政府控制、制度环境与信贷资源配置

将政府控制内部结构与制度环境纳入统一分析框架,深入研究了政府控制内部结构对银行信贷资源配置的影响,以及在不同制度环境下政府控制内部结构对信贷资源配置发挥的作用是否有所不同。研究表明:政府行政级别越低,越有动机干预银行信贷资源配置,帮助其所控制公司获得银行贷款,公司银行借款水平就越高。与通过实业主体控制的公司相比,在政府通过国有资产管理机构控制的上市公司,政府通过干预银行信贷资源配置帮助公司获取银行贷款的行为更为便利,该类公司具有较高的银行借款水平。与制度环境较差的地区相比,在制度环境较好的地区,政府控制内部结构对银行信贷资源配置发挥的作用相对较小。研究有助于深入理解信贷资源配置行为的制度根源。     

Digital forensics as a service: Game on

The big data era has a high impact on forensic data analysis. Work is done in speeding up the processing of large amounts of data and enriching this processing with new techniques. Doing forensics calls for specific design considerations, since the processed data is incredibly sensitive. In this paper we explore the impact of forensic drivers and major design principles like security, privacy and transparency on the design and implementation of a centralized digital forensics service.     

Digital Wiretap Warrant: Improving the security of ETSI Lawful Interception

Lawful Interception (LI) of data communications is an essential tool for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) in order to investigate criminal activities carried out or coordinated by means of Internet. However, the ability to secretly monitor the activities of citizens also has a great impact on civil rights. Therefore, democratic societies must prevent abuse and ensure that LI is only employed in specific cases with justifiable grounds or a probable cause. Nowadays, in many countries each interception must be authorized by a wiretap warrant, usually issued by a judge. However, this wiretap warrant is merely an administrative document that should be checked by the network or service operator before enabling the monitoring of its customers, whose communications are later handed over to a LEA in plaintext. This paper proposes the idea of employing a Digital Wiretap Warrant (DWW), which further protects the civil liberties, security and privacy of LI by ensuring that monitoring devices can only be enabled with a valid DWW, and by encrypting the captured data so only the authorized LEA is able to decrypt those communications. Moreover, in the proposed DWW framework all digital evidence is securely time-stamped and signed, thus guaranteeing that it has not been tampered with, and that a proper chain of custody has been met. In particular this paper proposes how to apply the DWW concept to the lawful interception framework defined by the ETSI LI Technical Committee, and evaluates how the additional security mechanisms could impact the performance and storage costs of a LI platform.     

A glance at digital forensic academic research demographics

Whilst the field of digital forensics is now well established, its research community can be considered relatively emerging in comparison to the associated areas of traditional forensic and computer sciences. As a result, this comment article takes a quick look at the demographics of digital forensics research over the last 20 years, with metadata from 6589 articles being extracted and analysed from Scopus in order to provide a brief insight into this field’s research activity.     

数字经济监管体制创新的导向与路径

数字经济发展求对传统监管体制进行重构,通过监管体制创新来促进数字经济高质量发展.数字经济监管体制创新的基本导向为:始终坚持审慎包容的基本原则,将促进开放共享和鼓励创新作为政策基点、维护市场竞争作为政策重心、确保监管体制与政策动态有效作为政策理念.中国数字经济监管体制创新的基本路径为:建立相对完善的监管法律体系,构建"平...     

Enabling collaborative synthesis in multi-partner programmes

Multi-partner consortia have emerged as an important modality for knowledge generation to address complex sustainability challenges. Establishing effective multi-partner consortia involves significant investment. This article shares lessons from the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), which aims to support policy and practice for climate change adaptation through a consortium model. Key lessons include the need to facilitate collaborative spaces to build trust and identify common interests, while accepting that this is not a guarantee of success; the importance of programmatic leadership to achieve synthesis; and the value of strategic planning in supporting motivation and alignment between partners.     

Investing in multi-stakeholder dialogue to address natural resource competition and conflict

How can multi-stakeholder dialogue help assess and address the roots of environmental resource competition and conflict? This article summarises the outcomes and lessons from action research in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. Dialogues linking community groups, NGOs and government agencies have reduced local conflict, produced agreements with private investors, and influenced government priorities in ways that respond to the needs of marginalised fishing communities. The article details policy guidance in four areas: building stakeholder commitment, understanding the institutional and governance context, involving local groups in the policy reform process, and embracing adaptability in programme implementation.     

Changing knowledge and perceptions of African indigenous vegetables: the role of community-based nutritional outreach

African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) have potential to sustainably address malnutrition, a growing problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Their consumption is however, limited by poor perceptions and lack of awareness of nutritional benefits. There is limited evidence of the effectiveness of community-focused information dissemination approaches in influencing participants’ perceptions and uptake of innovations in AIVs to address malnutrition. This article aims to fill this knowledge gap, using a case study focusing on pastoral communities in Monduli district in northern Tanzania. Target communities participated in a community-based nutritional outreach facilitated by the Good Seed Initiative (GSI), held at Monduli district hospital in September 2014. The results provide evidence of the achievements of the GSI intervention, and the effectiveness of alternative information dissemination approaches.     

The Malian fertiliser value chain post-subsidy: an analysis of its structure and performance

This article examines the structure of the Malian fertiliser value chain and its performance in the context of the national subsidy programme, drawing on a review of the literature, farm household survey, and interviews with fertiliser suppliers. It finds that participants in the subsidy programme use more fertiliser and have significantly higher yields. The number of wholesalers and retailers has risen, but procurement remains concentrated. Poor fertiliser quality is a recurrent problem. The high cost of the programme raises questions regarding its sustainability. Mixed performance reflects the need for better monitoring and evaluation, and transparency in the programme.     

Does online voting change the outcome? Evidence from a multi-mode public policy referendum

Do online and offline voters differ in terms of policy preferences? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of new modes of voting is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n = 5.7 million) and online (n = 1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conducted two surveys to better understand the demographic profiles of who chooses to vote online and offline. We find that policy preferences of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between offline and online voters.