The determinants of Government environmental performance - an empirical analysis of Chinese townships

This paper explores the determinants of government environmental performance at the local level. Chinese township governments, the lowest level in the hierarchical government structure, were selected for this exercise. The performance indicators used in the analyses include the efforts of enforcing government environmental regulations and of providing environmental services to polluting enterprises. The performance determinants identified include environmental performance of upper-level governments, local development status, industrial employment, income of workers in polluting enterprises, local environmental quality, and public pressure for environmental quality improvement. A survey of 85 townships and interviews of 151 township government leaders were conducted in three provinces of China. The statistical results show that: a) The environmental performance of upper-level governments in China strongly and positively influences the environmental efforts of the township governments. b) Public pressure has created incentives for the township governments to improve their efforts in both enforcing environmental regulations and providing environmental services, while the environmental quality did not show significant impacts. c) Higher employment in industries tends to have a negative influence on the regulatory enforcement, but a positive influence on environmental service provision. d) A higher enforcement effort and a lower service provision are associated with higher wages the workers received from industries. This implies that the industries offering higher wages to the workers are subject to more stringent environmental enforcement but receive less environmental services. 5) Richer townships tend to have less regulatory enforcement but better environmental services.Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,National Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Environmental Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management

Citizen-centric Governance Indicators: Measuring and Monitoring Governance by Listening to the People

Governance-Ansatz; Sozialer Indikator; Gesellschaft; Welt

A practitioner's guide to intergovernmental fiscal transfers

Intergovernmental fiscal transfers are a dominant feature of subnational finance in most countries. They are used to ensure that revenues roughly match the expenditure needs of various orders (levels) of subnational governments. They are also used to advance national, regional, and local area objectives, such as fairness and equity, and creating a common economic union. The structure of these transfers creates incentives for national, regional, and local governments that have a bearing on fiscal management, macroeconomic stability, distributional equity, allocative efficiency, and public services delivery. This paper reviews the conceptual, empirical, and practice literature to distill lessons of policy interest in designing the fiscal transfers to create the right incentives for prudent fiscal management and competitive and innovative service delivery. It provides practical guidance on the design of performance-oriented transfers that emphasize bottom-up, client-focused, and results-based government accountability. It cites examples of simple but innovative grant designs that can satisfy grantors'objectives while preserving local autonomy and creating an enabling environment for responsive, responsible, equitable, and accountable public governance. The paper further provides guidance on the design and practice of equalizationtransfers for regional fiscal equity as well as the institutional arrangements for implementation of such transfer mechanisms. It concludes with negative (practices to avoid) and positive (practices to emulate) lessons from international practices.Public Sector Economics&Finance,Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Finance Management,Public Sector Management and Reform,Public&Municipal Finance,Urban Economics

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Influencing factors of resident satisfaction in smart community services： An empirical study in Chengdu

Smart communities have shown great advantages in China\u27s pandemic control, but also exposed the shortcomings that some smart community services (SCS) are out of touch with residents\u27 needs in the post-pandemic era. Therefore, This study aims to explore those SCSs were needed to promote the sustainable development of smart communities. Based on the expectation disconfirmation theory and the modified ASCI model, this study establishes a smart community service resident satisfaction model and analyzes it with Amos structural equation model. The study results are as follows: (1) SCS outcome, ICT infrastructure, and SCS delivery all have a positive influence on resident satisfaction and their performances decrease in turn. (2) some of the factors that drive resident satisfaction most, such as Smart Property Service and Public Facility, have a lower rating. (3) residents are more concerned about the cost (including financial and emotional costs) than the quality of the SCSs. (4) Most residents\u27 expectations of SCS are irrational and that’s why it does not have a significant impact on satisfaction. (5) Resident Satisfaction is an important factor in enhancing Resident Confidence in SCS and promoting Resident Participation in improving SCS. This enlightens us that improving resident satisfaction is one of the effective ways to promote the sustainable development of Smart Community and continuously enhance the emergency response capabilities of grassroots communities in the post-pandemic era

implications on promoting and regulatory policies

Thesis(Master) -- KDI School: Master of Public Policy, 2022Demand for environmentally friendly vehicle has been rapidly increased due to paradigm transition of automobile industry and policies that foster the adoption of environmentally friendly vehicle to meet the goal of carbon neutrality. Among environmentally friendly vehicles, electric vehicle is the one that customers can easily access and experience based on demand across the countries. Therefore, how consumers perceive and understand characteristics of electric vehicles might be the key aspects to increase adoption rate. Based on the consideration, this study investigates factors that affect attitude, satisfaction, and intention to use of electric vehicle. By classifying actual and potential consumers, this study develops research questions i) how factors such as economic feasibility, sociality, environmental sustainability, inefficiency, inconvenience, convenience, and uncertainty affect attitude; ii) how attitude affects actual consumers satisfaction for actual consumers; and iii) how attitude affects intention to use for potential consumers. This study conducted online survey and applied factor and regression analyses, ANOVA, and t-test to test hypotheses. The results of this study found that economic feasibility and convenience factors significantly affect attitude based on both actual and potential consumers, while effects of inefficiency and uncertainty on attitude showed significant based on actual consumers. This study provides policy implications that foster promotional policies for the adoption of electric vehicles to meet carbon neutrality and regulate negative aspects. This study also provides managerial implications for manufacturers to develop better technology competences such as battery related to enhance reliability on electric vehicles.I. Introduction II. Literature Review III. Hypotheses Development IV. Methodology V. ConclusionmasterpublishedHyeongdae MU

Sentiment, Expectations and Real Estate Prices —Evidence from China

From the perspective of behavioral finance, this thesis utilizes the real estate data since China's market-oriented reform to investigate the influence of sentimental variables and expectations on real estate prices. As the first topic of the research, Chapter 2 of this thesis takes China’s state level Consumer Expectation Index as proxy variable of consumers’ aggregated sentiment, and adopts the method of time series to empirically research on the relationship between the sentiment and China’s real estate prices. The research result indicates that there is long-term cointegrating relationship between the consumers’ aggregated sentiment and real estate prices, and the influence of the sentiment on real estate prices is stronger than the fundamental indicators in the traditional analytical framework such as M2, GDP, etc. For the purpose of further distinguishing the influence of psychological factors on real estate prices, and investigating data at a more detailed level, Chapter 3 of the thesis adopts panel data model to research the influence of sentiment of the market opinion leaders (entrepreneurs) on house prices of different provinces. The estimation result of the overall panel data indicates that the sentiment of entrepreneurs significantly affects house prices. Then, the country is divided into three areas: eastern, central and western areas, of which the estimation results indicate that the degree of the sentimental influence on house prices is positively correlated with the degree of market maturity. The maturer the market is, the more likely it is to be affected by the psychological factors. The conclusion of endogenous test shows that the sentiment of entrepreneurs is independent of other economic fundamentals and directly affects the prices of housing property. Chapter 4 of the thesis examines the influence of the promotion expectations of Chinese local officials (governors) on house prices from the perspective of public administration. China adopts a unique promotion system of local officials similar to yardstick competition, which has had a broad and profound influence on China's real estate market. This chapter first illustrates the theoretical mechanism that triggers China’s land finance. And on this basis, it carries an empirical study on the influence of promotion expectations of local officials on land prices and then the house prices. The test results indicate that the promotion expectations of China’s local officials have long-term and profound influence on house prices, which help us to better understand the unique mechanism of China's sustained rapid development. The public administrative policies outlined in Chapter 4 have important reference to other developing countries