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In the last two decades, the dependence of Taiwan’s manufacturing production on imported intermediate inputs has steadily risen. Meanwhile, the market share of imported consumable manufacture products has also increased. The steady rise of both import shares may not be explained by price fact or since the relative import prices have shown no decreasing trend. The scenario of constantly buying more imported goods when they are not cheaper can be treated as a preference change in favor of imported goods, which may be caused by the popularity of outsourcing, increasing product varieties and persistent trade barriers, as literatures indicated. Traditional macroeconomic models primarily consider the price mechanism in their import demand estimates, with no concern for changes in import preferences. Neglecting changing import preferences in a rapid globalization environment may yield biased empirical results. In this article, we incorporate the import preference factor into a single-country Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and use it firstly to quantify the scale of preferences change and then to test how the preferences change affects the effects of trade policy. The empirical results with and without the concern of import preferences change are compared to yield the scale of bias caused by neglecting the change.

This article aims to explore whether and how economic, political and demographic municipal conditions shape citizens' attitudes regarding decentralised social policies.

The authors analysed the 2018 wave of the Dutch Local Election Studies, which includes a novel survey item asking respondents whether they prefer local social policies to be primarily: (1) protection-based, (2) cohesion-building or (3) activation-based. The authors appended context indicators to that survey and performed multilevel logistic regression analyses (1,913 respondents nested in 336 municipalities).

At the individual level, these preferences are affected by gender, age, income, education and political inclination, as expected. However, preferences towards local social policies are not shaped by local economic, demographic or political conditions. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research.

By using unique data, including a newly developed survey item, this study is the first to explore whether and how municipal conditions shape preferences regarding local welfare. Understanding those preferences is increasingly important as many Western European countries have decentralised swathes of social policies from the national to the local level in recent decades.

The European Union (EU) has notified its revised Generalized System of Preference (GSP) on 31 October, 2012 which will come into effect from 1 January, 2014. The EU is also in the process of, or contemplating, to sign Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with many developing countries. Recently, EU has officially announced initiation of FTA negotiations with USA. Such preferential tariff arrangements could lead to significant erosion of preferences enjoyed currently by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In this backdrop, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the economic impacts originating from preference erosion in the EU market which could potentially affect LDCs in general, Bangladesh in particular. In this context, a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis has been developed by using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and database to explore the aggregate impact of the preferential erosion as well as sectoral implications for which different partial equilibrium analyses were used. The analysis evince that if the EU eliminates all tariffs for Pakistan, India and Vietnam, Bangladesh's real GDP could decrease by 0.27 percent whilst welfare loss could be to the tune of US$ 54 million. Total exports to the EU will be reduced by 0.18 percent; consequently, Bangladesh’s terms of trade and exports of textiles and clothing could be fall by about 1 percent. The product level disaggregated analysis using RCA and unit price of major items also indicate that a number of products including textiles and clothing will be confronted with formidable market access difficulties in the EU.

The article explores to what extent party politics has influenced the different trajectories in Spain and Italy in terms of gendered active social policies (ASPs) (i.e. ALMPs and WLBPs). Second, it investigates how social and political modernization in the two countries has facilitated or hindered party competition on gendered ASPs.

To investigate to what extent parties support gendered ASPs, the article relies on an original content analysis of party manifestos issued during the 2010s national elections. A total of 1387 quasi-sentences have been coded. The results were then quantified to graphically show how positions differentiate across parties and countries.

The content analysis of party manifestos displays that party politics matters: gendered ASPs are backed in a very different way by the Spanish and Italian parties. While in Spain all political parties have strongly championed ALMPs and WLBPs, this is not the case for the Italian parties. The research has also stressed that the specific path of social and political modernization is an important intervening variable that alters positively or negatively parties' support for gendered ASPs.

