Dan Pan, Yingheng Zhou and Liguo Zhang
This paper examines the impact of livestock environment regulations (LERs) on the location dynamics of the livestock farming industry. Specifically, it tests whether a “pollution…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the impact of livestock environment regulations (LERs) on the location dynamics of the livestock farming industry. Specifically, it tests whether a “pollution haven effect” (PHE) exists in the Chinese livestock industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors manually collected LERs data based on the frequency of livestock-related vocabulary in government work reports from 279 prefecture-level cities from 2010 to 2017. Using China's implementation of LERs since 2014 as a natural experiment, the authors employed difference-in-difference (DID) to avoid the endogeneity problem.
Findings
LERs have led to a decline in livestock production in regulated areas. Moreover, compared with areas with more stringent LERs – southern China and developed areas, areas where LERs are less stringent – northern China and undeveloped areas, attract more livestock industry. As a result, people in northern China and undeveloped areas are exposed to higher livestock pollution.
Originality/value
First, most empirical studies on PHE focus on industrial firms. PHE in the livestock industry has received limited attention. This paper aims to fill this gap. Second, this paper regards LERs as an endogenous process and uses the DID method to generate unbiased results. Third, this paper introduces a novel measurement of LERs based on the frequency of livestock-related vocabulary in government work reports from each prefecture city. Fourth, this paper uses prefecture-level data to analyze the PHE of LERs, and thus obtains more reliable results.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to analyze the factors that influence urban consumers' attitudes towards food safety after the melamine scandal.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the factors that influence urban consumers' attitudes towards food safety after the melamine scandal.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the research about the attitudes of urban consumers in Nanjing towards the safety of milk powder after the melamine scandal in 2008, this paper adopts the ordered logit model to test which factors significantly influence consumers' attitudes.
Findings
The findings suggest that: first, there is a common concern among consumers about the safety of milk powder after the melamine scandal; second, according to the research, the concern is in inverse relation to the level of educational attainment, consumers' awareness of food safety incidents and their opinion of governments' action after the incident. Moreover, those who always have a concern about the safety of the alternatives to milk powder are more easily affected.
Originality/value
Different from other researches, the paper focuses on consumers' attitudes towards food safety by studying a specific case, namely the melamine scandal.
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Keywords
Fujin Yi, Wuyi Lu and Yingheng Zhou
The purpose of this paper is to examine the multiplier effects of the grain subsidy program in China, which is a large food self-sufficiency project that is implemented as a cash…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the multiplier effects of the grain subsidy program in China, which is a large food self-sufficiency project that is implemented as a cash transfer program. Income multiplier effects have not been empirically examined in the evaluation of the grain subsidy program although increasing the income of farmers is the original goal of this project.
Design/methodology/approach
A large number of household-level observations are employed to measure the program’s income multiplier. An unrestricted model was first employed to measure the multipliers in a period of two years, and the difference was evaluated. Then, the income promotion effects of grain subsidy on various income sources for each specific subset of the population, such as liquidity conditions and household characteristics, were estimated.
Findings
The results show that the grain subsidy program has a high income multiplier, and the income promotion effect of the transferred subsidies is from agricultural production derived by intensifying input for each unit of land. The multiplier effect of the grain subsidy program as a cash transfer program can be interpreted as the shadow value of relaxing liquidity constraints and could be particularly utilized by households with more farming land and farmers in less developed regions in China. Hence, to maximize the income multiplier effect, the grain subsidy distribution method should consider these criteria instead of retaining the prevalent standard that is based on contracted land areas.
Originality/value
This study addresses the gap that the effect of China’s grain subsidy program on income increment has not been empirically examined in nation wide.