The establishment of natural resource asset reserve institution is the core grip to realize the unified planning, storage, supply, development and protection of natural resource assets, which is the important creation of the natural resource management institution with Chinese characteristics. Based on Marxist reserve theory, the logic and practical path of natural resource asset reserve institution are explored from the perspective of capital circulation. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The reserve of natural resource assets occurs during the 'stagnant' phase of different capital forms replacement, and it is a key intermediary for promoting the capitalization of natural resources. Its core connotations include public goods characteristics, government leadership, and value appreciation. (2) The reserve institution covers three basic steps of reserving, managing, and supplying, the core logic of which lies in achieving sustainable accumulation and circulation of capital, with clear property rights, holistic governance, and value realization as the main tasks. (3) The establishment of natural resource asset reserve institution has five key steps in practice, including planning-led approach, centralized storage, systematic governance, efficient allocation, and coordinated funding. In the future, the institution should be gradually advanced through pilot programs to further enhance its framework.
State-owned natural resource assets are important national wealth and have a profound impact on socio-economic development, ecological civilization construction, protection of people's rights and interests, and realization of political advantages. It is of great practical significance and value to systematically grasp the theoretical logic of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the practical logic of natural resources, and to analyze and clarify the overall logic of the reform of China's state-owned natural resource asset management system. Guided by Xi Jinping's thought of ecological civilization and practice of the concept of "two mountains", the paper analyzes and proposes the functional positioning and target requirements of state-owned natural resource asset management, and expounds the characteristic facts and challenges of management system reform based on the institutional efficiency support of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, the institutional construction requirements of ecological civilization construction and the basic attributes of state-owned natural resource assets. Focusing on the core issues such as management objectives, departmental responsibilities, revenue models, and supervision methods, and on the basis of comparing and learning from the experience of two different types of countries, the paper proposes to clarify the boundary of authority and responsibility of government departments under the commission-agent relationship, foster the participation of multiple subjects in management, promote the sharing of asset management benefits among all people and inter-generational owners, and realize the independence and standardization of supervision of natural resource asset management.
How to characterize the legal attributes of state ownership of natural resource assets is related to the implementation of the entrustment of natural resource assets by all people. Without determining the legal attributes of the entrustment, it is impossible to delineate the boundary of rights and responsibilities, as well as the form of authorized delegation. In the face of the complicated natural resource system, the attributes of state ownership of natural resource assets are also debated. In reality, it is difficult to define the exercise of ownership of natural resources assets owned by the whole nation as an administrative duty, and it is impossible to establish a civil agreement between two administrative organs, and at this stage its legal nature can be considered as an administrative agreement between the upper and lower levels of governments, through which the eligibility to exercise the ownership of natural resources assets is distributed among all levels of government.
In order to establish the method system and institutional norms for the state-owned natural resource assets inventory (SNRSI) physical quantity update, and explore the application of its achievements in the principal-agent mechanism, this paper clarifies the concepts of SNRSI and the lack of theory research for various natural resources assets update. The method of the SNRSI's physical quantity update and application scenarios was expounded. By taking the state-owned agricultural land, state-owned construction land, and state-owned forest resources assets in City A as examples, we tested the methods of incremental update and full update. The research results showed that the physical quantity update of different resource types need to adopt corresponding methods. Among them, the incremental update method is more suitable for the state-owned agricultural and construction lands. The state-owned forest resource assets should adopt the method of full change+patch identification to realize the update of quality indicators and reflect their changes. The research results will provide theoretical reference for the establishment of the method system and application of the results for the SNRSI's physical quantity update.
How to define the property of energy utilities is an important theoretical premise to restore the attributes of energy commodities. To analyze the attributes of energy utilities, this paper constructs a dynamic analysis framework based on social publicity and technological development to extend the exclusive and competitive goods classification. And then, taking the three kinds of network energy public utilities of electricity, gas and heat as examples, this paper analyzes the commodity attributes and governance. The core point of this paper is that the products provided by network-based energy utilities can be divided into "energy goods" and "transportation services", of which the commodity attributes of energy products tend to be private goods, while transportation services tend to be quasi-public goods. The essence of energy utilities governance is to deconstruct the traditional operation mode of bonding "energy products" and "transportation services". The governments need to deepen the implementation of the overall reform idea of demand-side and supply-side flexibility while regulating the grid infrastructure.
