The impressive development of China's economy over the past few decades has enabled non-financial firms to adopt financial investment in exchange for enhanced financing behavior and short-term profit(shareholder v...The impressive development of China's economy over the past few decades has enabled non-financial firms to adopt financial investment in exchange for enhanced financing behavior and short-term profit(shareholder value)maximization,while the persistence of fixed investment leading to dramatic capital accumulation has spurred the nation's rapid economic growth.The existing literature has extensive discussions on the crowd-out effect of financial activities on non-financial firms'fixed investment but overlooks to what extent and under what forces financial activities potentially benefit real investment.This paper investigates whether profits from financial activities have an inverted U-shape relationship with firms'fixed investment.In particular,we aim to identify if the benefit of financial profit on fixed investment is through the financial constraint channel and/or ownership structure channel for Chinese-listed firms from 2003 to 2018.We present robust evidence to support the inverted U-shape relationship between financial profit and fixed investment for the whole sample of firms as well as the split samples of firms(SOEs and non-SOEs).Moreover,among all channels including cash flow,debt financing,managerial shareholding,ownership concentration,and state ownership,this research documents that financial profit mainly benefits firms by reducing debt burden.Firms with concentrated ownership and strong state shareholding are also more likely to crowd-out real investment or potentially alleviate overinvestment.Nevertheless,non-SOEs are more prone to benefit from financial profits by reducing the debt overhang problem than SOEs,whereas ownership concentration for SOEs non-increments the crowd-out effect.展开更多
Farmers are the key agents who manage land and water.Agriculture Green Development(AGD)requires a transformation in farming from high resource consumption and environmental cost to sustainable intensification with hig...Farmers are the key agents who manage land and water.Agriculture Green Development(AGD)requires a transformation in farming from high resource consumption and environmental cost to sustainable intensification with high productivity,high resource use efficiency and low environmental risk.This paper analyzes the public policy challenge of AGD and makes the case for a location-sensitive policy mix made up of regulation,advice provision,voluntarism and targeted incentives.The public agricultural extension service in China is a key resource,but one that requires reorientation and reform with the aim of better balancing high farm productivity with environmental protection.展开更多
Background:The social-ecological systems theory,with its unique conception of resilience(social-ecological systems&resilience,SESR),provides an operational framework that currently best meets the need for integrat...Background:The social-ecological systems theory,with its unique conception of resilience(social-ecological systems&resilience,SESR),provides an operational framework that currently best meets the need for integration and adaptive governance as encouraged by the Sustainable Development Goals.SESR accounts for the complex dynamics of social-ecological systems and operationalizes transdisciplinarity by focusing on community engagement,value co-creation,decentralized leadership and social innovation.Targeting Social Innovation(SI)in the context of implementation research for vector-borne diseases(VBD)control offers a low-cost strategy to contribute to lasting and contextualized community engagement in disease control and health development in low and middle income countries of the global south.In this article we describe the processes of community engagement and transdisciplinary collaboration underpinning community-based dengue management in rural primary schools and households in two districts in Cambodia.Methods:Multiple student-led and community-based interventions have been implemented focusing on empowering education,communication for behavioral change and participatory epidemiology mapping in order to engage Cambodian communities in dengue control.We describe in particular the significance of the participatory processes that have contributed to the design of SI products that emerged following iterative consultations with community stakeholders to address the dengue problem.Results:The SI products that emerged following our interaction with community members are 1)adult mosquito traps made locally from solid waste collections,2)revised dengue curriculum with hands-on activities for transformative learning,3)guppy distribution systems led by community members,4)co-design of dengue prevention communication material by students and community members,5)community mapping.Conclusions:The initiative described in this article put in motion processes of community engagement towards creating ownership of dengue control interventions tools by community stakeholders,including school children.While the project is ongoing,the project's interventions so far implemented have contributed to the emergence of culturally relevant SI products and provided initial clues regarding 1)the conditions allowing SI to emerge,2)specific mechanisms by which it happens and 3)how external parties can facilitate SI emergence.Overall there seems to be a strong argument to be made in supporting SI as a desirable outcome of project implementation towards building adaptive capacity and resilience and to use the protocol supporting this project implementation as an operational guiding document for other VBD adaptive management in the region.展开更多
One of the key issues in climate risk management is to develop climate resilient infrastructure so as to ensure safety and sustainability of urban functioning systems as well as mitigate the adverse impacts associated...One of the key issues in climate risk management is to develop climate resilient infrastructure so as to ensure safety and sustainability of urban functioning systems as well as mitigate the adverse impacts associated with increasing climate hazards.However,conventional methods of assessing risks do not fully address the interaction of various subsystems within the city system and are unable to consolidate diverse opinions of various stakeholders on their assessments of sector-specific risks posed by climate change.To address this gap,this study advances an integrated-systems-analysis tool-Climate Risk Assessment of Infrastructure Tool(CRAIT),and applies it to analyze and compare the extent of risk factor exposure and vulnerability over time across five critical urban infrastructure sectors in Shanghai and Shenzhen,two cities that have distinctive geo-climate profiles and histories of infrastructure development.The results show significantly higher level of variation between the two cities in terms of vulnerability levels than that of exposure.More specifically,the sectors of critical buildings,water,energy,and information&communication in Shenzhen have significantly higher vulnerability levels than Shanghai in both the 2000s and the 2050s.We further discussed the vulnerability levels of subsystems in each sector and proposed twelve potential adaptation options for the roads system based on four sets of criteria:technical feasibility,flexibility,co-benefits,and policy compatibility.The application of CRAIT is bound to be a knowledge co-production process with the local experts and stakeholders.This knowledge co-production process highlights the importance of management advancements and nature-based green solutions in managing climate change risk in the future though differences are observed across the efficacy categories due to the geographical and meteorological conditions in the two cities.This study demonstrates that this knowledge co-creation process is valuable in facilitating policymakers'decision-making and their feedback to scientific understanding in climate risk assessment,and that this approach has general applicability for cities in other regions and countries.展开更多
Common perceptions of recent tensions between Iran and the GCC states are couched in terms of a longstanding and historically rooted Shia-Sunni conflict between two major regional powers:Iran and Saudi Arabia.This pap...Common perceptions of recent tensions between Iran and the GCC states are couched in terms of a longstanding and historically rooted Shia-Sunni conflict between two major regional powers:Iran and Saudi Arabia.This paper argues that this perspective is simplistic since it ignores the major political drivers of the conflict at regional and international levels.From the perspective of the Regional Security Complex(RSC),the Persian Gulf region has been a typical security sub-complex since the 1970s.After the Iran-Iraq war,Iran adopted a detente policy towards the GCC states taking advantage of a domestic consensus to improve relations with her neighbouring states.The drive gained momentum after the arrival in office of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.However,his GCC policy has faced multiple challenges.The GCC countries have increasingly been suspicious and critical of Iran’s growing strength and regional influence.The intensification of the proxy games with Saudi Arabia have increased the insecurity of GCC states.Internationally too,the USA’s tough stance under President Trump and the return of the economic sanctions regime against Iran has raised regional temperatures,making it even harder for Iran and the GCC to improve their relations.We argue that to understand the proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular,a more nuanced approach is needed that goes beyond religious strife and rivalry.展开更多
文摘The impressive development of China's economy over the past few decades has enabled non-financial firms to adopt financial investment in exchange for enhanced financing behavior and short-term profit(shareholder value)maximization,while the persistence of fixed investment leading to dramatic capital accumulation has spurred the nation's rapid economic growth.The existing literature has extensive discussions on the crowd-out effect of financial activities on non-financial firms'fixed investment but overlooks to what extent and under what forces financial activities potentially benefit real investment.This paper investigates whether profits from financial activities have an inverted U-shape relationship with firms'fixed investment.In particular,we aim to identify if the benefit of financial profit on fixed investment is through the financial constraint channel and/or ownership structure channel for Chinese-listed firms from 2003 to 2018.We present robust evidence to support the inverted U-shape relationship between financial profit and fixed investment for the whole sample of firms as well as the split samples of firms(SOEs and non-SOEs).Moreover,among all channels including cash flow,debt financing,managerial shareholding,ownership concentration,and state ownership,this research documents that financial profit mainly benefits firms by reducing debt burden.Firms with concentrated ownership and strong state shareholding are also more likely to crowd-out real investment or potentially alleviate overinvestment.Nevertheless,non-SOEs are more prone to benefit from financial profits by reducing the debt overhang problem than SOEs,whereas ownership concentration for SOEs non-increments the crowd-out effect.
文摘Farmers are the key agents who manage land and water.Agriculture Green Development(AGD)requires a transformation in farming from high resource consumption and environmental cost to sustainable intensification with high productivity,high resource use efficiency and low environmental risk.This paper analyzes the public policy challenge of AGD and makes the case for a location-sensitive policy mix made up of regulation,advice provision,voluntarism and targeted incentives.The public agricultural extension service in China is a key resource,but one that requires reorientation and reform with the aim of better balancing high farm productivity with environmental protection.
基金This project received financial support from the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases(TDR),Geneva,Switzerland.
文摘Background:The social-ecological systems theory,with its unique conception of resilience(social-ecological systems&resilience,SESR),provides an operational framework that currently best meets the need for integration and adaptive governance as encouraged by the Sustainable Development Goals.SESR accounts for the complex dynamics of social-ecological systems and operationalizes transdisciplinarity by focusing on community engagement,value co-creation,decentralized leadership and social innovation.Targeting Social Innovation(SI)in the context of implementation research for vector-borne diseases(VBD)control offers a low-cost strategy to contribute to lasting and contextualized community engagement in disease control and health development in low and middle income countries of the global south.In this article we describe the processes of community engagement and transdisciplinary collaboration underpinning community-based dengue management in rural primary schools and households in two districts in Cambodia.Methods:Multiple student-led and community-based interventions have been implemented focusing on empowering education,communication for behavioral change and participatory epidemiology mapping in order to engage Cambodian communities in dengue control.We describe in particular the significance of the participatory processes that have contributed to the design of SI products that emerged following iterative consultations with community stakeholders to address the dengue problem.Results:The SI products that emerged following our interaction with community members are 1)adult mosquito traps made locally from solid waste collections,2)revised dengue curriculum with hands-on activities for transformative learning,3)guppy distribution systems led by community members,4)co-design of dengue prevention communication material by students and community members,5)community mapping.Conclusions:The initiative described in this article put in motion processes of community engagement towards creating ownership of dengue control interventions tools by community stakeholders,including school children.While the project is ongoing,the project's interventions so far implemented have contributed to the emergence of culturally relevant SI products and provided initial clues regarding 1)the conditions allowing SI to emerge,2)specific mechanisms by which it happens and 3)how external parties can facilitate SI emergence.Overall there seems to be a strong argument to be made in supporting SI as a desirable outcome of project implementation towards building adaptive capacity and resilience and to use the protocol supporting this project implementation as an operational guiding document for other VBD adaptive management in the region.
基金supported by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program(KCXFZ20201221173412035)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(51761135024)+1 种基金the UK-China Research&Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership(CSSP)China as part of the Newton Fund(Project:Climate Risk Assessment Tool for Chinese Cities)the UK-China Cooperation on Climate Change Risk Assessment(Phase 3)for financial support.
文摘One of the key issues in climate risk management is to develop climate resilient infrastructure so as to ensure safety and sustainability of urban functioning systems as well as mitigate the adverse impacts associated with increasing climate hazards.However,conventional methods of assessing risks do not fully address the interaction of various subsystems within the city system and are unable to consolidate diverse opinions of various stakeholders on their assessments of sector-specific risks posed by climate change.To address this gap,this study advances an integrated-systems-analysis tool-Climate Risk Assessment of Infrastructure Tool(CRAIT),and applies it to analyze and compare the extent of risk factor exposure and vulnerability over time across five critical urban infrastructure sectors in Shanghai and Shenzhen,two cities that have distinctive geo-climate profiles and histories of infrastructure development.The results show significantly higher level of variation between the two cities in terms of vulnerability levels than that of exposure.More specifically,the sectors of critical buildings,water,energy,and information&communication in Shenzhen have significantly higher vulnerability levels than Shanghai in both the 2000s and the 2050s.We further discussed the vulnerability levels of subsystems in each sector and proposed twelve potential adaptation options for the roads system based on four sets of criteria:technical feasibility,flexibility,co-benefits,and policy compatibility.The application of CRAIT is bound to be a knowledge co-production process with the local experts and stakeholders.This knowledge co-production process highlights the importance of management advancements and nature-based green solutions in managing climate change risk in the future though differences are observed across the efficacy categories due to the geographical and meteorological conditions in the two cities.This study demonstrates that this knowledge co-creation process is valuable in facilitating policymakers'decision-making and their feedback to scientific understanding in climate risk assessment,and that this approach has general applicability for cities in other regions and countries.
文摘Common perceptions of recent tensions between Iran and the GCC states are couched in terms of a longstanding and historically rooted Shia-Sunni conflict between two major regional powers:Iran and Saudi Arabia.This paper argues that this perspective is simplistic since it ignores the major political drivers of the conflict at regional and international levels.From the perspective of the Regional Security Complex(RSC),the Persian Gulf region has been a typical security sub-complex since the 1970s.After the Iran-Iraq war,Iran adopted a detente policy towards the GCC states taking advantage of a domestic consensus to improve relations with her neighbouring states.The drive gained momentum after the arrival in office of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.However,his GCC policy has faced multiple challenges.The GCC countries have increasingly been suspicious and critical of Iran’s growing strength and regional influence.The intensification of the proxy games with Saudi Arabia have increased the insecurity of GCC states.Internationally too,the USA’s tough stance under President Trump and the return of the economic sanctions regime against Iran has raised regional temperatures,making it even harder for Iran and the GCC to improve their relations.We argue that to understand the proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular,a more nuanced approach is needed that goes beyond religious strife and rivalry.