decentralized and centralized cooperative games in the supply chain,respectively,with the objective of maximizing profits and carbon reduction rates.Solving for the optimal proportion of carbon abatement costs shared by each participant in the electricity supply chain in achieving game equilibrium.Finally,we analyze the role of the government’s low-carbon subsidies,users’incentive subsidies,and other factors on the profit and carbon reduction effect of the electricity industry through the example analysis and further analyze the impact of carbon abatement cost-sharing measures to provide recommendations for the electricity industry to realize low-carbon abatement and make decisions.

R&D subsidy policy of domestic firm considering foreign firm competition

Taking the advanced technology of the foreign firm into account, a mixed duopoly three-stage game model is established in the context of research and development（RD）investment subsidies and product subsidies for domestic firms provided by the government, and the RD subsidy policy of domestic firms in competition with foreign firms is analyzed.The equilibrium output, RD investment of the domestic firm, social welfare and the value of government subsidies are derived, in the case of the two policies, RD investment subsidies and product subsidies for domestic firms, provided by the government. The results show that, the equilibrium output and the optimal social welfare under the RD investment subsidy policy are both less than those under the product subsidy policy; the optimal RD investment under the RD investment subsidy policy is less than that under the product subsidy policy; and the RD product subsidy has a more obvious incentive effect on firm RD investment. Under the background of the leading edge of technology of foreign firms, the product subsidy policy drawn up by the government to encourage RD innovation of domestic firms is more effective than the RD investment subsidy policy.

Crop Insurance, Premium Subsidy and Agricultural Output

This paper studied the effects of crop insurance on agricultural output with an economic growth model. Based on Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans （RCK） model, a basic model of agriculture economic growth was developed. Extending the basic model to incorporate uncertainty and insurance mechanism, a risk model and a risk-insurance model were built to study the inlfuences of risk and crop insurance on agricultural output. Compared with the steady states of the three models, the following results are achieved：（i） agricultural output decreases if we introduce uncertainty into the risk-free model;（ii） crop insurance promotes agriculture economic growth if insurance mechanism is introduced into the risk model;（iii） premium subsidy constantly improves agricultural output. Our contribution is that we studied the effects of crop insurance and premium subsidy from the perspective of economic growth in a dynamic framework, and proved the output promotion of crop insurance theoretically.

Evolution,Problems and Countermeasures of China's Subsidy Policy for Agriculture

China's agricultural subsidy policy experiences three development stages. Detailed summing up is carried out for achievements of each stage. On the basis of this, this paper discusses problems existing in current agricultural subsidy policy, including high operational cost, out of balance of subsidy structure, little subsidy effort, lack of effective supervision and vacancy of benefit safeguarding mechanism. Finally, it presents suggestions for optimizing China's agricultural subsidy policy, such as regulating direction of agricultural policy, strengthening subsidy effort, taking full advantage of WTO rules, perfecting agriculture-related systems, and establishing and perfecting legal system to support agriculture.

Empirical Analysis of China's Direct Food Subsidy Policy Based on DEA Model: A Case Study of Direct Food Subsidy Policy in Shandong Province

The direct food subsidy is an important agricultural subsidy policy under current conditions,more efficient than grain price protection policy and other policies,and it is of great importance to the agricultural development,but this policy will not meet the interests of society in the long run. In this paper,we make an empirical study with the direct food subsidy policy in Shandong Province as an example,focusing on the analysis of the efficiency of policy implementation in different regions. Study suggests that direct food subsidy has made some achievements,but there are some problems in practice,such as low standard for direct food subsidy policy,less subsidy varieties,generally low efficiency of direct food subsidy policy,lack of unified policy implementation,serious waste of money and inefficient supervision during the subsidy policy implementation process. In order to improve the efficiency of direct food subsidy,it is necessary to raise standard for subsidy,and expand the scope of subsidy varieties; unify the policy,and make the policy suit local circumstances; improve the subsidy mechanism,regulate government behavior,and strengthen supervision.

