Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) has been seen as a strategy to reduce poverty while maintaining and increasing the supply of ecosystem services. Vietnam is the first country in Southeast Asia to implement PES as a law for forest protection. Several studies of PES in Vietnam have been done, where the positive results tend to come from provinces with higher payments. This also seem to correlate with the level of environmental awareness and engagement among local communities. In this study, interviews with NGOs and institutions were conducted with the purpose to investigate their perception of the understanding of PES on a local level, and how they are working for improvements. All interviewees recognized that there are problems with the top-down design of the policy and raised issues such as lack of communication, low and risky payments and low rates of engagement within local communities. The interviewees are working for improvements from different angles and levels. The effectivity approach has led to an overall higher understanding of PES in Vietnam, whilst a more fair approach might be needed to achieve a long-term change of behaviour.

O estado de Mato Grosso do Sul possui, historicamente, uma produção agrícola que se solidificou com base na estrutura fundiária de propriedades agrícolas de grandes extensões, e que estabeleceu uma agricultura de alta produtividade, apresentando relevante participação no PIB agrícola brasileiro. A situação hipotética delineada na pesquisa tem como premissa a modificação do binômio econômico soja-boi, para o quadrinômio econômico soja-boi-eucalipto-cana-de-açúcar e sua relevância para o crescimento e desenvolvimento econômico do estado do Mato Grosso do Sul. O principal objetivo pesquisado correlaciona a dimensão agroindustrial nas microrregiões de Dourados e Três Lagoas aos aspectos socioeconômicos face ao crescimento dos setores primário agrícola e secundário industrial do agronegócio no período 2005-2015. A pesquisa qualitativa foi desenvolvida com base em dados primários e secundários utilizando entrevistas semiestruturadas e bibliografia. As microrregiões analisadas foram estudadas separadamente como estudos de caso. Os dados socioeconômicos utilizados foram demográficos e econômicos da produção agrícola e agroindustrial. A microrregião de Dourados possui diversificação de setores agroindustriais tornando-se um município que se consolidou em períodos recessivos economicamente. A microrregião de Três Lagoas possui uma economia alicerçada em poucas áreas do agronegócio e que possui vazios demográficos. Compreende-se, na busca pelo entendimento do processo de geração de riqueza e melhoria de qualidade de vida, o papel dos gestores públicos para executar um planejamento adequado, considerando a geração de riqueza e consequente melhoria de qualidade de vida da população investigada. / Historically, the state of Mato Grosso do Sul has an agricultural production that has solidified on the basis of the agricultural land structure of large extensions, and that established a high productivity agriculture, presenting a relevant participation in the Brazilian agricultural GDP. The hypothetical situation outlined in the research is premised on the modification of the \"soy-cattle\" economic binomial, for the economic \"soy-cattle-eucalyptus-sugarcane\" economic quadruom and its relevance for the economic growth and development of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul. The main objective of this study correlates the agroindustrial dimension in the microregions of Dourados and Três Lagoas with the socioeconomic aspects in relation to the growth of the agribusiness primary and agribusiness sectors in 2005-2015. Qualitative research was developed based on primary and secondary data using semi-structured interviews and bibliography. The microregions analyzed were studied separately as case studies. The socioeconomic data used were demographic and economic of agricultural and agroindustrial production. The Dourados microregion has diversified agroindustrial sectors, becoming a municipality that has consolidated in economically recessive periods. The Três Lagoas microregion has an economy based on few agribusiness areas that has demographic vacuums. It is understood, in the search for the understanding of the process of wealth generation and improvement of quality of life, the role of the public managers to carry out an adequate planning, considering the generation of wealth and consequent improvement of quality of life of the investigated population.