The article contributes to widen theoretically and empirically the literature on ASPs in the Southern European countries. Theoretically, it questions the supposed homogeneity of the Southern social model and investigated the alleged bifurcation between Italy and Spain, focusing on those policies – ASPs – that constitute the foundations of the Southern model: familialism and dualization. Furthermore, this bifurcation was analyzed adopting a gender perspective, and exploring adherence to or departure from the Southern model. Third, the article focuses on the politics of ASPs demonstrating that inspecting the political arena can contribute to explain policy change.

Rosewood, as the most internationally traded endangered species, is subject to a series of restrictive trade policies globally. China has historically been the largest importer of rosewood in the world. The fluctuation of China’s rosewood import prices will have a profound impact on the global rosewood trade pattern. This study, therefore, assessed the impact of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices to explore the fluctuation rule of rosewood trade prices under restrictive policies.

The study built a partial equilibrium framework about the formation mechanism of rosewood import price bubbles under supply constraints. On this basis, with China’s daily import prices of major rosewood species, the generalized supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (GSADF) and backward supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (BSADF) tests were applied to explore the effect of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices.

The empirical analysis revealed that there were multiple price bubbles for five of the seven rosewood species. The largest bubbles were always created before and after the deployment of supply constraints. The empirical results for the counterfactual examples implied that price bubbles would not have occurred if restrictive rosewood trade policies had not been implemented. The above findings indicated that these measures tended to trigger significant price bubbles in China’s rosewood imports.

The effect of restrictive rosewood trade policies on rosewood trade prices had not yet been explored in previous research studies. This study empirically analyzed the effect of restrictive trade policies on China’s rosewood import prices using econometric models.

Recognition that not every climate adaptation policy is a good one has shifted attention to new tools and methods to measure the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation policies. This study aims to propose and apply and applies an innovative adaptation policy assessment framework to identify the extent to which climate adaptation policies in Vietnam exhibit conditions that are likely to ensure a sufficient, credible and effective adaptation.

In total, 21 conditions, categorized under five normative principles and covering critical issue areas in adaptation domain, form the climate adaptation policy assessment framework. The principles were double-checked and tested in case studies through observations and analyses of policy documents to ensure that each condition should be distinct and not overlapping across principles. To see if the principles and attendant conditions were able to capture all relevant aspects of adaptation, the authors used structured expert judgment. In total, 39 policy documents pertaining to climate change adaptation were selected for qualitative document analysis. In-depth interviews with local officials and experts were conducted to address data gaps.

The study reveals major weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation policies in Vietnam since several critical conditions were underrepresented. These results shed new light on why some adaptation policies falter or are posing adverse impacts. The findings suggest that a sound policy assessment framework can provide evidence on what effective adaptation policy looks like and how it can be enabled. The framework for climate adaptation policy assessment in this study can be easily adjusted and used for different socio-environmental contexts in which new conditions for policy assessment might emerge.

The findings show underlying weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation regime in Vietnam. In the absence of mechanisms and measures for accountability and transparency in policy processes, adaptation in Vietnam appears more likely to be prone to maladaptation and corruption. While solving these problems will not be easy for Vietnam, the government needs to evaluate whether the short-term gains in sustaining the existing adaptation policies really make progress and serve its long-term climate-adaptive development goals.

Although interpretations of adaptation effectiveness may be very divergent in different normative views on adaptation outcomes, the authors argue that a common, agreed-upon effectiveness can be reached if it is clearly defined and measurable in adaptation policies. Thus, the climate adaptation policy assessment framework proposed in this study is critical for policymakers, practitioners, donors and stakeholders dealing with adaptation to better understand the weaknesses in policymaking processes, pinpoint priority areas of action and timely prevent or prepare for possible adverse impacts of policies.

The number of patents in China has grown rapidly in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how patents impact economic development in China.

This paper developed an empirical model by using panel data of 42 China's patent-intensive industries to investigate the economic contribution made by Chinese patent-intensive manufacturing industries.

