Suchergebnisse

This book examines how the Ming state transformed the multi-ethnic society of Yunnan into a province. Yunnan had remained outside the ambit of central government when ruled by the Dali kingdom, 937-1253, and its foundation as a province by the Yuan regime in 1276 did not disrupt Dali kingdom style political, social and religious institutions. It was the Ming state in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries through its institutions for military and civilian control which brought about profound changes and truly transformed local society into a province. In contrast to other studies which have portrayed Yunnan as a non-Han frontier region waiting to be colonised, this book, by focusing on changes in local society, casts off the idea of Yunnan as a border area far from civilisation.

Most arable land in rural areas of China is highly fragmented, and promoting large-scale operation by means of farmland transfer is of great significance to both increase farm income and improve the ecological stability of farmland. At present, crayfish are widely popular with the consumer market, and the rice–crayfish cultivation pattern has considerable industrial advantages for water-rich plain areas. However, farmers do not have a sufficient understanding of the new model, and its application is not common enough, failing to realize the advantages of the region's special industries. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current situation of farmland transfer in rice–crayfish cultivating regions of Hunan and Hubei, China, and employ the logistic regression model to explore the impacts of operation scale and transfer experience on farmers' willingness toward farmland transfer-in, in order to promote the sustainable development of rice–crayfish cultivating. The results showed that: Firstly, both operation scale and transfer experience have a significant positive relevance with farmers' willingness toward farmland transfer-in. Secondly, there are obvious differences in the impact path among large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale rice or rice–crayfish farmers. Thirdly, the transfer-out experience is inhibitory or not significantly associated with the willingness toward farmland transfer-in. Fourthly, the transfer experience intensifies the positive influence of the expansion of operation scale on the farmers' willingness toward farmland transfer-in. This study can provide some reference and basis for the local government to make differentiated measures according to the farmland transfer preferences of farmers with different scales and operation types, so as to promote farmers' willingness to operate at a large scale and realize the sustainable development of the regional rice–crayfish cultivating model.

Purpose
The world currency is endowed with two inherent contradictions, namely, the general contradiction of all currencies and the special contradiction between the quality and quantity of the world currency. The paper aims to discuss these issues.


Design/methodology/approach
In the wake of the Second World War, the USA, with its strong economic and military strength, established an international monetary system centered on the US dollar (USD). This gave USD the status of "world currency" and bounded it to the US imperialist hegemony with mutual integration and interaction, making it possible for USD capital to conduct international exploitation and wealth plundering extensively around the world.


Findings
The contradiction between the capital logic and the power logic, which is inherent in capital accumulation models of the new imperialism, also indicates the inevitable decline of USD.


Originality/value
This constitutes an important feature of the new imperialism. However, as a sovereign currency, USD has inextricable and inherent contradictions while exercising its function as the world currency.

AbstractCounter to the traditional assumption of neoclassical economics that individuals are rationalHomo oeconomicithat always seek to maximize their utility and follow their 'true' preferences, research in behavioural economics has demonstrated that people's judgements and decisions are often subject to systematic biases and heuristics, and are strongly dependent on the context of the decision. In this article, we briefly review the transition of research from neoclassical economics to behavioural economics, and discuss how the latter has influenced research in consumer behaviour and consumer policy. In particular, we discuss the impacts of key principles such as status quo bias, the endowment effect, mental accounting and the sunk-cost effect, other heuristics and biases related to availability, salience, the anchoring effect and simplicity rules, as well as the effects of other supposedly irrelevant factors such as music, temperature and physical markers on consumers' decisions. These principles not only add significantly to research on consumer behaviour – they also offer readily available practical implications for consumer policy to nudge behaviour in beneficial directions in consumption domains including financial decision making, product choice, healthy eating and sustainable consumption.