Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the purchase of insurance and economic growth among agricultural households.

Using survey data of the agricultural sector obtained from China over two years, the authors highlight the effect of job switching between farm and non-farm activities on the demand for insurance by applying the difference-in-differences and triple differences methodologies.

The results show that compared with farm income, non-farm income is associated with an increased (decreased) demand for insurance among households in Eastern (Western) China. The inequality in degree of economic development between the regions plays an important role in this finding. Both education and income exhibit a positive relationship with insurance demand for most regions. In addition, in 2007, regardless of farm or non-farm sector, switches are (except in the northeast region) associated with a significant increase in insurance expenditures. Households who switched from the farm to non-farm sector in 2007 are significantly negatively associated with insurance expenditures in the western region.

Inequalities in the degree of economic development play an important role in insurance consumption.

The authors assess the determinants of insurance market development in the agricultural sector in China, characterized by inter-regional disparities in economic development.

In this study, the authors examined demand-side credit in rural China with the aims of understanding attribute preferences and the willingness of farmers to pay for credit.

The authors implemented an in-the-field discrete choice experiment (DCE) using a D-optimal block (6 × 9 × 3) design applied to 420 farm households across five Chinese provinces (Shandong, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Jiangsu and Henan) in the summer and fall of 2018. The DCE included six attributes including the interest rate, term of loan, type of loan, type of repayment, type of institution and mobile banking services.

Conditional and mixed logit results indicated a downward sloping credit demand curve with variable elasticity across regions. Provincial willingness-to-pay (WTP) indicators suggested that farmers were willing to pay a premium for long-term ( 0.03–0.687%) and low collateral credit loans ( 0.79–2.93%). Also, four of five provinces indicated a preference for loan amortization rather than lump-sum payment. Interestingly, in comparison to the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), only farmers in Shandong, Sichuan and Shaanxi indicated a preference for rural credit cooperatives (RCCs)/banks and the Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC). Another quite surprising result was bank services, in our case, access to mobile banking did not appear to induce WTP for agricultural credit. While conditional and mixed logit regression coefficients were similar (and therefore robust), the authors found that there was substantial heterogeneity across attribute preferences on term of loan, type of loan and amortization. Preferences for type of lender and mobile banking were generally homogenous. This result alone suggested that lenders should consider offering a suite of credit products with different attributes in order to maximize the potential pool of borrowers. While there were some differences across provinces, farmers appeared to be indifferent to lenders, and it did not appear that offering banking services such as mobile banking had any bearing on credit decisions.

This paper presents a first step in using in-the-field choice experiments to better understand rural finance in China. Although the sample size satisfies conventional levels of significance and rank conditions, the authors caution against attributing results to China as a whole. Different provinces have different institutional structures and agricultural growing conditions and economies and these effects may differentially affect WTP for credit. Although by all indications farmers were aware of credit, not all farmers, in fact a minority, actually borrowed from a financial institution. This is not unusual in China, but for these farmers, the DCE was posed as hypothetical. Likewise, the study’s design was based on a generic credit product typical of rural China, and the authors caution against making inferences about other products with different attributes and risk structures.

This study is motivated by the rapidly changing dynamic in China's agricultural economy. With specific reference to new laws and regulations about the transfer of land use rights (LURs), China's agricultural economy is undergoing significant and rapid change which will require better understanding by policy makers, lenders and practitioners of the changing credit needs of farmers, including the new and emerging class of commercial farmers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors believe that the result provided in this paper present the first use of in-the-field DCE and are the first to be reported in either the English or Chinese literature on rural credit product design.

This paper explored factors that impact insurance choices of demand (farmers) and supply (insurance companies) side, respectively.

Specially designed survey questions allow one to fully observe the demand tendency from farmers and partially observe the supply tendency from insurance companies. Using bi‐vairate probit model, a joint estimation of insurance decisions of both supply and demand sides suggested that factors perform different roles in affecting insurance participation.

Farmer's age and education have positive impacts on insurance demand, but are indifference to insurance providers. Insurance suppliers care about farmers' experience in the fields when providing insurance services, however, on the demand side, farmers' experience occasionally results in overconfidence and hence, impedes farmers' insurance purchasing. Production scales, proxy by sow inventory, are put more weight by farmers than insurance suppliers when making decisions. Production efficiency measures perform as incentives for farmers to purchase insurance. While suppliers prefer customers who use vaccine, farmers tend to treat vaccine as a substitute for insurance to prevent disease risk.

Results from bi‐vairate probit model offer deeper understandings about livestock insurance choices and provide further insights to improve policy design and promote participation.

The study designed a special questionnaire and firstly used bi‐vairate probit model to offer more understandings about demand and supply sides of livestock insurance.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the China Agricultural Economic Review (CAER)'s second annual conference, which was organized by the CAER editorial office and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

The conference theme was “Agriculture and the Wealth of Nations”, aiming to explore the importance of agriculture as well as the relationship and interaction between agriculture and the whole economy. The attendees from 14 countries discussed the related issues, and a number of distinguished scholars and policy makers were also invited to present at the conference. This summary presents the topics covered at the conference and highlights discussion points.

