Institutional credibility and informal institutions: The case of extralegal land development in China

Cities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 102519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huirong Chen
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 4123
Author(s):  
Yang ◽  
Liu ◽  
Wang

In China, large-scale urban village transformation has profoundly influenced the residential sustainability and interests of indigenous villagers. Local governments have widely adopted a demolition/relocation market-oriented model (D/RMM) for transformation of most of the urban villages (UVs) in China. During the D/RMM process, the interests of indigenous villagers have generally suffered to a certain extent. Originally, the new rural construction model (NRCM) was only used to improve rural development and sustainability. However, it has now occasionally been applied in the UV transformation process to safeguard and guarantee the interests of the village collective and villagers. Given the considerable difference between the two transformation models, we explored the sustainability and impact mechanisms of residential landscapes in terms of housing condition sustainability, community environment sustainability, and livelihood sustainability, through the cases of Beimiantan New Village (BNV) with NRCM and Xiaoyantan Village (XV) with D/RMM in Lanzhou, Gansu, China. The research findings reveal the differences in institutional design and social influence, and changes in the redistribution of benefits between the two transformation models. Overall, the residential sustainability of NRCM is higher than the D/RMM’s. Meanwhile, the influence factors in the residential sustainability of the two transformation models can mostly be attributed to three aspects: (1) Land development rights allocation models and earning redistribution fundamentally affect villagers’ housing condition sustainability; (2) The collective economy and the informal economy are the potential drivers of sustainable village community transformation; (3) Informal institutions and village social networks protect and continue the social capitals in village. Specifically, the NRCM in BNV has the following advantages in improving residential sustainability: (1) Collective land assets can be further activated; (2) Villagers’ vested interests are largely safeguarded; (3) The main role of social low-rent housing and informal employment places in the original village is optimized to a larger extent; (4) The original villagers’ social networks remain stable and intact. In summary, villagers’ rights are maintained and enhanced via informal institutions, informal economies, and original social relationship networks are completely preserved through NRCM in BNV, as much as possible. Therefore, NRCM can maximize the villagers’ interests, that may be conducive to residential sustainability in the transformation of China’s urban villages.


2015 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
A. Zaostrovtsev

The review considers the first attempt in the history of Russian economic thought to give a detailed analysis of informal institutions (IF). It recognizes that in general it was successful: the reader gets acquainted with the original classification of institutions (including informal ones) and their genesis. According to the reviewer the best achievement of the author is his interdisciplinary approach to the study of problems and, moreover, his bias on the achievements of social psychology because the model of human behavior in the economic mainstream is rather primitive. The book makes evident that namely this model limits the ability of economists to analyze IF. The reviewer also shares the author’s position that in the analysis of the IF genesis the economists should highlight the uncertainty and reject economic determinism. Further discussion of IF is hardly possible without referring to this book.


Author(s):  
Ivan V. Rozmainsky ◽  
Yulia I. Pashentseva

The paper is devoted to the economic analysis of rationality in the tradition of Harvey Leibenstein: the authors perceive rationality as “calculatedness” when making decisions, while the degree of this “calculatedness” is interpreted as a variable. Thus, this approach does not correspond to the generally accepted neoclassical interpretation of rationality, according to which rationality is both full and constant. The authors believe that such a neoclassical approach makes too stringent requirements for the abilities of people. In real life, people do not behave like calculating machines. The paper discusses various factors limiting the degree of rationality of individuals. One group of factors is associated with external information constraints such as the complexity and extensiveness of information, as well as the uncertainty of the future. Another group of factors is related to informal institutions. In particular, the paper states that the system of planned socialism contributes to less rationality than the system of market capitalism. Thus, in the post-socialist countries, including contemporary Russia, one should not expect a high degree of rationality of the behavior of economic entities. The paper mentions, in particular, the factors of rationality caused by informal institutions, such as the propensity to calculate, the propensity to be independent when making decisions and the propensity to set goals. The authors also believe that people who live on their own are usually more rational than people who share a common household with someone else. This assumption is verified econometrically based on data on young urban residents collected by the authors. It turned out that the behavior of people included in this database, in general, corresponds to what the authors believed.


Author(s):  
S.M. Thomas ◽  
M.H.Beare C.D. Ford ◽  
V. Rietveld

Humping/hollowing and flipping are land development practices widely used on the West Coast to overcome waterlogging constraints to pasture production. However, there is very limited information about how the resulting "new" soils function and how their properties change over time following these extreme modifications. We hypothesised that soil quality will improve in response to organic matter inputs from plants and excreta, which will in turn increase nutrient availability. We tested this hypothesis by quantifying the soil organic matter and nutrient content of soils at different stages of development after modification. We observed improvements in soil quality with increasing time following soil modification under both land development practices. Total soil C and N values were very low following flipping, but over 8 years these values had increased nearly five-fold. Other indicators of organic matter quality such as hot water extractable C (HWC) and anaerobically mineralisable N (AMN) showed similar increases. With large capital applications of superphosphate fertiliser to flipped soils in the first year and regular applications of maintenance fertiliser, Olsen P levels also increased from values


Author(s):  
D.B. Wright

The physical features, climate and soils of the West Coast are described. Expansion since 1964 of dairy production, sheep and beef cattle numbers, and areas of improved grassland are highlighted, as is the role of the Crown in land development and settlement. While isolation and distance, development costs, river problems, and farmer attitude and knowledge are considered limitations, great scope exists for increased production by the adoption, of more intensive techniques, including horticulture on the best coastal soils, and by development of waste land.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Pukowiec

Abstract The activities in name of tourist development in Wodzislaw poviat are the reason to evaluate the tourist land development. The evaluation was prepared on the basis of selected indexes characterizing the level of tourist infrastructure development. It considered: the number of lodgings per km2, the number of restaurants per km2, the amount of additional attractions per km2 and the density of tourist tracks. This database was analyzed by the use of GIS tools. Using GIS software allowed working with large databases and provided the possibility to create a graphic representation of the results. The level of tourist land development is diversified and depends on it function. The cities with the best developed tourist infrastructure are Wodzislaw Slaski, Radlin, Pszow, Rydultowy and town in Odra Valley: Olza, Bukow and Nieboczowy. Pszow, Gorzyce and Godow commons have the biggest density of tourist tracks.


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