Pan, Jutong. / "August 2011." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-24). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Basic Model --- p.4 / Chapter 3 --- Analysis --- p.6 / Chapter 3.1 --- Starrett Theorem with Labor Productivity Differences --- p.6 / Chapter 3.2 --- A Simple Case: Indivisible Labor --- p.9 / Chapter 3.3 --- Divisible Labor and Partial Labor Mobility --- p.12 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Scenario 1: high transportation costs and no trade across regions --- p.13 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Scenario 2: low transportation costs and inter-regional trade --- p.17 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- The parameter conditions for Scenario 1/2 --- p.20 / Chapter 4 --- Conclusion --- p.21

Orientadora: Ana Claudia Giannini Borges / Banca: Ana Cláudia Fernandes Terence / Banca: Ana Paula Leivar Brancaleoni / Banca: José Gilberto de Souza / Banca: Vera Mariza Henriques de Miranda Costa / Resumo: Os Bancos Comunitários de Desenvolvimento são uma alternativa para a exclusão financeira, além de funcionarem como agentes impulsionadores do crescimento de pequenos territórios, quando devidamente configurados e entendidos dentro da perspectiva da Economia Solidária. No Brasil, a exclusão financeira ainda esta presente na forma de "sub bancarização", principalmente nos pequenos municípios. Entre os prejuízos dessa, a falta de acesso ao crédito e aos demais serviços financeiros, provoca muitas vezes uma migração da renda dos municípios desprovidos desses serviços para outros, que os possuam. Isso provoca a diminuição da circulação de dinheiro nos municípios "sub bancarizados" e compromete o comércio local. O município de São João do Arraial-PI tem em 2007 a implantação do Banco Comunitário dos Cocais, uma ação mediada pela ação política local e apoiada pela maioria da população. A atuação do Banco no município proporcionou ganhos relativos ao alcance de serviços financeiros e acesso ao crédito solidário de "consumo", por meio da moeda social "Cocal", possibilitando maior circulação do dinheiro no município. Assim, este trabalho objetiva identificar as representações sociais construídas pela população e representantes de empreendimentos locais de São João do Arraial-PI, acerca da atuação do Banco dos Cocais no município, bem como a inserção deste por meio da moeda social "Cocal". Para tal, fez-se pesquisa analítica-descritiva, utilizando-se de formulários, com os quais entrevistou-se 99 representantes de empreendimentos locais e 326 sujeitos constituintes da população. Para o estudo das representações sociais utilizou-se da análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 2011) e da estatística com o auxílio do programa Statistical Package for the Social Sciences - SPSS. A construção territorial do município foi realizada por meio de ... (Resumo completo clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The development of community banks are an alternative to financial exclusion fleeing the bank traditional model of the National Financial System (SFN), boosters and agents growth of small territories, when properly configured and understood from the perspective of Solidarity Economy. In Brazil, financial exclusion is still present in the form of "sub banking", especially in small municipalities. Among the losses that the lack of access to credit and other financial services, often causes a migration of the income of municipalities deprived of financial institutions for others that have, causing poor circulation of money in the city and committing local businesses . The municipality of São João do Arraial-PI has in 2007 the implementation of the Community Bank of Cocais, an action mediated by the local political action and supported by the majority of the population. The activities of the Bank in the city provided gains for the achievement of financial services and access to mutual credit, offered in form of "consumption" through social currency "Cocal", allowing greater circulation of money in the city. This work identified the social representations built by the population and representatives of local enterprises of São João do Arraial-PI, about the role of the Bank of Cocais in the municipality as well as the insertion of this through social currency "Cocal". The research is analytical and descriptive, and used forms, with whom was interviewed 99 representatives of local enterprises and 326 subjects constituents of the population. For the study of social representations we used content analysis (Bardin, 2011) and statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences - SPSS. The territorial construction of the city was carried out through research on documents and interviews with former residents. The work showed that the Bank of Cocais has its strongly anchored social ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

No description available.

Utifrån de globala utmaningarna och dystra framtidsprognoserna vi möter idag så utforskas hållbara lösningar. Andelsjordbruk är ett koncept för ett hållbart, gemenskapsbaserat jordbruk som rör sig i ett gränsland mellan att vara företagsmodell och utopisk framtidsvision, och som får allt större spridning i Sverige. Kärnan i konceptet är att återskapa lokala band och minska avstånd mellan konsument och producent. Syftet med denna studie är att få en ökad förståelse för hur andelsjordbrukens lokalisering ger förutsättningarna för verksamhetens upplägg och marknadsföring, med särskild fokus på dynamiken mellan jordbrukare och andelsägare som en central komponent i andelsjordbruks-modellen. Denna undersökning genomfördes som intervjustudie med ett urval andelsjordbrukare i Sverige. Resultaten visar att graden av fysiska interaktioner mellan jordbruken och konsumenterna oavsett fysiskt avstånd inte överstiger en viss nivå då konsumenternas intresse men framför allt tid är begränsad. Det framkommer i resultaten att lokaliseringen däremot är viktig ur ett marknadsföringsperspektiv med hänsyn till kundunderlaget. Förutsättningarna för att starta ett andelsjordbruk skiljer således mellan platser och verksamheter måste hitta strategier för att anpassa sig till dem lokala förutsättningarna.

