Grain in Fujian: Intra-provincial Patterns of Production and Trade, 1952–1988

1992 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 184-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Lyons

Over the past 20 years, studies of grain production and use in China have figured prominently in debates concerning economic efficiency, income disparities and the contours of the Maoist development strategy. Virtually all analysts now agree that grain production in China exhibited a strong tendency toward provincial self-sufficiency and that the inter-provincial grain trade declined during the Maoist era (from the 1950s to 1978), that provincial self-sufficiency obstructed efficient allocation of agricultural resources and contributed to the persistence of poverty, and that the tendency toward selfsufficiency is attributable partly to a policy of “grain first,” which promoted concentration upon grain production in every province regardless of comparative advantage. Recent studies point to significant changes in the pattern of grain production and trade since 1978 and trace these changes to relaxation of “grain first” and introduction of institutional reforms affecting the grain sector.

Dragonomics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 191-228
Author(s):  
Carol Wise

This chapter analyses Mexico’s deteriorating economic relationship with China, tracing its reform trajectory from the adoption of NAFTA in the 1990s, to China’s WTO entrance, and to the ways China’s rise is exacerbating tensions between Mexico and the US today. The author argues that Mexico failed to implement public policies and institutional reforms to bolster companies and position them to perform successfully under NAFTA. Instead, elite policymakers chose to rely on a neoliberal hands-off industrial development strategy, effectively kicking away the ladder of state guidance for industrial promotion, reducing such tools as public credit, tax breaks, trade tariffs, and so on. This led to Mexico’s incorporation into China’s internationalized development strategy as an importer of Chinese goods, which has left it with a massive trade deficit with China over the past twenty-five years.


Technology united with research and development has evolved as a grave differentiator of the agriculture sector in India including production, processing, and agriculture packing and marketing of given crops. Near about 50 percent of the Indian workforce was engaged in the agriculture sector but its share in GDP was only 14 percent, much lower in comparison to former. Though, certain agriculture items showed a steady annual increase in terms of kilograms per hectare. Agriculture transformed significantly over the past few decades but when it comes to investment in research and development there is a lot more which needs to be done. The paper analyzes the role of various research and development institutions in boosting the growth of the agriculture sector that helps in attaining sustainable agriculture development and self-sufficiency in the production process since independence. It also focusesed on the various issues faced by these development institutions. The findings unveiled that since independence a lot more was done to boost the research and development in the agriculture sector at both the center and state levels but a proper implementation of these policies along with transparency could bring more desirable outcomes than were gained at present.


Author(s):  
Richard Adelstein

This chapter elaborates the operation of criminal liability by closely considering efficient crimes and the law’s stance toward them, shows how its commitment to proportional punishment prevents the probability scaling that systemically efficient allocation requires, and discusses the procedures that determine the actual liability prices imposed on offenders. Efficient crimes are effectively encouraged by proportional punishment, and their nature and implications are examined. But proportional punishment precludes probability scaling, and induces far more than the systemically efficient number of crimes. Liability prices that match the specific costs imposed by the offender at bar are sought through a two-stage procedure of legislative determination of punishment ranges ex ante and judicial determination of exact prices ex post, which creates a dilemma: whether to price crimes accurately in the past or deter them accurately in the future. An illustrative Supreme Court case bringing all these themes together is discussed in conclusion.


Author(s):  
Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt ◽  
Fred Mawunyo Dzanku ◽  
Aida Cuthbert Isinika

Smallholder-friendly messages, albeit not always translated into action, returned strongly to the development agenda over a decade ago. Smallholders’ livelihoods encompass social and economic realities outside agriculture, however, providing opportunities as well as challenges for the smallholder model. While smallholders continue to straddle the farm and non-farm sectors, the notion of leaving agriculture altogether appears hyperbolic, given the persistently high share of income generated from agriculture noted in the Afrint dataset. Trends over the past fifteen years can be broadly described as increasing dynamism accompanied by rising polarization. Positive trends include increased farm sizes, rising grain production, crop diversification, and increased commercialization, while negative trends include stagnation of yields, persistent yield gaps, gendered landholding inequalities, gendered agricultural asset inequalities, growing gendered commercialization inequalities, and an emerging gender gap in cash income. Regional nuances in trends reinforce the need for spatial contextualization of linkages between the farm and non-farm sectors.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 614
Author(s):  
Ayan Orazov ◽  
Liudmila Nadtochii ◽  
Kazybay Bozymov ◽  
Mariam Muradova ◽  
Araigul Zhumayeva

