Consolidation Policies Research Articles

Regulating local government debt in China: Intended and unintended consequences

This study integrates institutional and empirical analyses to investigate the intricate policies that regulate local government debt in China. It finds that, within a remarkably short period, China has skilfully incorporated local government debt into the local budget management system, thereby transforming it from a mere transaction between local governments and credit agencies to an intergovernmental fiscal relations framework. The study also establishes that the pivotal debt-regulating policies are more geared towards prioritizing the cost of debt over its scale. Official documents, statistical data, and in-depth interviews provide evidence to support these findings. Drawing on an analysis of county-level panel data in Sichuan Province, this study identifies two main effects of these policies. Primarily, the cost of local general debt may trigger the notorious soft budget constraint, thereby incentivizing county-level governments to depend more heavily on superior transfer payments. Additionally, the fiscal consolidation policy, which focuses on the cost of local special debt, may lower the debt ratio. However, it also has the unintended consequence of bolstering the local government’s reliance on land finance.

Public Housing Stock between Recovery and Sustainability: The Case of Tor Bella Monaca in Rome

The buildings and construction sector is responsible for 37% of energy-related CO2 emissions and over 34% of energy demand globally. The redevelopment of the existing residential building stock has become a consolidated policy of the European Commission to implement the objectives of economic recovery and energy transition towards climate neutrality by 2050. This paper illustrates the design experimentation conducted by the Sapienza University team on the recovery of the public housing compartment R5 in Tor Bella Monaca, Rome. The research proposes an original methodology that is ideally replicable for regenerating large public housing districts built on the outskirts of major European cities, characterised by significant technological and social degradation and energy deficiency. This paper provides an overview of the interventions and an evaluation of the method and set of tools developed in drafting the Technical and Economic Feasibility Study at both the neighbourhood and building levels. This contribution is addressed to researchers and public and private organisations dealing with the complexity of the social housing recovery topic, emphasising overall sustainability aspects of interventions in terms of typological and energy refurbishment of buildings, re-activation of open spaces and enhancement of landscape components, and envisioning new services through participatory methods that promote social inclusion.

Urban Land Consolidation Policy in the Context of Creating a Good Environment According to Spatial Planning in Indonesia

The research aims to understand how urban land consolidation can solve these problems and improve environmental quality and maintenance of natural resources by involving active community participation. The research method is qualitative, with documentation techniques as one of the data collection methods, by viewing and analyzing documents created by the subject himself or other people about the topic. Data analysis, which consists of three main activities, namely data presentation, data reduction, and conclusion drawing/verification, is a series of activities inseparable from one another. This research shows that the primary substance in land consolidation is that community participation is necessary to donate part of their land, which will then be used to construct public and social facilities. Therefore, it is essential to socialize land consolidation with land rights holders or participants so that they understand the process and mechanism for implementing the land consolidation project correctly. With this understanding, urban land consolidation can be a problem solver and solution for creating a suitable living environment according to spatial planning and making land available for public and social purposes.

폐교 활용 의사결정 요인 분석

Since 1982, when the Ministry of Education's small school consolidation policy was implemented, a total of 3,922 schools have been closed as of March 2023. Most of the previous studies have focused on analyzing cases and recommending how to utilize them. This study takes a quantitative approach by considering time to examine what factors are considered in the four types of management (non-utilization, self-utilization, lease and sale) after the decision to close. A panel probit model with sample selection bias was applied in three steps. The results showed that the age of the school and the total appraised value of the land and building are important factors in whether the school is utilized; land area, building area, land appraised value, population density, and population growth rate are important factors in whether the school is self-utilized; and land area, price, and financial independence are important factors in whether the school is sold. Through this study, we derived the selection factors that are important for the public sector, which must efficiently manage closed schools, and the private sector, which wants to earn profits by utilizing them and provide useful information for establishing policies necessary to efficiently manage closed schools.

Consolidation of Tertiary Institutions Across the Globe: Implications for Human Resource Management Education

Several students are conducting on the consolidation of Higher Education Institutions. Some of these studies focused on a particular consolidation case, or geographical region, focused on only an aspect of consolidation, rationale, process, challenges, benefits, or attendant implications. This study, however, seeks to pursue the consolidation of Higher Education Institutions from a comprehensive and global perspective, including rationale, processes, challenges, outcomes, and attendant implications. Case studies were undertaken across all the habited continents of the globe, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/Ocean, South America, and North America. The results are far-reaching. For nations that pursued the policy of consolidation, there was a “skills gap” at the middle-level manpower requirements. Nations that maintained the status quo, gave prominence to technological know-how in the understanding that technological as well as intellectual manpower are of equal relevance for development. However, for human resource management, there is an acute shortage of middle-level graduates with technical skills, while having too many thinkers and intellectual graduates. The recommendations include the need to consider consolidation policy with due caution and not adopt the policy across institutions. It should be looked at from cost-effectiveness and revenue indicators, based on national development aspirations. But overall, the polytechnics and universities should be allowed to co-exist. It was also recommended that polytechnics with requisite human and material resources be upgraded to a degree-awarding status as autonomous institutions, not by merger. The article concludes that the consolidation of tertiary institutions as a solution to the “Binary Divide” is unfounded in light of its backlashing effect on nations that adopted the consolidation policy.

Britain’s Decision to Push for Canadian Confederation

Prior to Canadian confederation the British Empire pursued a policy of scripter control over the British North American colonies by the imperial metropole. However, in the decades leading up to Canadian confederation the British Empire pursued a policy of consolidation of British North America and laxer control allowing for autonomy by Canadians. By providing the historical analysis of the decades leading up to Canadian confederation we can understand why this policy shifts of the British Empire into allowing confederation. A number of radical things will occur in the decades from the American Revolution in 1776 to Canadian confederation in 1867 that will allow for this to occur. The growth of the American Republic, Internal rebellions in Canada, and of course imperial shifting of policy towards India will allow confederation. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the Seven Year War ended and France’s North American colonies, particularly Quebec, were handed over to the British. The British Empire would only enjoy complete dominance of North America until the creation of the new American Republic. For the next century despite the threat posed by the United States of America, Britain’s North American colonies remained divided and spread over the vast expanse of the Canadian North America. It was only in the 1860’s when the British Empire’s worldwide imperial goal shifted that Canadian Confederation became possible. Confederation of all colonies bordering the United States happen occur over a short period of time. Britain’s participation in the Canadian confederation process was key in preventing colonies from being annexed by the United States and facilitating confederation.

Artificial Intelligence for the Classification of Plastic Waste Utilizing TinyML on Low-Cost Embedded Systems

BCG's implementation of the economy makes Thailand more environmentally conscious. The consolidation policy encourages consumers to eliminate single-use plastics using the 3Rs. This article introduces a solution to reduce plastic waste drastically using artificial intelligence. Utilizing a low-cost Arducam Pico4ML embedded device and TinyML, a plastic waste classifying system prototype is developed for plastic bottle segregation. The grayscale image datasets of PET, HDPE plastic bottles, and unknown objects are adjusted in the image pre-processing state and utilized to create trained models using MobileNetV2 convolutional-based neural network algorithms. Effective feature extraction and model training are performed on the Edge Impulse platform, and the trained model is exported to an embedded device using the optimized compiler. A further RS485 Modbus communication protocol feature enables integration with a programmable logic controller (PLC). The validation results of the trained model indicate a classification performance of 100% accuracy. Based on the average precision results, it is notable that the trained model can recognize the most common waste with an average accuracy of over 90%. The minimum classification rate of the MobileNetV2 quantized model is 249 milliseconds. It is also implemented in low-cost embedded devices for real-time plastic waste classification using fewer processing resources (185.4K ROM and 88K RAM). The findings exhibit sequential contributions that satisfy the criteria for classifying plastic bottles and the machine's integration capacity. These outcomes are anticipated to foster social shifts in behavior and enhance public awareness about plastic waste management.

Artificial Intelligence for the Classification of Plastic Waste Utilizing TinyML on Low-Cost Embedded Systems

BCG's implementation of the economy makes Thailand more environmentally conscious. The consolidation policy encourages consumers to eliminate single-use plastics using the 3Rs. This article introduces a solution to reduce plastic waste drastically using artificial intelligence. Utilizing a low-cost Arducam Pico4ML embedded device and TinyML, a plastic waste classifying system prototype is developed for plastic bottle segregation. The grayscale image datasets of PET, HDPE plastic bottles, and unknown objects are adjusted in the image pre-processing state and utilized to create trained models using MobileNetV2 convolutional-based neural network algorithms. Effective feature extraction and model training are performed on the Edge Impulse platform, and the trained model is exported to an embedded device using the optimized compiler. A further RS485 Modbus communication protocol feature enables integration with a programmable logic controller (PLC). The validation results of the trained model indicate a classification performance of 100% accuracy. Based on the average precision results, it is notable that the trained model can recognize the most common waste with an average accuracy of over 90%. The minimum classification rate of the MobileNetV2 quantized model is 249 milliseconds. It is also implemented in low-cost embedded devices for real-time plastic waste classification using fewer processing resources (185.4K ROM and 88K RAM). The findings exhibit sequential contributions that satisfy the criteria for classifying plastic bottles and the machine's integration capacity. These outcomes are anticipated to foster social shifts in behavior and enhance public awareness about plastic waste management.

Regulating local government debt within growth trade-offs: a case study of China’s fiscal consolidation policy

ABSTRACT Local government debt is integral to China’s fiscal framework. Faced with mounting debt risks, China’s central government launched an expansive fiscal consolidation in 2016. Drawing on in-depth interviews and a case study, our research reveals that this measure signifies China’s introduction of de facto fiscal regulations. These regulations have prompted local governments to navigate the complexities of growth objectives and fiscal mandates. Our findings suggest that traditional consolidation strategies are not always effective in the distinct local context of China. As a result, local budgets are increasingly dependent on revenues from land-transfer fees. Notably, the consolidation plan incorporates provisions that allow potential ‘loopholes’ for local authorities, potentially compromising its overall effectiveness. This study sheds light on the intricate dynamics of local debt management, the Plan’s stipulated measures, and the overarching economic context, offering insights into the fiscal challenges faced by China.

Parcel consolidation approach and routing algorithm for last-mile delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles

The last-mile delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), emerging from the online grocery retailing industry, has attracted much attention and interest from the scientific and industrial communities. In reality, the online retailing platform receives grocery orders and promises ultrafast delivery service to the customers via a two-echelon logistics and distribution network. The uncertain arrivals of the orders have a nontrivial negative effect on the performance of the whole delivery network, which has not been well studied in the literature. This paper investigates the parcel consolidation policy and the UAVs routes for the last-mile delivery from a transshipment site in a distribution network to the final customers. First, this study proposes a nonmyopia consolidation policy considering the upcoming grocery parcels with random arrival times to minimize the total delivery cost including the possible penalty cost due to the delivery delay to the customer. To make the problem tractable in the real-time computational setting, an approximation method based on Bayesian estimation is proposed to reduce a large number of random arrival scenarios of upcoming parcels to an expected scenario. The problem is then approached with a deterministic model under the expected scenario. Subsequently, a discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is developed to solve the model. In the algorithm, a novel decoding method is designed to evaluate the particles with respect to the constraints of the load and battery capacities of a UAV and a neighborhood search based on reinforcement learning is developed to improve the quality of the particles in the searching process. The experimental results based on a case study validate the performance of the proposed parcel consolidation approach and the UAV routing algorithm. Some findings are given based on the variations of benchmarks with different distributions of customer locations. The approaches and insights in this paper could be used as a reference for last-mile delivery by UAVs.

Fiscal Consolidation and Firm Growth in Developing Countries: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Despite a longstanding debate around the economic effects of fiscal consolidation policies, relatively few studies have focused on developing countries, and even fewer have paid attention to the growth implications at firm level. Using a unique narrative dataset based on contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy aimed at reducing the accumulation of public debt, we investigate the effects of fiscal consolidation on the growth of 118,279 firms in 98 developing countries from 2006 to 2018. The results indicate that a one percentage point increase in fiscal consolidation as a share of GDP leads, on average, to a decline in firm growth of 3.97 percentage points. This decline is reduced when consolidation is large. We also find that debt-driven consolidation based on tax hikes is more contractionary than that based on spending cuts, though this contractionary effect is mitigated when spending cuts exceed 1.5 percent of GDP. While the negative effect of fiscal consolidation on firm performance is more pronounced in large and non-exporting firms, the effect is not statistically important in low-debt-risk developing countries.

Business politicians and fiscal consolidation

AbstractWhat explains the variation in countries’ propensity to engage in austerity policy? Economic and political country-level factors are the paramount explanations in the literature. Nevertheless, variation in fiscal preferences at the executive level remains underexplored, except for ideology. Moreover, budget decisions are endogenous to the state of the economy, thus casting doubt on standard measures based on the debt and/or deficit ratio. This article contributes to the literature in two ways. First, I turn to the individual level of analysis and suggest that leaders with business experience are more likely to pursue a balanced budget and tend to implement fiscal consolidation policies based on spending cuts. Second, I ease concerns about individuals’ self-selection into office by relying on fiscal adjustments that are weakly orthogonal to the economic cycle. The statistical analysis of a panel of 17 OECD countries between 1978 and 2014 confirms the theoretical expectations. The results are robust to a variety of specification and statistical methodologies and hold for a subset of as-if random leadership transitions following close elections. A case study of Brian Mulroney's governments in Canada (1984–93) further illustrates the argument.

Quantitative Evaluation of China’s Central-Level Land Consolidation Policies in the Past Forty Years Based on the Text Analysis and PMC-Index Model

After nearly forty years of development, China’s land consolidation policies (CLCP) have become an important tool for promoting rural revitalization and sustainable development. However, as a major land management policy, there is still a lack of quantitative evaluation research on its text. This paper establishes an evaluation system for CLCP using text analysis and the PMC-Index model. Based on a reasonable definition of the connotation of land consolidation, this paper collects 313 related policies issued by China’s central government from 1982 to 2022, using text analysis to sort out the characteristics of issuance time, policy types, issuing institutions, and cooperation networks. By combining the outcomes of text mining with the previous research results to set evaluation indicators for the PMC-Index model, it distinguishes between comprehensive policies and specialized policies and separately evaluates them. Then, the PMC-Surface is established to clearly display the calculation results. The results show that the evaluation scores of comprehensive policies and specialized policies showed an upward trend over time. This indicates that the content of CLCP is constantly being enriched and expanded. The evaluation scores for different dimensions of comprehensive policies are relatively balanced, whereas there are significant differences in the evaluation scores of various dimensions of specialized policies. Both comprehensive policies and specialized policies have weaknesses in policy functions, incentives and constraints, and implementation guarantees, so improvements may be needed in these areas in the future. This study provides valuable insights into the advantages and disadvantages of a single land consolidation policy in China.