Recent literature on economic geography suggests the emergence of a new theory of advantage for the 21st century - constructed advantage - following absolute, comparative and competitive advantage theories in the previous three centuries. However, current definitions and descriptions of this construct suffer from conceptual ambiguity and unclear distinstion from former theories, in particular competitive advantage. This study attempts to clarify current knowledge of the concept of constructed advantage at the regional level and extend it to the organizational level. The main question addressed by the present study are: 1) What is "Constructed Advantage?" and 2) What are the differences between construcyed advantage and competitive advantage? These research questions are "what-type"questions, reflecting the exploratory nature of this study. The present study is grounded in a chronological review of the four refered theories of advantage, drawing from different bodies od literature - internatioal economics, industrial economics, industrial marketing and purchasing, and economic geography. For that purpose, the bibliography was carefully selected and analysed, without directly refering to data collection and analysis. Thus, this research is exclusively theoretical. A structured view of the theories of advantage is proposed. These theories are arranged according to an integrative matrix model with two dimensions, relating four centuries of advantages theories. Industrial marketing and purchasing proponents see business relationships as a network of suppliersand customers, thus suggesting a distinction between supply and demand, the two dimensions of the matrix. Economic goegraphers and strategists argue in favor of a more dynamic approach to the "construction" of advantage, which suggests the existence of a static-dynamic dichotony. Given this model, we then redefine constructed advantage. This study concludes with a discussion of implications (...)

This doctoral dissertation examines how the financialization of the economy affects the everyday lives of low and moderate-income (LMI) urban residents in the United States. Specifically, the research presented in this dissertation provides a critical examination of the democratization of finance by examining financial empowerment programs designed to promote financial inclusion for LMI residents in Boston, Massachusetts. These programs were created in the wake of the financial crisis to promote financial security by training participants to manage their debt, to monitor their credit scores, to avoid predatory lending, and to invest using mainstream financial products. This research has two significant findings. First, this research shows how nonprofit organizations teach LMI adults to use credit and accumulate assets in order to compensate for wage stagnation and the erosion of state assistance. I argue that the practice of financial coaching asks individuals and households to accept the burden of debt to ensure the reproduction of society; rather than the city, state and federal governments being responsible for ever-expanding welfare rolls in a time of intensifying inequality, financial literacy and capability initiatives encourage people who are living in poverty to gain access to consumer credit in order to survive. As consumer and municipal debt grows unabated, this finding offers new insights into the scalar interdependence that finance engenders between the city and its residents. Second, this research illustrates how nonprofit financial empowerment programs are helping financial institutions expand their reach into new consumer markets. This suggests that the active growth of the financial sector is contingent upon making previously unfit market actors into responsible debtors in the pedagogical spaces of financial inclusion. This research militates against any easy assumptions about the normative ‘good’ of financial inclusion and advances scholarship on urban governance, the welfare state, financialization and the geographical study of inequality.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis contributes to debates regarding the future of organised labour, the ability of global civil society networks to influence the practices of powerful institutions, and the value of non-state forms of corporate regulation. It focuses on the anti-sweatshop movement’s campaigns targeting three transnational corporations (TNCs) which design and market sportswear—Nike, Reebok and Adidas. These three TNCs are members of the Fair Labour Association (FLA), a voluntary, non-state regulatory system negotiated between participating companies and a number of civil society organisations. The thesis assesses how the FLA’s processes, the companies’ own labour programs, and interventions by labour activists are combining to influence sportswear workers’ rights to form trade unions and bargain collectively. The thesis is based on decentred, institutionalist characterisations of the firm and its regulation. From this perspective, an effective system for regulating corporate labour practices must powerfully insert discourses promoting workers’ rights into the internal debates, power plays and resulting regularised processes which produce corporate behaviour. Whereas many theoretical approaches portray voluntary regulatory initiatives as antithetical to state regulation, this thesis is influenced by those institutionalist thinkers who argue that effective voluntary initiatives can help build the political will necessary for regulatory reform by states. Research methods employed in this thesis include interviews with Indonesian workers, FLA board members, company representatives and anti-sweatshop activists. This research indicates labour compliance staff within Nike, Reebok and Adidas have made serious, if inconsistent, efforts to persuade suppliers to respect labour rights. These efforts have been undermined by their colleagues in buying departments, who have intensified demands that suppliers produce cheaply and quickly. Partly as a result of this tension, the labour programs of Nike, Reebok and Adidas have only contributed to improved respect for trade union rights in a relatively small number of sportswear factories, and in some cases these improvements have proved fragile. The FLA’s regulatory system relies on participating TNCs threatening to cut orders if their suppliers fail to comply with the FLA’s labour code. This thesis argues that if TNC compliance staff could also offer incentives—such as higher prices or more stable, long-term ordering relationships—then it would enhance their ability to convince suppliers to respect trade union rights. Such a change would require TNCs to give a higher priority to labour rights than to cost-minimisation. Unfortunately, within Nike, Reebok and Adidas, labour rights and other ethical agendas appear to be in the process of being subsumed into a more dominant discourse associated with profit-making and growth, so that labour compliance staff must establish the “business case” for each aspect of their regulatory work. The anti-sweatshop movement has a loose, networked form of organisation which has proved remarkably successful in putting public pressure on sportswear corporations to accept responsibility for labour conditions in their supply networks. If the movement wants to see substantial improvements in respect for sportswear workers’ trade union rights, then it needs to persuade sports companies to go further and make costly improvements to their labour rights programs. Relatively broad agreement across the movement on a system of rating companies’ progress would likely help achieve this ambitious goal, not least by offering opportunities for re-invigorating the movement itself.