Subsidy Policy System for Agricultural Natural Disasters in China

From theories and cases,this paper analyzed current situation of subsidy policy system for agricultural natural disasters in China.Improvement and perfection of subsidy policies for agricultural natural disasters need clear classification and additional special subsidy plan.It is recommended to improve and perfect subsidy policy system for agricultural natural disasters through attaching importance to scientific studies on reduction and prevention of agricultural disasters and gradually supplementing agricultural disaster reduction and prevention system.

The twisted path from farm subsidies to health care expenditures

Overweight and obese individuals are at increased risk for many diseases and health conditions, including but not limited to the following: hypertension;osteoarthritis;dyslipidemia;type 2 diabetes;coronary heart disease and stroke. Consequently, individuals who are obese are more likely to use health services and are more likely to use costly health services than non-obese individuals. Between 1987 and 2001, growth in obesity related health expenditures accounted for 27 percent of the growth in inflation-adjusted per capita health care spending. Researchers, popular press and the television news media have paid considerable attention to the effect that farm subsidies have on dietary habits and obesity. Prominent researchers in the field have concluded that US farm subsidies have had a negligible impact on obesity. However, even small increases in obesity rates are associated with higher health care expenditures. The primary intent of this study is to break down the linkages from farm subsidy to health expenditure and shed light on the unintended implications of the farm subsidy program. We find that agricultural subsidies have the potential to influence health care expenditures.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of subsidy schemes for industrial timber development and carbon sequestration in Japanese forest plantations

This study uses simulations to investigate the effects of implementing two different Japanese forestry subsidy systems on timber production and carbon stock, and examines the consequences for harvesting strategies. An existing Local Yield Table Construction System （LYCS）, a wood conversion algorithm, and a harvesting cost model were used in the simulations to test the applicability of different subsidies to the thinning of stands. Using forest inventory data collected by local government staff, simulation output was used to calculate forestry profits, carbon stocks, subsidies, the amount of labor required, and the cost effectiveness of investing in subsidies. By comparing the output of simulations based on two scenarios, we found that both the clear-cutting area and the amount of harvested timber were larger under Scenario 2, in which the rules governing subsidy allocations are more relaxed, than under Scenario 1, in which the rules are more restrictive. Because the harvested timber under Scenario 1 was mainly produced by clear-cutting, the forestry profits and the subsidy predicted in the early period of the simulation, were larger under Scenario 1 than under Scenario 2. In contrast, the carbon stock was larger under Scenario 2 than under Scenario 1. The simulation model is likely to be useful for improving Plan-Do-Check-Act cyclesimplemented in Japanese forest management systems.

Research on Agricultural Subsidy Policy Adjustment under the Guidance of Green Development

Although China's agricultural subsidies have played a certain positive role,they also have some negative effects. This paper analyzes the relationship between agricultural green development and agricultural subsidies,points out the incompatibility between agricultural subsidies and agricultural green development at this stage. Finally,aimed at adjusting agricultural subsidy policy to promote agricultural green development,the article puts forward the corresponding measures and recommendations.

Factor Analysis on Subsidy Preference of Private Forest Owners

Forest farmers are the basic micro-subjects in southern collectively owned forest, and their willingness towards forest management directly influences forestry development. Thus, to provide subsidies to forest farmers is an important means to encourage the farmers' enthusiasm to manage the forest and promote the healthy and sustainable development of private forest. In order to reduce the supply-demand contradictions and improve the implementation effects of the subsidies system, the design of the system should be based on the real needs of forest farmers. On this basis, a questionnaire survey was designed in this paper to study the preferences of forest farmers to different types of subsidies in the southern collectively owned forest and the influencing factors were analysed by the Logistic Model to search for the reasonable design of the system. It was concluded that the forest farmers with different backgrounds show different preference to the subsidies, which, to a certain extent, reflects the development bottlenecks of forestry, and lays a foundation for the design of subsidies system.