Study about the Effects of Consolidation Policy on School Development Plan of School Education Department in Punjab

Many problems did embrace in foundational education in Pakistan including the shortage of teachers. Community Model Schools at primary level were introduced to address this problem in Punjab. Teachers of both sexes were inducted inclusive of the head teacher. Many factors were affecting educational system but most serious was low performance in administration and poor academic outcomes. So objectives of the study were, to investigate the administrative performance of consolidated schools after consolidation in Punjab and to explore the academic development made by the consolidated schools after consolidation in Punjab. All the Teachers, Head teachers, AEOs and Students of consolidated schools in division Gujranwala were the population. Total sample was 380 in which 38 Head Teachers, 76 Teachers, 228 Students and 38 AEOs from the selected schools. A questionnaire on 5-point Lickert scale was used to collect data. Descriptive and Inferential Statistics were applied. Administrative and academic performance becomes better than before.

Социально-политические ориентации религиозного и нерелигиозного населения Российской Федерации

As part of updating the problem of finding key pillars for building domestic consolidation policies, the authors suggest examining the religious factor in terms of its cultural and historical influence. The context of this paper examines the worldview specificity of Orthodoxy, the attitude of believers to political power, to citizens of other statuses/beliefs, ideas about the social order, etc., formed on its basis. The article is based on the results of sociological research carried out with the participation of the authors. It is based on the analysis of empirical data and devoted to the comparative analysis of dominant sociopolitical and political-ideological orientations of religious and non-religious population of modern Russian society. The results of the study showed that the level of loyalty, consolidation, and trust in the authorities and public institutions of Russian society is higher among the religious population, who retain a commitment to traditional values, historical memory, and social justice. Accordingly, the potential for socio-political consolidation of this group is higher. At the same time, in spite of believers' high appraisal of spirituality as a basic value for Russia's future revival, few respondents in this world-view group consider Orthodoxy and individual religiosity to be a consolidating force in Russian society. We can assume a gradual consolidation in the public consciousness of ideas about the future of Russia as a sec- ular state.

Inbound replenishment and outbound dispatch decisions under hybrid shipment consolidation policies: An analytical model and comparison

We investigate operational decisions in a distribution warehouse facing stochastic demand and incurring fixed and linear transportation costs for the inbound inventory replenishment and outbound dispatch decisions. In order to realize scale economies associated with transportation both on the outbound and inbound sides, dispatch schedules and replenishment decisions at the warehouse must be synchronized over time. Immediate delivery policies on the outbound side are not financially viable because outbound dispatch operations will benefit from temporal shipment consolidation. Our focus in this setting is the analytical modeling of hybrid shipment consolidation policies and their comparison to the time-based and quantity-based counterparts. To this end, we propose analytical (exact and approximate) methods to compute and compare the cost under hybrid policies relative to its alternatives. Since shipment consolidation impacts customer waiting and inventory holding, we also investigate the average delay per order and average inventory per time unit as two important metrics of the distribution operation’s performance, along with the annual cost. We compare these metrics among the alternative under hybrid, time-based, and quantity-based policies. The comparison then allows us to offer an explicit analytical comparison of long-run average cost under these three policies without needing to solve the corresponding optimization problems. Notably, our results offer an analytical characterization of relative cost performance (vis-a-vis the numerical comparison available in the literature) and demonstrate the implications of alternative shipment consolidation policies regardless of the values of model parameters. The results are of practical value in the context of the design and operation of an integrated framework for inventory-transportation systems.

How does land consolidation drive rural industrial development? Qualitative and quantitative analysis of 32 land consolidation cases in China

As rural revitalization becomes an increasingly central goal in countries worldwide, land consolidation has emerged as an important tool for realizing rural prosperity through facilitating industrial development. However, it is still not clear how and to what extent land consolidation contributes to rural industrial development. This study, therefore, investigates the influencing mechanism of factors related to land consolidation on rural industrial development. Following the element-structure-function framework, factors related to land consolidation are classified as follows: technical and public elements (e.g., public involvement), financing and organizational structures, production, living, and ecological functions. Cross-case studies are conducted using two emerging methods of causal complexity analysis, i.e., qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and necessary conditions analysis (NCA). First, the results of QCA reveal three configurations of factors explaining rural industrial development, including function-driven configuration, function-element-driven configuration, and function-structure-driven configuration. Second, the results of NCA indicate the nuanced roles played by different factors at various levels of industrial development. Specifically, at the middle level of rural industrial development (50% quantile), production function becomes the necessary condition; at the upper-middle level of rural industrial development (between 50% and 80% quantile), technical element, financing structure, organizational structure, and living function become the necessary conditions for rural industrial development; public element becomes a necessary condition to achieve a high level of industrial development (80% quantile). This study shows how different configurations of factors related to land consolidation influence rural industrial development and the diversified roles that these factors play. The findings enable an extension to the influencing mechanism of land consolidation on rural revitalization and shed new light on formulating and aligning targeted land consolidation policies (e.g., endogenous incentives, crowdsourcing platform, and ecological development) to achieve superior industrial development in different rural areas.

