Impact of Accessibility on Housing Prices in Dalian City of China Based on a Geographically Weighted Regression Model

This paper studies the relationship between accessibility and housing prices in Dalian by using an improved geographically weighted regression model and house prices, traffic, remote sensing images, etc. Multi-source data improves the accuracy of the spatial differentiation that reflects the impact of traffic accessibility on house prices. The results are as follows: first, the average house price is 12 436 yuan(RMB)/m^2, and reveals a declining trend from coastal areas to inland areas. The exception was Guilin Street, which demonstrates a local peak of house prices that decreases from the center of the street to its periphery. Second, the accessibility value is 33 minutes on average, excluding northern and eastern fringe areas, which was over 50 minutes. Third, the significant spatial correlation coefficient between accessibility and house prices is 0.423, and the coefficient increases in the southeastern direction. The strongest impact of accessibility on house prices is in the southeastern coast, and can be seen in the Lehua, Yingke, and Hushan communities, while the weakest impact is in the northwestern fringe, and can be seen in the Yingchengzi, Xixiaomo, and Daheishi community areas.

On-Grid Tariff in China——History, Current Situation, and Proposed Reform

This article introduces the history of the reform of on-grid tariff in China, the current status of and currently adopted mechanisms related to on-grid tariffs of coal-fired and renewable energy power generation facilities. The article further discusses the proposed and on-going reform and restructure in the electricity price sector, and the trial reforms in regional electricity markets.

Analysis of China＇s Oil and Gas Policies in 2016

Guided by President Xi Jinping's key speech about energy revolution— "Four Revolutions and One Cooperation"-the Chinese oil and gas industry continued to accelerate its pace of reform in 2016.China has deepened its supply-side structural reforms,prevented and resolved the problem of excess production capacity,increased the effective supply of clean energy such as natural gas,and formed an energy innovation system.It has pushed forward the reform of pricing mechanisms with significant adjustments in the pricing mechanisms of oil products,pipeline transportation,gas storage and gas used for fertilizer production.It has also accelerated market access reform and encouraged various investors to enter into the fields of exploration & production,pipeline transportation and crude oil imports.China has sped up the legislative process of environmental protection to promote green and low-carbon development.It has accelerated oil & gas industry institutional reform,with some provinces initiating the pilot reform of oil and gas.

Feasibility Ananlysis of Building Pithead Power Plants in North Shaanxi and Ningxia Coal Bases

North Shaanxi and Ningxia are extremely abundant in coal resources, with excellent geographical positions and transport facilities, suitable to build large size pithead power plants. This paper details the coal resources in North Shaanxi Province and Ningxia Autonomous Region, fuel coal and transportation conditions for building large size pithead power plants, and carries out the analyses of economic benefits and electricity prices of bidding for access to grid for the six recommended power plants. The analyses show that these power plants, after built up, will have strong competitive powers and make contributions for the sustainable development of power industry in North China and Shandong Province.

Modeling urban housing price： The perspective of household activity demand

Existing studies about the modeling of urban housing price have figured out sets of factors and the main focus is on the relative spatial location. Generally, this line of research is descriptive rather than modeling in nature. The underlying reasons for the distribution of housing price are largely unexplored and more research is needed. The paper therefore attempted to systematically explore the spatial heterogeneities of urban housing price based on the urban activity interaction rule. Using Beijing as a case study, this study first developed a new measurement of accessibility which directly depicts the cost and possibilities to access opportunities of different activities such as employments, educational, shopping and medical services. From the perspective of demands of different households, the paper then modelled the relationships between urban housing price and these accessibilities and found that the distribution pattern of housing price can be relatively well represented by this model that the R^2 could achieve 0.7. We investigated the relationship between housing price and the demands of different kinds of households categorized by households of one-generation, two-generation, three-generation and four-and-plus-generation and found that the demands of household of four-and-plus-generations is the most highly correlated with housing prices. The reason might be that this kind of household has more household members and the demands are more diverse and complex, which is more similar to the distributions of all kinds of activity opportunities in the real world. In the end of the paper, some implications for policy-making are proposed based on the results of the analyses.

No Threshold for Free Trade

In commemoration of the 15th anniversary of China’s accession to the WTO,Beijing Review reporter Deng Yaqing interviewed Xue Rongjiu,Vice Chairman of China Society for WTO Studies,on China’s gains from and contributions to the multilateral trading system,market economy status,surrogate country issues and mounting anti-globalization and trade protection.Edited excerpts of the interview follow: