Compensating communities for industrial disamenities: The case of shale gas development

Governments often compensate communities for hosting disruptive industries. Sometimes compensation comes with restrictions that preclude highly-valued investments. I exploit policy discontinuities at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border to understand how restrictions affect local investment. Ohio delivers unrestricted revenues to schools and municipalities with shale development. Pennsylvania leaves out schools, and requires that municipalities address the industry's impacts. Municipalities in both states save most of the revenues. Ohio schools leverage them to increase borrowing and finance capital investments. This suggests that affected residents have greater demand for school investments, and that broad use of compensation may benefit communities more than allocating it narrowly.     

“入世”对贵州主要行业的影响及对策

"入世"对贵州既是机遇也是挑战.如何抓住机遇,迎接挑战,充分利用"入世"的积极影响,尽量消除或降低其不利影响,使贵州经济有一个较大的发展,缩小与兄弟省份的差距,是当今贵州经济工作的一个重大课题.贵州医药、烟草、电力、旅游等行业是在国际、国内市场上最具比较优势的、关联带动性很强的行业.因此,分析和研究"入世"对上述行业的影响及对策,对推动贵州经济的发展具有特别重要的意义.     

论信息网络与高校思想政治工作

信息网络的迅速发展,给高校思想政治工作带来了重大影响和严峻的挑战。文章拟从信息网络对高校思想政治工作的正负影响的分析入手,提出了以“四个结合”为抓手,以校园网络为依托,构建高校网上思想政治教育阵地的设想。     

Pathway Analysis for Population-Total Health Impacts of Toxic Metal Emissions

This article describes a simple model for quantifying the health impacts of toxic metal emissions. In contrast to most traditional models it calculates the expectation value of the total damage (summed over the total population and over all time) for typical emission sites, rather than "worst-case" estimates for specific sites or episodes. Such a model is needed for the evaluation of many environmental policy measures, e.g., the optimal level of pollution taxes or emission limits. Based on the methodology that has been developed by USEPA for the assessment of multimedia pathways, the equations and parameters are assembled for the assessment of As, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, and Pb, and some typical results are presented (the dose from seafood is not included and for Hg the results are extremely uncertain); the model is freely available on the web. The structure of the model is very simple because, as we show, if the parameters can be approximated by time-independent constants (the case for the USEPA methodology), the total impacts can be calculated with steady-state models even though the environment is never in steady state. The collective ingestion dose is found to be roughly 2 orders of magnitude larger than the collective dose via inhalation. The uncertainties are large, easily an order of magnitude, the main uncertainties arising from the parameter values of the model, in particular the transfer factors. Using linearized dose-response functions, estimates are provided for cancers due to As, Cd, Cr, and Ni as well as IQ loss due to Pb emissions in Europe.     

生态养老:养老服务中场所性的健康促进策略

老年人口占总人口比例以及提供健康服务成本的财政需求增加,正日益威胁着全球的稳定性。同时,这样的人口发展趋势也给传统的老年人健康服务供给带来挑战。本文以澳大利亚的案例为背景,论证在养老服务中运用场所性的健康促进能够给老年人创造更大的福利,缩短通常与年龄增长有关的慢性病患病率时间。提倡生态养老意味着无需像以前那样对老年人实行隔离管理,而是将他们视为整个社会生活、工作和娱乐不可缺少的一部分。文章比对了健康促进学校与养老产业等场所性的健康促进的特征,认为涵盖各种养老服务的场所是建立一个新的健康促进场所的最佳选择。场所性的健康促进策略的核心就在于为老年人的生活创造有利的环境。更广义地说,生态养老指导我们将环境与健康联系在一起,减少这一日益庞大的人口群体对环境的影响。因此,在老龄事业中应用场所性的健康促进策略有助于降低待赡养的老年人口对全球稳定性的威胁。     

实施建筑节能标准的宏观经济和环境影响测算模型研究

本文首先对实施建筑节能标准的主要经济和环境影响方面进行系统分析,然后对投入产出局部闭模型进行了改进,并结合数量经济和静态比较的方法,创建了实施建筑节能标准的宏观经济和环境影响测算模型。该模型可以从6个主要方面详细测算实施建筑节能标准对各个产业部门的直接经济影响、直接环境影响、完全经济影响和对GDP的总影响。模型测算结果表明,建筑节能的节能和减排效果显著,同时对GDP有小幅的拉动作用,随着建筑节能标准实施率的增加,它对GDP的拉动强度呈先增后减的趋势。最后根据对测算结果的分析,提出推广实施建筑节能标准的具体方法建议。     

基于内容分析的我国公益旅游发展研究——以多背一公斤为例

有组织的公益旅游活动在我国兴起和发展已经有近6年的历史.通过对相关“多背一公斤”网络文本进行内容分析,总结我国公益旅游发展的50个高频词汇,并归为公益旅游动机、公益旅游体验、公益旅游社区反应、公益旅游组织和公益旅游宏观影响五大类目,较·为全面地归纳出我国公益旅游的现状和发展特征.     

西部大开发与陕西旅游业可持续发展的政策创新

从陕西省旅游业的资源特点入手，倡导陕西省旅游业可持续发展的政策创新，如建立陕西省新建旅游项目的环境影响评价制度和三同时制度、开发绿色旅游产品、完善环境经济政策等。     

Analyzing and clustering students' application preferences in higher education

We present a framework based on a higher education application preference list that allows a different type of flexible aggregation and, hence, the analysis and clustering of application data. Preference lists are converted into scores. The proposed approach is demonstrated in the context of higher education applications in Hungary over the period of 2006–2015. Our method reveals that efforts to leverage center-periphery differences do not fulfill expectations. Furthermore, the student''s top preference is very hard to influence, and recruiters may build their strategy on information about the first and second choices.     

Insurance Against Climate Change and Flooding in the Netherlands: Present, Future, and Comparison with Other Countries

Climate change is projected to cause severe economic losses, which has the potential to affect the insurance sector and public compensation schemes considerably. This article discusses the role insurance can play in adapting to climate change impacts. The particular focus is on the Dutch insurance sector, in view of the Netherlands being extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. The usefulness of private insurance as an adaptation instrument to increased flood risks is examined, which is currently unavailable in the Netherlands. It is questioned whether the currently dominant role of the Dutch government in providing damage relief is justified from an economic efficiency perspective. Characteristics of flood insurance arrangements in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France are compared in order to identify possible future directions for arrangements in the Netherlands. It is argued that social welfare improves when insurance companies take responsibility for part of the risks associated with climate change.