Understanding Policy Instruments as Rules of Interaction in Social-Ecological System Frameworks

Government interventions to manage and improve trade-offs in social and ecological systems are made through various policy instruments.The conditions of the social ecological system(SES)are a function of the cumulatively implemented policy instruments.Although both policy instruments and social ecological system frameworks have played important roles in theoretical developments in resource management,they have largely been considered in isolation from each other.By including policy instruments into the SES framework,the proposed conceptual model serves as a template to examine how governing takes place by deciphering:1)how the biophysical system has been understood in resource governance;2)how the social system has been set up in resource governance;and 3)how the trade-offbetween dynamic biophysical and social systems has been managed in the governance of SESs.This model can assist identifying any absent,overlapping or contradictory policy instruments in the governance of an SES.

The evolution of central environmental protection inspection policy attention in China: An investigation based on inspection reports

The central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) system in China is a significant institutional innova‐tion in national environmental governance. The CEPI applies a joint supervision strategy to address salient en‐vironmental issues and strictly enforce the environmental responsibilities of local governments. This study col‐lects and organizes CEPI inspection reports covering three stages that encompass the first round, the “look back”, and the second round, applying text analysis to obtain sample data and conduct statistical quantifica‐tion of word frequency in inspection reports and identify notable changes. The study explores the allocation of CEPI attention between policy objectives and the intensity of policy instruments. We determine that in con‐junction with public opinion feedback, the CEPI conducts targeted inspections and focuses more on pollutant governance, which has high severity and can be addressed quickly. The CEPI fills the gap of normalized gover‐nance with a campaign-style governance approach. Regarding the intensity of policy measures, the CEPI pri‐marily uses economic incentive policy instruments, supplemented by command-and-control and public guid‐ance approaches, advancing the sustainability of regulatory effectiveness through economic, social, and politi‐cal activities. This study extends knowledge in the field of CEPI policy priorities and implementation, expand‐ing the literature related to outcomes of environmental policy in developing countries.

Performance of the combination of decarbonisation policy instruments and implications for carbon neutrality in China

Decarbonisation is a complex systemic issue that involves multiple market failures.Thus,the integrated application of multiple policy instruments is required.This study used the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA)method to explore the causality relationship between decarbonisation policies with reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)and the decoupling elasticity of Tapio from a configuration perspective.We found that taxation and regulation are the critical drivers of decoupling,while information and public goods and services are ancillary.Three decoupled policy mixes were tabled,each focusing on a)taxation,b)taxation and economic instruments,and c)trading system and regulations.In contrast,the execution of information and voluntary instruments,as well as the non-implementation of the tax,are essential to non-decoupling.Three combinations that are negative for decoupling were also introduced:a)trade and economic incentives,b)trade,information and voluntary instruments,and c)information,public goods and services,and voluntary instruments.The most valuable policy mix for China is the implementation of taxes,trade,economic and regulations with the provision of auxiliary decarbonised information and public goods and services.The following processes are involved:a)integrate regulations with economic policies for more flexibility;b)introduce the carbon tax and a tax rebate policy to complement the carbon market policy based on research into the feasibility and cost-effectiveness;c)provide information and public services mainly on the consumption side;and d)recommend voluntary policies for innovative practices.On the basis of more cases and a configuration perspective,this study offers various policy mixes that are conducive or not to decoupling and suggestions for optimising China’s decarbonisation policy.We also offered a way to measure the intensity of the decarbonisation policy with respect to the carbon emission structure of sectors.

How Will Different Types of Regional Innovation Policy and Their Mixes Affect the Innovation Performance of Enterprises: An Empirical Study Based on Shenzhen

Evaluating the functional boundary of different types of innovation policy instruments and their mixes on innovation performance of enterprises is an important but unresolved key issue.This paper,based on the systematically carding the quantization of 155 innovation policies issued by Shenzhen governmental departments from 2011 to 2019,analyzed the characteristics from different types of innovation instruments and their mixes.The results show that Shenzhen governmental has constantly enriched innovation policy instruments for encouraging enterprise innovation,but there are structural unbalances in the issued innovation policy manifested as follows:firstly supply-side policy and environmental-side policy were promulgated more than demand-side policy;secondly the specific instruments employed by Shenzhen governmental were also uneven in different type of innovation policy,like supply-side policy focused on the instruments of government procurement and R&D outsourcing,demand-side policy employed human resource training,innovation infrastructure and fiscal support most,and environmental-side policy main used target planning,intellectual property protection and financial support.This study expands and understanding empirical implementation of different reginal innovation policy instruments,and has implication for Shenzhen governmental in improving the applicability ability of policies in the enterprises innovation.

China’s Monetary Policy Framework in the Past 70 Years:1949-2019

In this paper,we review the historical transformation of China’s monetary policy framework in a systematical way in the past 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,from the five dimensions of money creation mechanism,monetary policy objective,monetary policy instrument,monetary policy rule and monetary policy transmission channel.We then focus on the current policy framework and suggest its major characteristics:the base money creation mechanism is undergoing fundamental structural changes and the credit system is becoming more and more complex;the multip1e objectives of the monetary policy are prone to conflict with each other;quantitative tools and price-based tools coexist while the validity of various new structural tools still needs to be tested;the monetary policy decisions are mainly discretionary and clear quantitative rules have not been formed;the monetary policy transmission is still dominated by bank credit channels,and the transmission to real economy is partially blocked.In the end,we outline the four major challenges facing China’s existing monetary policy framework and put forward policy recommendations for its transformation in the future.