This article aims to probe the development process and its underlying mechanisms of spatial reconstructions amidst the land-driven development mode through the lens of regional coordinated development. Grounded in the 'projects of cooperation between mountainous and coastal areas in Zhejiang province', this study investigates the unfolding spatial reconstruction processes and mechanisms of the land-driven development mode among the positive or reverse enclaves. Key findings of an examination of Longquan-Xiaoshan Industrial Cooperation Park and Quzhou Overseas Talents Innovation Park are as follows: firstly, the spatial reconstruction of the land-driven development mode is a networked process. The multi-level governments propelled land-centric economic developmental model based upon re-arranging their administrative powers. Secondly, within the positive or reverse enclaves, the land-driven developmental mode has embodied the various paths for spatial reconstruction, which are subject to the effects of path lock-in. Hereto, it is urgent to develop a spatial re-distribution mechanism for land development rights at regional scale. Finally, the continuous construction of a land-driven development mode is the institutional task for achieving cooperation between mountainous and coastal areas in it, and the designs for inverted enclaves are a future direction which is beneficial to the path adjustment. This study unfolds that the proper optimization of the land-driven development mode has been a crucial starting point for forging regional coordination. And multi-level governments could play the dual roles of regulation and empowerment based on the regional collaborations for land property rights.
The purpose of this study is to reveal and corroborate the underlying patterns that the institutional arrangements and local conditions for rural construction land transfer synergistically facilitate secondary and tertiary industry development in rural areas of China. To that end, a theoretical framework of the synergism between institutional arrangements and local conditions is developed, based on which an innovative method of archetype analysis is adopted in this study. Totally 6 archetypes are extracted from 20 typical projects of rural construction land transfer in the pilot areas across China, exhibiting the combination of institutional and conditional factors of rural construction land transfer that leads to secondary or tertiary industry development in rural areas. The results show that: (1) Decentralized institutional arrangement of decision-making contributes to the strategies of rural construction land transfer and rural industry development in line with the advantageous local conditions of land resources endowment, land user types and secondary industry foundation. (2) Institutional arrangements of transfer ways, transaction methods and supporting policies launched by the local government are expected to align with the local conditions, including land resources endowment, land user types, rural economic capacity and secondary industry foundation. (3) Institutional arrangement of transparent information is the precondition for decentralized decision-making, which ensures the rights of stakeholders to know and reduces information asymmetry. (4) The appropriate institutional interplay of incentive and control with cost-benefit distribution accelerates rural construction land transfer and ensures that rural households and rural areas can sufficiently benefit from thriving rural industry. These research findings provide scientific references for promoting rural construction land transfer to achieve thriving secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas in consistent with the context-specific conditions.
The research on urban spatial assets considering ecosystem is of great significance for quantifying ecological assets and regulating urban human-land relationship. Taking Wuhan Fuhe wetland as an example, this study analyzed the change of ecosystem assets and human-land relationship by constructing the evaluation framework of urban spatial ecosystem assets. The results show that: (1) From 2015 to 2021, the Fuhe wetland enriched the supply of ecological wealth of urban spatial assets. Under the effect of ecological engineering, the quality of stock assets improved, the total amount of flow assets was high, and the supply of upstream and downstream assets was comparatively uneven. (2) The increased demand for ecological recreation among residents manifested as quantity growth and space expansion. Meanwhile, the demand space had the characteristics of distance decay and leisure time constraint. (3) Although the supply and demand in the internal system were out of balance, this system generated a long-term interaction between ecological and human activities, which expanded the spatial scale of the coupled human and environment system. The combination of remote interaction and internal coupling constituted the human-land coupling model of urban spatial ecosystem in the new era. The research results can provide some reference for the systematic quantification of urban spatial ecosystem assets, and a scientific basis for promoting the coordination and balance of ecosystem services and human welfare.