This paper examines the problem of food security in the Republic of Kazakhstan over the past 10 years. Based on statistical data, an assessment was made of the prevalence of malnutrition among the population of the country, including children under 5 years of age. There has been a trend towards for an improvement in the nutrition of the population for a few indicators; however, further optimization of food security indicators is required to achieve the goals of sustainable development (SDGs) of the FAO WHO Agenda for the period up to 2050 in Kazakhstan and in its individual regions. The paper reflects data on demographic changes over the past 10 years and its self-sufficiency in basic foods for 2019. A high degree of self-sufficiency in meat products (117.6%) is revealed in the population of the Republic of Kazakhstan. However, self-sufficiency in dairy products is at an extremely low level (0.1%). Camel breeding has been successfully developing in the country over the past 10 years. However, the number of camels in the country is still at a low level. Camel milk can be considered as a great source of macronutrients, its daily consumption partially facilitates the problem of Food Security in Kazakhstan.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Tadesse Melaku

Ethiopia has undertaken important political reforms after the fall of authoritarianism in 2018. This article examines the performance of Ethiopia’s constitutional review mechanism amid the ongoing political and institutional reforms in the country. The study focuses on the process and merit of the constitutional ruling to delay the 2020 national and regional elections because of the coronavirus pandemic, thereby extending the government’s tenure. It further unravels the challenges posed by nondemocratic institutions of the past regime in navigating the transition. In doing so, this study draws on legal, documentary and case analysis, and a literature review. While the mandate extension comes as no surprise, the reasoning of the decision to do so was disappointing for many, dashing the hope and sense of a constitutional moment that accompanied the highly publicised constitutional hearing process in June 2020. The judgment reveals an endemic deficiency of the institutional system. Thus, it is imperative for Ethiopia to establish an independent constitutional umpire to check and control the exercise of government power and support the transition to multiparty democratic governance in the country.


1981 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bratton

Events in independent Zimbabwe have confounded pundits on the left and the right who assumed that African resistance to settler colonial rule was more revolutionary than nationalistic. How can the rather unexpected direction of political and economic change in Zimbabwe since April 1980 be understood? The Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) Government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe has committed itself to redress the severe social inequities of the past, but has decided, at least at the outset, to reach its goals through a prudent rather than a doctrinaire approach. What factors explain the current development strategy? Does the apparent accommodation of Z.A.N.U. (P.F.) with private capital signal a dangerous divergence from the stated goal of building socialism? Or does it represent an awakening to the idea that economic production, even if organised on capitalist lines, is a prerequisite of development in Africa?


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (32) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Arlinda Ymeraj

The paper “Government as a key duty bearer in transition reforms from socialism to capitalism – the case of Albania”, addresses the way in which the government should exercise its power to ensure that citizens have equal access to social welfare services, enjoying their rights. Albania, like other Central and Eastern European countries experienced the past socialist system, which failed. The failure of the socialist system was the failure of the state: in political, economic and social terms. As far as economic policies are concerned, all data demonstrate the collapse of socialism, because the system was based on inefficiency, which eroded growth. Regardless of the principles of communist regimes adopted in former communist countries’ Constitutions, the past system brought neither equity nor justice, and therefore instead of “social cohesion”, the contradictions among social groups and categories, deepened. After the failure of socialism, Albania embarked on the new path aimed at establishing democratic regimes through the protection of human rights and at raising the standard of living. Albania has been proactive in ratifying international conventions relating to human rights in general and to vulnerable groups. Very recently, on June 2014, the European Council granted Albania candidate status, as a recognition for the reform steps undertaken in harmonizing its domestic organic laws and legislation with international standards. As part of these twin obligations from UN intergovernmental and EU processes, Albanian governments after the 90s have been progressively taking measures vis-à-vis efficient allocation of resources and effective distribution of social welfare. Nevertheless, Albanian citizens live in a dire reality. Therefore, after 25 years of transition, one of the main goals of reforms, “Efficient allocation of resources to boost growth and effective distribution of social welfare to enhance equity”, seems not to have been achieved. Undoubtedly, this influences the controversial opinions about the government’s control vis-à-vis government’s mode of functioning, advancing arguments that examine whether it is a question of abuse or that of concentration of power.


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