AModeling Analysis of Local Governments Competing in Offering Subsidies to Attract Investment：the Cause of Industrial Overcapacity]

Although championed by academia and policy-makers, the theory of ＂wave phenomenon＂ is a questionable explanation for overcapacity. First, enterprises do not necessarily share the same expectation for future demand of a promising industry. Second, in its model, overcapacity is explained as a deviation from equilibrium under the incomplete information hypothesis, which is in fact nothing but normal in a market economy. The prime reason for overcapacity resides in the fact that local governments are engaged in a subsidy competition to attract investment. We endeavor to illustrate the following via modeling： the subsidy effect produced by local government＇s offering of cheaper land and matching loans results in less investment from companies. Under this circumstance, enterprises channel a disproportionate amount of funding to building production capacity, which overloads the entire industry. To address the problem, reforms are needed in land property, environmental protection policies, and financial and fiscal systems.

The Impacts of Agricultural Machinery Purchase Subsidies on Mechanized Crop Residue Recycling

Crop residue recycling can improve the quality of the cropland,and it has multiple economic and ecological benefits.However,such practice is with low adoption due to different constraints.In this paper,we use the survey data from Baoding,Hebei province,and use the probit model to explore how the agricultural machinery purchase subsidies affect the mechanized crop residue recycling.The results showed that several factors that affect farmers in adopting the practice of mechanized crop residue crop recycling.Among these factors,the cost of adopting such practice is significant.The agricultural machinery purchase subsidies can effectively reduce the cost of such practice,as well as promote mechanized crop residue recycling.The paper also proposed several actions in the future.They include increasing the subsidies on agricultural machinery purchase and increasing farmers' awareness on crop residue recycling.

A modern congestion pricing policy for urban traffic:subsidy plus toll

Congestion pricing is seen as an effective policy to address traffic congestion. In such policies where money, people and authorities are involved, the success generally hinges upon two factors： equity （being fair） and accept- ability （to both people and authorities）. The primary con- cern is the equity, for which ＂tradable credit scheme （TCS）＂ has been introduced and extensively studied in the literature. Nevertheless, due to the com- plexity of the trading schemes, the TCS has yet to find any foot in the real world. To this end, a novel idea of rewarding has substituted the trading component to be known as toll-and-subsidy scheme （TSS）. The idea is to charge the drivers on some roads （toll） while rewarding them to use other alternative--and perhaps underutilized-- roads （subsidy）. The research of the TSS is in its infancy stage. The problem to be tackled in this study is as follows： Given a set of roads constituting a cordon line around the central business district （CBD） or across a screen line, how much toll or subsidy should be assigned to each road？ The problem is first transformed into a capacitated traffic assignment problem. We employ a solution method based on augmenting the travel time of roads up to the level at which the traffic volumes do not exceed some target rates. A real dataset from the city of Winnipeg, Canada, is used as a pilot study. We then discuss policy-related applications of the TSS. It is proved in the literature that one can obtainoptimal TSSs for various objectives and considerations. To this end, the non-negativity of the toll values is relaxed which results in a valid toll set. Nevertheless, the compu- tational time is found to be of highest significance. Our method differs in the fact that the traffic volumes are bounded from the above and it is quite affordable. The main contribution is first to highlight the concept of sub- sidy along with traditional thought of merely toll. Second is to interpret the Lagrangian values of the capacity con- straints as the values of the toll/subsidy.

Government subsidies, dual-credit policy, and enterprise performance: Empirical evidence from Chinese listed new energy vehicle companies

The development of the new energy vehicle industry has become a key force driving the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutralization.To better guide future strategies,this study investigates the dual impact of subsidy and dual-integral policies on the performance of new energy vehicle enterprises.This study first theorizes the influential mechanism according to the institutional-based approach and technical innovation theory,and then collects data from listed companies in the new energy vehicle industry from 2016 to 2020.The hypotheses are examined using a two-way fixed-effects model.The findings show that:(1)subsidy policies are can still improve enterprise performance,but not through green technology innovation;(2)the dual-credit policy can improve enterprise performance through green technology innovation;and(3)under current policy conditions,with subsidies declining annually,the interaction effects between the subsidy and dual-integral policies will also decrease.Thus,this study suggests that non-monetary industrial policy,represented by the dual credit policy is a more effective alternative to government subsidies.