In the context of a peripheral, small and largely resource-based economy, New Zealand’s economic policy makers have for long faced the key challenge of influencing global connections of local actors in value-adding activities. This dissertation seeks to interpret the nature and trajectories of governance activities relating to economic processes in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city-region, in the 1990’s and 2000’s. This period, a time of neoliberalising political-economic conditions following intensive economic restructuring in the 1980s, saw a re-entry of central government to the governing landscape of Auckland. The research focuses on how regional actors such as the Auckland Regional Growth Forum, the Auckland Regional Economic Development Strategy and the business-driven initiatives of ‘Competitive Auckland’, ‘Committee for Auckland’ and the ‘Knowledge Wave’ conferences, gradually became aligned with an emerging governmental project from central government that re-defined perceptions of and expectations about Auckland’s economic role. The research approach is informed by several literatures, especially those of the regulation, actor-network and governmentality schools. The different questions that spring from these literatures enable scrutiny of Auckland’s institutional developments in terms of the identification of interdependencies amongst governing interests, the nature and degree of mediation of investment processes from institutional experimentation and the possible emergence of effects from new governance arrangements. The thesis situates and uses the policy and academic positioning of the researcher to develop methodologies to interrogate the emergence of the material and discursive dimensions of the regional economic governance framework of Auckland. This thesis argues that ongoing institutional experimentation has been both a pre-cursor to and an active ingredient in the re-appearance of the New Zealand central state in Auckland’s economic governance. Importantly, governing is increasingly complex; and about mobilising a range of actors by influencing their perceptions about governing and investment goals through discursive governance practices. In this context, current socio-economic interventions can be best understood as contingent assemblages of governing resources, producing discursive alignments of interests that lead to a re-working of processes and practices of the state-regulatory apparatus. The effects of the institutional developments on private investment decisions are largely unknown however. While the emerging institutional framework for economic governance involving Auckland is increasingly embracing Auckland’s globalising character, influencing the city-region’s economic participation in the globalising world economy may be harder to achieve as a political project than current policy rhetoric implies. Theoretically, this research challenges territorial conceptualisations of political economic management and contributes to the wider development of a relational-institutional framework for understanding sub-national economic governance. Auckland, globalising economic processes, economic governance, state, institutions, policy, knowledge, contingency, regulation, discourses