This paper found that the intensity of valid patents is strongly positively related to economic growth. The intensity of yearly added patents presented an inverse U-shaped and a U-shaped curve with the economy made by China’s patent-intensive industries. The correlativity mainly depended on whether the patent intensity converges near the economic indicators. Meanwhile, from the perspective of input–output efficiency, for China’s patent-intensive industries, R&D institutes were overinvested, followed by R&D intensity and R&D staff.

Investigating patent influence on economic development is quite complex research. Existing studies have mainly focused on patent protection in legal systems, but have not provided a definitive answer to what the real influence is. This study sought to narrow this gap from the patent economy perspective.

While remanufactured products represent an increasingly researched phenomenon in the literature, not much is known about consumers' understanding and acceptance of such products. This study explores this issue in the context of the theory of perceived risk (TPR), investigating return policy leniency and distribution channel choice as potential factors to foster remanufactured products' sales.

This research utilizes an experimental design composed of a pre-test and a scenario-based main experiment to explore how return policy leniency might mitigate consumers' perceived risk and how their related purchase intention differs across two types of retail distribution channel structures (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online).

The investigation into the efficacy of return policy leniency within two retail distribution channel settings (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online) illustrates that providing a lenient return policy is an effective “cue” in increasing consumer purchase intention for remanufactured products. While prior literature has established that consumers value return policy leniency for new products, the authors provide empirical evidence that this preference also applies to remanufactured products. Notably, that return policy preference holds true in both channel settings (i.e. brick-and-mortar vs. online) under consideration. Additionally, and contrary to the authors’ predictions, consumers perceived remanufactured products sold via both channel settings as equally risky, thus highlighting that both are appropriate distribution channels for remanufactured products. Finally, while research on new products provides some initial guidance on consumer perceptions of quality and risk, the study provides empirical evidence into the difference of perceived risk with regard to new versus remanufactured products.

By employing the TPR, this research explored the role played by two supply chain management related factors (returns policy and channel structure) in reducing consumer's perceived risk and increasing purchase intention. In doing so, this study answers the call for more consumer-based supply chain management research in a controlled experimental research setting.

Drawing on the literature on professional ignorance, here defined in affirmative terms as the capacity to act regardless of the incompleteness of available information in organizations and professional communities, the article reports empirical material from an urban development project wherein policy makers' instructions are vague and, in certain domains, inconsistent with market conditions.

Urban development projects regularly include uncertainty and risk taking, and policy makers' stated objectives regarding project goals may be incomplete or merely signal a political ambition. In such situations, first-line project participants need to make decisions as if uncertainties regarding policy objectives are manageable and preferably minimal. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the proposition that professional ignorance is a key mechanism in incomplete or imperfect governance systems.

Project participants actively questioned policy but acted on the instructions just the same, which is indicative of how professional ignorance is supportive of governance system that relies on first-line market actors and agencies to implement also incomplete or vaguely stated policy objectives. Incomplete policies derive from challenges in political deliberation and bargaining processes, uncertainty regarding the future and shifting preferences among policy makers and constituencies more widely. In practice, incomplete policies regularly include issues for first-level actors (e.g. on the urban development project level) to handle and to reconcile in their day-to-day work.

On basis of an empirical study of a major urban development project, the study contributes to a growing literature that recognizes the value of professional ignorance in governance systems and in project management practice. The study invites further scholarly research that takes an affirmative of professional ignorance but without overlooking its risks and potential malfunctions.

This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such as elicitation of residents' attitudes toward recreation or biodiversity conservation of forests.

We review the literature, and attribute the possible biases in choice experiments to theoretical and empirical aspects. Particularly, we introduce regret minimization as an alternative to random utility theory and sheds light on incentive compatibility, status quo, attributes non-attendance, cognitive load, experimental design, survey methods, estimation strategies and other issues.

The practitioners should pay attention to many issues when carrying out choice experiments in order to avoid possible biases. Many alternatives in theoretical foundations, experimental designs, estimation strategies and even explanations should be taken into account in practice in order to obtain robust results.

The paper summarizes the recent developments in methodological and empirical issues of choice experiments and points out the pitfalls and future directions both theoretically and empirically.