Efficiency Evaluation of Effect of Direct Grain Subsidy Policy on Performance of Rice Production

Using the DEA analysis method,on the basis of the national panel data from 2002 to 2014,this paper made a comparative analysis on the rice production performance before and after the implementation of direct grain subsidy policy,and made an empirical analysis on the relationship between the direct grain subsidy policy and the changes in the rice production performance. The results showed that the effect of the direct grain subsidy policy on promoting the rice production performance is declining year by year,largely because drop of scale efficiency. Besides,there are problems of serious redundancy in agricultural subsidy,unreasonable resource allocation,leading to low performance and resource waste of rice production.

Land degradation, government subsidy, and smallholders＇ conservation decision： the case of the loess plateau in China

Land degradation is one of the severe environmental problems in China. In order to combat land degradation, a soil conservation program was introduced since 2000 to reduce soil erosion by converting slope-cultivated land into forestry and pasture. This paper represents the first systematic attempt to investigate the impact of the soil conservation program on land degradation in the loess plateau. The results indicate that the soil conservation program to convert slope fields into forest or pasture is an effective way to combat soil erosion. However, a subsidy that is higher than profit of land use activity of slope fields before their conversion into forest and pasture is needed to encourage farmers to join the conservation program. A policy measure to encourage and assist farmers to develop sedentary livestock by using crops produced from fields as well as fodder and forage grass from the converted slope fields might contribute to combat soil erosion. Increase in off-farm job opportunities may encourage households to reduce cultivation in slope fields. That implies a policy measure to encourage rural urbanization might contribute to combat soil erosion.

Impact of Removal of City Gas Subsidies on Chinese Urban Residents

The current cost-plus natural gas pricing mechanism makes the gas price too low,resulting in a lot of consumer-side subsidies and over-consumed natural gas.This paper applies the price-gap approach and input-output analysis technology to quantitatively analyze both the direct and indirect effects on urban residents under the condition that natural gas subsidies are cancelled in China in 2007.It is shown that the gas price will increase by 33.3%-41.6%,and the residential consumption expenditure by 0.26%-0.33%.The low-income groups are mostly affected,so different subsidies should be implemented to make subsidies more efficient.

Role of government subsidies in the new energy vehicle charging infrastructure industry:a three-party game perspective

With the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation,China has posited the direction of“new infrastructure”in 2020.As one of the seven major industries of the“new infrastructure”,the charging infrastructure(CI)industry not only supports the upgrade of the new energy vehicle industry but also provides developing platforms for emerging industries,such as wireless charging,energy storage,smart microgrid,and new energy consumption.Therefore,the government’s supporting role is crucial for the CI industry.To effectively explore the effectiveness of government’s subsidy policy in the CI industry and promote its healthy development,we employed a game model and discussed the government's evolution process of different game strategies between CI and battery-swapping station(BSS)operators in this study.First,China's government subsidies for the electric vehicle(EV)industry were classified into CIs and BSSs.The subsidies obtained by the CI operators were operating subsidies,whereas those obtained by BSSs were investment subsidies.Second,a game model was constructed,involving the government,operators,and users.The model used backward induction to seek the refined Nash equilibrium solution for CIs and BSS operators.The Nash equilibrium solution indicated that the optimal investment amount and BSS quantity of the operator were positively correlated with the government subsidy intensity.When the profitability of the operators increased and the amount of the subsidies increased,consumers’willingness to use EVs increased and the policy effects were closely related to the benefits of government management.The decisions made by either the users or the operators were inversely related to the operators’management efficiency.Besides,the subsidy policy was affected by the government management.Therefore,in the implementation stage of the government’s future subsidy policies,the government needs to innovate and improve management effectiveness.The government could use subsidy policies as a driving force for developing the CI industry to build a comprehensive ecosystem of the industry,which is also the next key point for the government to promote the development of the CI industry in the future.