Since 2003, a new round of the collective forest tenure reforms (NRCFTR) and its Match Reform Measures (MRMs) have been implemented in China, aiming to encourage farmers to engage in forest production input. Based on the balance panel data of 1062 sample rural households in 18 counties, 9 provinces from 2003 to 2019, by distinguishing the mediating effect of "forestland fragmentation" and "tenure incentive", this paper measures the impact of NRCFTR and MRMs on rural households' forest production input. Empirical results show that: (1) The NRCFTR intensifies the forestland fragmentation and thus reduces the rural households' forest labor and capital input. (2) Confirming collective forestland tenure has a positive incentive on labor and capital input of rural households, but the impact of the NRCFTR on rural households' forest capital input is limited due to the intensification of forestland fragmentation, and the impact of NRCFTR on rural households' forest production input displays regional and forest species heterogeneity. (3) Impacts of the MRMs on rural households' forest production input are different. Easiness to obtain Annual Allowable Cut (ACC) increased rural households' forest labor and capital input, and afforestation subsidy and using forestland as collateral for a loan raised the forest capital input of rural households. The research findings of this paper are helpful to understand the impact and its mechanism of collective forest tenure reform on farmers' allocation of production factors, and to provide follow-up policy options for deepening collective forest tenure reform.
With the practical exploration of the transformation mechanism of "Green is Gold" in local communities, the development of ecological industries has gradually become an important component of the construction of ecological civilization. Some scholars proposed that eco-products should be defined as the "fourth sector" of products parallel to agricultural products, industrial products and service products, and put forward the concept of the quaternary industry of ecological products. However, since the quaternary industry of ecological products is a new concept, its concept connotation, scope boundary and accounting framework still need to be further clarified. Based on the essential characteristics of the quaternary industry of ecological products, which focuses on ecological resources as the key input factor, this paper extends the Romer production function which describes the industrial production process by separating out the ecological resources from the input factors, and discusses the connotation of the concept of the quaternary industry of ecological products on the basis of the new production function. This paper suggests that the products of the quaternary industry of ecological products are the final goods or services created by the combined inputs of ecological resources, manufactured capital, human capital, labor and other factors, among which ecological resources are the key input factor that is difficult to be replaced. The quaternary sector focuses on the contribution of ecological resources inputs to the value of the final goods and services, and therefore the ecological products that take the final form of operational products are the major focus of the quaternary sector. On this basis, this paper discusses the relationship between Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP), Inclusive Wealth (IW) and the quaternary sector of ecological products. In addition, this paper proposes an idea for the construction of the quaternary sector accounting framework based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the input-occupancy-output technique. We add rows and columns to the input-occupancy-output table and separate the quaternary sector, so as to quantify the flow and stock forms of the new production function, which will be useful for us to calculate the contribution from ecological resource inputs as part of the value of eco-products.
Ecological agricultural products have a first-mover advantage in the ecological product value realization system due to relatively complete market conditions. Taking the realization of the value of ecological agricultural products as the background, this study analyzes the behavior patterns of government, agribusiness and consumers under different policies through the evolutionary game analysis and simulation, using Wendeng cherry as a typical case. Moreover, the research divides the support policy of ecological agricultural products into two stages: the certification stage and the additional subsidy stage, emphasizing that additional subsidies occur in situations where there is already a clear certification policy but its promotion effect on the realization of the value of ecological agricultural products is not ideal. The results indicate that: Firstly, the "certification plus subsidy" policy can effectively improve the realization of the value of ecological agricultural products. The desired equilibrium would be achieved under harsh conditions if certification-only policies are implemented, but the desired equilibrium is likely to be significantly enhanced with additional subsidy policies. Second, the sensitivity analysis results after additional subsidies show that: (1) After the implementation of additional subsidy, the economic costs and reputation loss of the subsidy policy replace the certification policy, which plays a decisive role in the convergence of the system. The impact of certification administration costs on the game system is significantly reduced, but certification costs still have a significant negative impact on the direction and speed of system convergence. (2) The desired equilibrium is negatively affected by high subsidy costs and subsidy administration costs, low government inaction reputation loss and government reputation benefits after policy success, low net income from ecological agricultural product production, and low consumer utility of ecological agricultural products. (3) If the abuse of consumer subsidies brings too high subsidy management costs, the system will not be able to converge to the desired equilibrium. (4) The scale effect has a positive impact on the system convergence, but the marginal effect shows a decreasing trend. Therefore, the study suggests that the government should introduce certification and producer subsidy policies at this stage to promote the realization of the value of ecological agricultural products.