Rural–Urban Educational Inequalities and Their Spatial Variations in China

Existing discussions of rural–urban education inequality focus primarily on education investment and/or attainment, with little attention being paid to the opportunities or potential that an area has to achieve better educational outcomes. This study presents a new analytical framework based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach for a better understanding of rural–urban education disparity. In addition, the rural–urban definitions for educational research are clarified and the effects of a wide range of Central Government policies aimed at reducing the rural–urban educational gap are assessed. The results suggest: inadequate investment (e.g., funding and high-quality teaching resources) in rural education in some regions, especially middle and high schools; inappropriate partitioning of the national territory by the Government for policy implementation; and negative effects resulting from the school consolidation policy. The latter will influence the ability of some rural areas to match the educational achievements of their urban counterparts. This research also reveals that the existing rural–urban gap will be unlikely to narrow under the current policy regime. A conventional approach based on investment and outcomes alone in rural–urban disparity research and policy may overlook the important interactions and conversion processes that are important for mitigating rural–urban disparities.

Agricultural Land Access and Use in Burundi

Agricultural land accessibility and use in Burundi has been reviewed and analyzed in this study. SWOT and SOR analysis have been used to examine its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and some strategies that can lead to sustainable agriculture have been determined. It has been observed that Burundi has a serious problem with agricultural land atomicity. More than 40% of agricultural households cultivate plots less than 0.25 ha. Kayanza and Ngozi are most densely populated provinces. 44% of the agricultural land is on sloping hills and a total of 145.3 tons/ha of arable land is lost every year. However, thanks to the efforts of land development projects, arable land has increased and reached 79.17% of total area of the country in 2018. Unfortunately, it has been shown that the growth rate of agricultural production over the last decade was lower (2%) than the population growth rate (2.6%-3%). It is desirable to implement a land consolidation policy, especially in densely populated areas. For eroded soils, it is ideal to strengthen anti-erosion practices to protect soils and save water. Government of Burundi and NGOs should support agricultural sector by disseminating methods and techniques that will ensure sustainable management of agricultural land.

Fiscal Consolidation Strategy: Phased vs. Direct, Which is Better?

This research aims to examine the impact of fiscal consolidation on the US economy. Since COVID-19 caused the government to cut expenditures due to higher health and business incentive expenditures, fiscal consolidation is required. The analysis is divided into three parts. First, we assume that the decrease in government expenditure is accomplished in the first year. Second, we suppose that government expenditure is progressively reduced, by 0.25% in the first year, 0.50% in the second year, 0.75% in the third year, and 1% in the fourth year. The last scenario predicts that the rest of the globe will follow fiscal consolidation. Following the investigation, we can conclude that fiscal consolidation has a significant long-term influence on the economy. Even while real GDP is declining in the near term, reductions in government expenditure may enhance real GDP in the long run. Based on the comparison of the first and second scenarios, we can conclude that gradual fiscal consolidation is preferable since real GDP does not fall immediately in the first year. Furthermore, we know that the impact of fiscal consolidation in the third scenario is not as favourable as in the first and second scenarios regarding real GDP. As a result, we may assume that the fiscal consolidation policy will be less successful if other nations follow it.