Driving Factors for the Change of Fertilizer Use Intensity in China and Its Six Major Regions

China has invested excessive amounts of fertilizer on limited farmland, which poses a threat to human health and agro-ecological environment. While a plethora of studies have explored how to reduce the total amount of chemical fertilizer, and scant attention has been paid to how to reduce the chemical fertilizer use intensity (FUI). This paper aims to explore the driving factors for the change of FUI to answer this question. It uses the official statistics of China from 1997 to 2017, as well as index decomposition analysis (IDA) and Laspeyres index decomposition method to obtain the following results. The change of fertilizer use intensity can be affected by three factors: input-output ratio of fertilizer (IOR), unit labor output (ULO) and labor input per unit sown area (LIU). At the national level, IOR is the most important factor in reducing the use of chemical fertilizers, while ULO is the most important factor in increasing. The factor of LIU can not only reduce the intensity of fertilizer use, but also increase the intensity.  On a regional level, the fertilizer use intensity in Central-South China is the strongest, while that in the Southwest China is the smallest. Compared with other regions, the factors of ULO in Northwest China and IOR in East China have the greatest impact on fertilizer use intensity. In addition, LIU mainly reduces the intensity of fertilizer use in Northeast China, while this factor in North China is to increase the intensity. Our findings suggest that farmers should not increase labor productivity by investing chemical fertilizer. Improving the efficiency of fertilizer use and transferring rural labor force can reduce the fertilizer use intensity in China.

Decomposition Analysis of Global Water Supply-Demand Balances Focusing on Food Production and Consumption

Food production and consumption require large amounts of freshwater. There is no literature on the decomposition analysis of the intensities of water supply-demand balances (water balance intensities) for each country worldwide. The aim of this study is to evaluate the water balance intensities and elucidate the promoting factors and offset factors of water balance intensities for each country worldwide, focusing on food supply-demand balances and considering food trade balances on a global scale. The modified Laspeyres index method is applied to both a production-based water balance index (WBIPB) and a consumption-based water balance index (WBICB). The major promoting factor for the WBIPB is the renewable freshwater resources, whereas the major offset factor is the produced item preference. The major promoting factor for the WBICB is the consumed item preference, whereas the major offset factor is the producing area preference. Improving irrigation efficiencies of rice and cereals is effective because rice requires the largest blue water footprint intensities, considering irrigation efficiency on a calorie content basis in all of the items, whereas cereals are the largest share of calorie-based production quantities in all of the items worldwide. This study provides the foundation for decreasing water balance intensities regarding food production and consumption.

Proposition of a hybrid price index formula for the Consumer Price Index measurement

Research background: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a basic, commonly accepted and used measure of inflation. The index is a proxy for changes in the costs of household consumption and it assumes constant consumer utility. In practice, most statistical agencies use the Laspeyres price index to measure the CPI. The Laspeyres index does not take into account movements in the structure of consumption which may be consumers' response to price changes during a given time interval. As a consequence, the Laspeyres index can suffer from commodity substitution bias. The Fisher index is perceived as the best proxy for the COLI but it needs data on consumption from both the base and research period. As a consequence, there is a practical need to look for a proxy of the Fisher price index which does not use current expenditure shares as weights. Purpose of the article: The general purpose of the article is to present a hybrid price index, the idea of which is based on the Young and Lowe indices. The particular aim of the paper is to discuss the usefulness of its special case with weights based on correlations between prices and quantities. Methods: A theoretical background for the hybrid price index (and its geometric version) is constructed with the Lowe and Young price indices used as a starting point. In the empirical study, scanner data on milk, sugar, coffee and rice are utilized to show that the hybrid index can be a good proxy for the Fisher index, although it does not use the expenditures from the research period. Findings & Value added: The empirical and theoretical considerations con-firm the hybrid nature of the proposed index, i.e. in a special case it forms the convex combination of the Young and Lowe indices. This study points out the usefulness of the proposed price index in the CPI measurement, especially when the target index is the Fisher formula. The proposed general hybrid price index formula is a new one in the price index theory. The proposed system of weights, which is based on the correlations between prices and quantities, is a novel idea in the price index methodology.

The Decomposition Analysis of Carbon Emissions: Theoretical Basis, Methods and Their Evaluations

As an analytical framework for studying the characteristics of changes in things and their action mechanisms, the decomposition analysis of greenhouse gas emissions has been increasingly used in environmental economics research. The author introduces several decomposition methods commonly used at present and compares them. The index decomposition analysis (IDA) of carbon emissions usually uses energy identities to express carbon emissions as the product of several factor indexes, and decomposes them according to different weight-determining methods to clarify the incremental share of each index, in which way it is possible to decompose the models that contain less factors, process time series data, and conduct cross-country comparisons. It mainly includes the Laspeyres index decomposition and the Divisia index decomposition. Among them, the LMDI I method has been widely used for its advantages such as generating no residuals and easy to use. The structural decomposition analysis (SDA) can be used to conduct a more systematic analysis, decompose models with more influencing factors, and analyze the impacts of various factors on emissions, but this method has higher requirements for data collection. The biggest difference between the SDA method and the IDA methods of carbon emissions is that the former is based on an input–output system, while the latter only needs to use sectors’ aggregate data.

MOLDOVAN EXTERNAL TRADE WITH EU, CIS AND OTHER COUNTRIES: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES

The foreign trade of a state represents a determinant in assessing its economic statute among the neighbours and in the whole world. Actuality of the studied topic is determined by the changing trade relations that the Republic of Moldova is passing through in the last years. Republic of Moldova holds the necessary criteria for becoming a competitive country in the region in terms of the manufactured and marketed goods. The aim of the study is to evaluate the foreign trade of the Republic of Moldova, by emphasizing the main traded groups of products, trade partners as well as to analyze the average price index and physical volume index of imports and exports. The paper also comes with an analysis of re-export and re-import, which represent a peculiarity for our country’s trade pattern. Research methods that have been used within the paper are the following: analogy, systemic approach, statistical and scientific analysis, Laspeyres index method. The obtained results focus on the recovery of the foreign trade between 2015 and 2017 with higher revival rates of exports, and a growing reorientation of exports towards the European Union and other countries markets.

Extending the Stochastic Approach to Paasches Price Index Numbers

<span>In recent times, the stochastic approach has received enormous attention to estimate the rate of<span> inflation. The attraction of this approach is to provide not only the estimate of inflation rate, but<span> also its standard error. In this paper, we extend the stochastic approach to derive the Paasches<span> price index number and its standard error. We present an illustration to Laspeyres index number<span> using consumer price data of Pakistan covering the period from July 2002 to June 2011<br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></span></span></span></span>