Drawing on Marx's theory of expanded reproduction, this paper argues that the key to enhancing the supply of public ecological products from agricultural land lies in effectively harnessing the value of these products and increasing and greening the scale of agricultural land. To this end, the paper employs both the emergy method and grey correlation analysis to conduct an empirical examination of the supply of public ecological products from agricultural land in Henan province and the factors that influence the supply. The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that during the period of 2000-2020, the overall supply of public ecological products from agricultural land in Henan showed a growth trend, with carbon sequestration and oxygen release being the main types of these products. Ecological damage, overall, presents a fluctuating upward trend, with soil heavy metal pollution being the main type of ecological damage. In addition, the damage caused by public ecological products in the province on the supply of public ecological products from agricultural land shows a decreasing trend, but as of 2020, the ecological damage in Henan still reduced 8.57% of the ecological supply. In this regard, the key driving factors of the current supply of ecological products from agricultural land are the expansionary reproduction behaviors of agricultural land production scale. However, the lack of mechanism for realizing the value of public ecological products from agricultural land and the decline in the level of green utilization of agricultural land hinder the further enhancement of the ecological products supply from agricultural land. Based on this, we propose different paths for enhancing public ecological products from agricultural land from the perspective of realizing the value of ecological products: improving the top-level mechanism, enhancing market transaction path, and stimulating market demand; from the stand of green utilization of agriculture, we propose: reducing the use of chemical fertilizers, converting irrigation mode, innovating and promoting of green planting technology. Taken together, our findings can provide the theoretical reference and directional guidance for relieving the contradiction between the people's growing demand for an agreeable ecological environment and the unbalanced and insufficient development.
Promoting eco-friendly agricultural products supply is not only the requirement of rural ecological revitalization, but also the inevitable trend in agricultural modernization. The development of information technology provides a new path for farmers to supply agricultural ecological products. In the paper, we use probit model to analyze the impact of Internet use on the supply of farmers' agricultural ecological products based on farmers-level data. The empirical results show that the use of the Internet has improved the farmers' enthusiasm for the supply of agricultural ecological products, to a certain extent. There is an endogenous relationship between Internet use and farmers' willingness to supply agricultural ecological product, meanwhile the existence of endogeneity will overestimate the impact of Internet use on agricultural ecological product supply. Compared with farmers with low human capital, Internet use can enhance the enthusiasm of farmers with high human capital in providing agricultural ecological products. Compared with part-time farmers and non-farmers, the use of the Internet can enhance pure farmers' enthusiasm for the supply of agricultural ecological products. The use of the Internet will also have an intermediary effect on the farmers' enthusiasm for the supply of agricultural ecological products through social capital. Based on the empirical analysis, this paper puts forward three policy suggestions to enhance the farmers' enthusiasm agricultural ecological product supply from the perspective of Internet use.
Ecosystem services are the bridge between social system and ecosystem. It is an important prerequisite for sustainable ecosystem management to formulate ecosystem management strategies based on the ecosystem services trade-offs. This study aims to provide a comprehensive summary of ecosystem management strategies based on ecosystem services trade-offs and to propose potential solutions to the deficiencies of existing management strategies. Based on the classification system of demand-demand trade-offs, supply-demand trade-offs and supply-supply trade-offs, this study systematically reviewed the ecosystem management strategies based on ecosystem service trade-offs at home and abroad, and innovatively proposed an ecosystem management framework coupled with three types of trade-offs. The research results show that the essence of the demand-demand trade-offs management strategy is the prioritization of ecosystem services. Supply-demand trade-off mainly changes the supply and demand of ecosystem services by regulating the driving forces of supply-demand trade-off, and the supply-supply trade-off is mainly managed by zoning according to the tradeoff characteristics, or regulating the driving forces of trade-off to increase the supply of ES or relieve the trade-off strength. The research shows that: (1) The goal of ecosystem management is to alleviate the strength of supply-demand trade-offs and achieve the two management requirements of "efficiency" and "fairness". That is, to ease the strength of the supply-demand trade-offs and simultaneously ease the supply-supply trade-offs and the demand-demand trade-offs. Currently, most management strategies are designed to alleviate one ecosystem services trade-offs in isolation and lack an ecosystem management framework coupling the three ecosystem service trade-offs. (2) Prioritizing mitigation in the supply-demand trade-off intensity of ecosystem services with higher subjective and objective importance can simultaneously alleviate the demand-demand trade-off. Comprehensively regulating the driving forces of supply and demand trade-offs and supply trade-offs can simultaneously alleviate the strength of supply-demand trade-offs and supply-supply trade-offs. Finally, the coupling of the three trade-offs is achieved.