Action items were identified which could be appropriately organized into the following sections: agricultural trade and rural labor issues; rural governance and public policy; climate change and food security; rural land and rural finance issues.

The paper illustrates how the academic platform established by the CAER‐IFPRI conference, enables scholars from varied cultures and fields to get together to share their researches and ideas.

The statistical method plays an extremely important role in quantitative research studies in library and information science (LIS). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the status of statistical methods used in the field, their application areas and the temporal change patterns during a recent 15-year period.

The research papers in six major scholarly journals from 1999 to 2013 in LIS were examined. Factors including statistical methods, application areas and time period were analyzed using quantitative research methods including content analysis and temporal analysis methods.

The research studies using statistical methods in LIS have increased steadily. Statistical methods were more frequently used to solve problems in the information retrieval area than in other areas, and inferential statistical methods were used more often than predictive statistical methods and other statistical methods. Anomaly analysis on statistical method uses was conducted and four types of anomaly were specified.

The findings of this study can help educators, graduates and researchers in the field of LIS better understand the patterns and trends of the applications of statistical methods in this field, depict an overall picture of quantitative research studies in LIS from the perspective of statistical methods and discover the change patterns of statistical method applications in LIS between 1999 and 2013.

Previous studies have produced inconsistent findings regarding the effects of resource constraints on corporate illegal behavior. This study aims to explore how entrepreneurial firms can overcome the difficulties generated by resource constraints.

Drawing on insights from general strain theory and focusing on listed entrepreneurial firms, this study proposes that failure to obtain enough resources through listing generates strain in the managers of listed entrepreneurial firms, driving them to resort to corporate financial fraud as a solution. Nevertheless, such relationships between resource constraints and the likelihood of corporate financial fraud can be weakened by innovation capability, because innovation capability can generate more confidence in their managers and relieve their strains, thereby dissuading them from engaging in corporate financial fraud.

According to our empirical results, both financial and human resource constraints are positively related to the likelihood of corporate financial fraud in listed entrepreneurial firms, but such effects can be mitigated by innovation capability.

This study provides practical implications for both regulators and managers by indicating that although entrepreneurial firms with resource constraints are more likely to commit financial fraud, innovation capability could be a strategic approach to enhance managers’ confidence and relieve the strain.

Our study contributes to the literature by enriching our understanding of the consequences of resource constraints in entrepreneurial firms and highlighting the strategic importance of innovation capability in mitigating such effects.

This study aims to address the growing importance of online health information (OHI) and the associated uncertainty. Although previous research has explored factors influencing the credibility of OHI, results have been inconsistent. Therefore, this study aims to identify the essential factors that influence the perceived credibility of OHI by conducting a meta-analysis of articles published from 2010 to 2022. The study also aims to examine the moderating effects of demographic characteristics, study design and the platforms where health information is located.

Based on the Prominence-Interpretation Theory (PIT), a meta-analysis of 25 empirical studies was conducted to explore 12 factors related to information content and source, social interaction, individual and media affordance. Moderators such as age, education level, gender of participants, sample size, platforms and research design were also examined.

Results suggest that all factors, except social support, have significant effects on the credibility of OHI. Among them, argument quality had the strongest correlation with credibility and individual factors were also found to be relevant. Moderating effects indicate that social support was significantly moderated by age and education level. Different sample sizes may lead to variations in the role of social endorsement, while personal involvement was moderated by sample size, platform and study design.

This study enriches the application of PIT in the health domain and provides guidance for scholars to expand the scope of research on factors influencing OHI credibility.

This paper aims to optimize the air pressure regulation scheme of the aeroengine pressure test bench.

Based on the requirements of pressure regulation process and the operating mechanism of aeroengine pressure test bench, a grey performance evaluation index system is constructed. The combination of principal component analysis and grey theory is employed to assign weights to grey indexes. The grey target evaluation model is introduced to evaluate the performance of historical regulation processes, and the evaluation results are analyzed to derive optimization mechanism for pressure regulating schemes.

A case study based on monitoring data from nearly 300 regulation processes verifies the feasibility of the proposed method. On the one hand, the improved principal component analysis method can achieve rational weighting for grey indexes. On the other hand, the method comparison intuitively shows that the proposed method performs better.

The pressure test bench is a fundamental technical equipment in the aviation industry, serving the development and testing of aircraft engines. Due to the complex system composition, the pressure and flow adjustment of the test bench heavily rely on manual experience, leading to issues such as slow adjustment speed and insufficient accuracy. This paper proposes a performance evaluation method for the regulation process of pressure test bench, which can draw knowledge from historical regulation processes, provide guidance for the pressure regulation of test benches, and ultimately achieve the goal of reducing equipment operating costs.