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

Equalitarian Societies are Economically Impossible

The inequality of wealth distribution is a universal phenomenon in the civilized nations, and it is often imputed to the Matthew effect, that is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Some philosophers unjustified this phenomenon and tried to put the human civilization upon the evenness of wealth. Noticing the facts that 1) the emergence of the centralism is the starting point of human civilization, i.e., people in a society were organized hierarchically, 2) the inequality of wealth emerges simultaneously, this paper proposes a wealth distribution model based on the hidden tree structure from the viewpoint of complex network. This model considers the organized structure of people in a society as a hidden tree, and the cooperations among human beings as the transactions on the hidden tree, thereby explains the distribution of wealth. This model shows that the scale-free phenomenon of wealth distribution can be produced by the cascade controlling of human society, that is, the inequality of wealth can parasitize in the social organizations, such that any actions in eliminating the unequal wealth distribution would lead to the destroy of social or economic structures, resulting in the collapse of the economic system, therefore, would fail in vain

Real-Variable Theory for New Herz-Type Hardy Spaces Associated with Ball Quasi-Banach Function Spaces

Let $X$ be a ball quasi-Banach function space, $\alpha\in \mathbb{R}$ and $q\in(0,\infty)$. In this paper, the authors first introduce the new Herz-type Hardy spaces $\mathcal{H\dot{K}}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ and $\mathcal{HK}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ associated with ball quasi-Banach function space $X$, via the non-tangential grand maximal function. Then, under some mild assumptions on $X$, the authors establish the real-variable theory for $\mathcal{H\dot{K}}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ and $\mathcal{HK}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$, in terms of maximal function characterizations, atomic and molecular decompositions, and obtain the boundedness of some sublinear operators from $\mathcal{H\dot{K}}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ to $\mathcal{\dot{K}}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ and from $\mathcal{HK}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$ to $\mathcal{K}_{X}^{\alpha,\,q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)$. As appliccations, we give two concrete function spaces which are members of Herz-type Hardy spaces associated with ball quasi-Banach function spaces.Comment: 37 pages, submitte

Measurement of Mercury in Flue Gas Based on an Aluminum Matrix Sorbent

The measurement of total mercury in flue gas based on an economical aluminum matrix sorbent was developed in this paper. A sorbent trap consisted of three tubes was employed to capture Hg from flue gas. Hg trapped on sorbent was transferred into solution by acid leaching and then detected by CVAAS. Hg adsorbed on sorbent was recovered completely by leaching process. The 87.7% recovery of Hg in flue gas by tube 1 and tube 2 was obtained on the equipment of coal combustion and sampling in lab. In order to evaluate the ability to recover and accurately quantify Hg0 on the sorbent media, the analytical bias test on tube 3 spiked with Hg0 was also performed and got the average recovery of 97.1%. Mercury measurements based on this method were conducted for three coal-fired power plants in China. The mercury in coal is distributed into bottom ash, electrostatic precipitator (ESP) ash, wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD) reactant, and flue gas, and the relative distribution varied depending on factors such as the coal type and the operation conditions of plants. The mercury mass balances of three plants were also calculated which were 91.6%, 77.1%, and 118%, respectively. The reliability of this method was verified by the Ontario Hydro (OH) method either in lab or in field

An Empirical Study of Evaluation Index System and Measure Method on City’s Soft Power: 17 Cities in Shandong Province

Based on the research of city’s soft power at home and abroad, the current study was intended to build an evaluation index system and analyzed the city’s soft power of 17cities in Shandong Province in 2010. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted. Frequency statistical method was used to build the evaluation index system of city’s soft power, and AHP and CRITIC methods were used to determine index weight. By using the evaluation system, data from Shandong 2010 statistic yearbook and SPSS18.0, the researchers analyzed the soft power of 17 cities in Shandong province, and finally constructed a measure model for city’s soft power. Results indicated that this model is practically viable and consistent with the real situation of the soft power of 17cities in Shandong Province. It is the researchers hope that this measure model would provide reference for government’s decision-making in the development of promoting urbanization

Operator-Valued Hardy spaces and BMO Spaces on Spaces of Homogeneous Type

Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a von Neumann algebra equipped with a normal semifinite faithful trace, $(\mathbb{X},\,d,\,\mu)$ be a space of homogeneous type in the sense of Coifman and Weiss, and $\mathcal{N}=L_\infty(\mathbb{X})\overline{\otimes}\mathcal{M}$. In this paper, we introduce and then conduct a systematic study on the operator-valued Hardy space $\mathcal{H}_p(\mathbb{X},\,\mathcal{M})$ for all $1\leq p<\infty$ and operator-valued BMO space $\mathcal{BMO}(\mathbb{X},\,\mathcal{M})$. The main results of this paper include $H_1$--$BMO$ duality theorem, atomic decomposition of $\mathcal{H}_1(\mathbb{X},\,\mathcal{M})$, interpolation between these Hardy spaces and BMO spaces, and equivalence between mixture Hardy spaces and $L_p$-spaces. %Compared with the communcative results, the novelty of this article is that $\mu$ is not assumed to satisfy the reverse double condition. %The approaches we develop bypass the use of harmonicity of infinitesimal generator, which allows us to extend Mei's seminal work \cite{m07} to a broader setting. %Our results extend Mei's seminal work \cite{m07} to a broader setting. In particular, without the use of non-commutative martingale theory as in Mei's seminal work \cite{m07}, we provide a direct proof for the interpolation theory. Moreover, under our assumption on Calder\'{o}n representation formula, these results are even new when going back to the commutative setting for spaces of homogeneous type which fails to satisfy reverse doubling condition. As an application, we obtain the $L_p(\mathcal{N})$-boundedness of operator-valued Calder\'{o}n-Zygmund operators.Comment: 48page

Antecendents and Consequences of Modularization in BPO - Based on Transaction Cost Theory and Knowledge-based Theory

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is expected to be “the next big wave” in the development of information technology services. However, managing the tacit knowledge underlying the interfaces is costly and complicated. Modularization of the outsourced business process can mitigate such complexity and the risk of knowledge misappropriation. This research-in-progress paper introduces the concept of modularization of outsourced business process (MOBP), which is viewed as the operational concept of “modular global sourcing” proposed by Infosys, a leading Indian outsourcing provider. Standing the position of the client firm, we examine the antecedents and consequents of MOBP based on transaction cost economics theory and knowledge-based theory. We explore the impacts of process human asset specificity, environmental uncertainty, behavioral uncertainty, small-number trading, strategic criticality of process knowledge, and process knowledge ambiguity on the extent of MOBP and also the impacts of MOBP on cost reduction and knowledge spillover. This paper also describes the research plan to test the research hypotheses. Contributions to research and practice are highlighted