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The reasons for going in for containerised shipment were several. First and foremost, there was the attraction of having a unitised form of through‐transport which enabled us to exercise greater care over loading operations. It offered a larger measure of control, because the fragmentation into a number of different links starting from haulage operator, forwarding agent to shipping company, and again the same number of intermediaries in the country of importation, had been eliminated. The transport chain, with the introduction of the container concept, would be shortened and even if the more tangible rewards of containerisation were not always too apparent, there were at least the psychological advantages for the importer, because the new method of transport at least halved the distance between “us and them”. The bright star in the distribution firmament was that traffic flows would be greatly accelerated, and with combined cost savings and reduced damage, new markets would be opened up.

This study assesses the potential impact of the European Income Stabilization Tool (IST – a whole farm income risk management [RM] tool) within a farm cooperative specializing in vineyards and operating in a small area of production. The authors assess the conditions under which IST could improve the well-being of the associated farmers and, at the same time, improve financial sustainability. Financial aspects are of particular relevance since the characteristics of the cooperative cause the management of the tool to become potentially risky.

The analysis relies on a balanced panel dataset to report the production and economic characteristics of individual associated farms. This is the basis for simulating the implementation of the IST as described in the current European regulation. The expected utility approach is then used to assess the potential impact on farmers' well-being under different levels of risk aversion and premiums. The analysis of the IST annual cash flow allows for an accurate assessment of its financial sustainability.

The results suggest that the IST can improve farmers' well-being under plausible levels of risk aversion and premiums, making most farmers willing to support its implementation. Furthermore, the tool could be financially sustainable even if implemented in a specialized and geographically concentrated group of farms. In addition, the results suggest that the use of strategies such as the IST could help cope with negative annual balances by treating the financial sustainability of the fund.

The analysis adds to previous research on the IST by accounting for farmers' risk aversion. Furthermore, it is the first analysis that simulates the implementation of this tool in a sector-specific and concentrated group of farms. The results provide useful evidence for those subjects planning to implement the IST in small and specialized farming systems.

By analyzing the mechanisms by which rural infrastructure resilience (RIR) impacted population loss in Longxi County, this study proposes measures to improve RIR, which provides a practical reference for realizing China's rural revitalization strategy, besides providing ideas for alleviating population loss in similar regions around the world.

This study considered 213 administrative villages in Longxi County in the Longzhong loess hilly region as the evaluation unit. Based on the construction of a multidimensional RIR evaluation system, the spatial spillover effect of RIR on population loss was determined using the spatial Durbin model (SDM).

The average resilience of each subsystem of rural infrastructure in Longxi County was low, and there were large differences in the spatial distribution. The mean RIR index value was 0.2258, with obvious spatial directivity and agglomeration characteristics. The population loss index of Longxi County had a value of 0.1759, with 26.29 of villages having a high loss level. The population loss was relatively serious and was correlated with the spatial distribution of RIR. The villages with larger RIR index values had lower population loss. The RIR had a significant spatial spillover effect on population loss. Productive infrastructure resilience and living infrastructure resilience (LIR) had negative spillover effects on population loss, and social service infrastructure resilience (SSIR) had a positive spillover effect on population loss.

By analyzing the mechanisms by which RIR impacted on population loss in Longxi County, this study proposes measures to improve RIR, which provides a practical reference for realizing China's rural revitalization strategy, besides providing ideas for alleviating population loss in similar regions around the world.