Multi-factor matching is an important approach to the evolution and sustainable development of coastal areas. To explore the multi-factor matching degree of land-sea population, resources, environment, science and technology and capital and its influencing factors is a difficult problem in the land-sea overall study of coastal areas. Based on the data of 11 coastal provincial-level regions (hereafter provinces) in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper adopts DCI model, dominant factor method and random forest model to study the matching measurement and influencing factors of land-sea multiple factors. The results show that: (1) Land-driven provinces include Liaoning, Hebei and Shandong; sea-driven provinces include Guangxi, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Hainan; land-sea interaction provinces include Shanghai and Guangdong. Most of the provinces are interdriven by land-sea functions over the years, and there are obvious differences in the mechanism and stability of land-sea functions. (2) The factors of population, resources, environment, science and technology and capital are driven by each other, and there are significant differences in the driving effects of each province, leading or driving the development of land-sea multi-factor system. (3) Industrial structure, government regulation, economic development level, opening to the outside world, talent support and social development are the most important factors of land-sea multi-factor matching degree. The research has important theoretical and practical significance for the overall construction of land and sea and the implementation of marine power strategy.
The fiscal transfer payment system for cultivated land protection could realize the balance between cultivated land protection and economic development by compensating the relevant stakeholders with restricted development due to their responsibility for cultivated land protection. Taking the fees for newly increased construction land in Zhejiang province as an example, we construct a new fiscal transfer payment system for cultivated land protection on the basis of the principle of matching fiscal revenue and responsibility from the perspective of local government, which is of great significance for improving the efficiency of fiscal fund utilization and promoting the protection of cultivated land resources. The results show that Zhejiang is in deficit of cultivated land among 31 provincial-level regions nationwide generally, and cannot participate in the distribution of fiscal transfer payment funds from the central government. Within the provincial scope, there are 50 county-level administrative units such as the main urban area of Jiaxing, Zhuji city, and Shangyu district, etc., which have spillover of cultivated land protection responsibility and can be compensated by fiscal funds distribution in 64 research units in Zhejiang. Among which, the main urban area of Jiaxing has the highest spillover level and the corresponding distribution is up to 76.87 million yuan. Meanwhile, 14 research units without spillover cannot participate in the distribution of fiscal transfer payment funds from the province, which includes the main urban area of Hangzhou, the main urban area of Wenzhou, Xiaoshan district, and Yiwu city, etc. Moreover, the optimal distribution on the basis of the principle of matching fiscal revenue and responsibility is compared with that in practice. It is found that the funds distribution of the new fiscal transfer payment system has a stronger inclination to the regions with heavy cultivated land protection tasks. The regression results show that, the coefficient under the optimal distribution model is higher than that in practice. The study is of great significance to further improve the fiscal management system of China especially below the provincial level, and to make full use of the fiscal incentive and restraint mechanism to achieve the goal of cultivated land protection.
The change of construction land use is an important reason for the change of carbon source/sink. How to optimize the spatial allocation of urban construction land in China's provincial-level regions to drive carbon emission reduction is an important topic under the background of the dual carbon strategy. In this paper, the proportion of the first city and Herfindahl index are used to measure the concentration degree of spatial allocation of construction land, and the carbon emission level is characterized by the carbon emissions per unit of construction land area. Based on China's provincial panel data from 2000 to 2020, this paper uses two-way fixed effect model to test the impact mechanism of the concentration of spatial allocation of construction land on carbon emissions. The results show that: (1) The centralized spatial allocation of urban construction land in provinces has significant carbon emission reduction effect. (2) From the perspective of functional land, the centralized spatial allocation of industrial, residential, and service land can reduce carbon emissions. From the perspective of action intensity, industrial and service land is larger, while residential land is slightly smaller. (3) Energy efficiency is an important mechanism for the centralized spatial allocation of provincial urban construction land and its functional land to affect carbon emissions. (4) The coupling and coordination of the centralized spatial allocation of various types of functional land will have a multiplier effect on carbon emission reduction by enhancing energy efficiency.
