Notice of Retraction Impact of the Positive list system on vegetable trade between China and Japan
This article estimates influence of the Positive list system on the Sino-Japanese vegetables trade amount through establishing simultaneous equation model and choosing three-stage least squares method. The results indicated that the Positive list system implemented by Japan has a remarkable negative effect on chinese vegetables export to Japan, but the influence only has a short-term effect and the long-term influence is not remarkable.
[Survey of pesticide residues in imported vegetable products (1992.4-2006.3)].
Pesticide residues in 165 imported vegetable products on the Tokyo market from Apr. 1992 to Mar. 2006 were investigated. Seven kinds of pesticides were detected at levels between Tr (below 0.01 ppm) and 1.0 ppm from 16 samples. There was no sample in which pesticide residues exceeded the MRLs. The salt leaf of grape imported from Greece contained chlorpyrifos and quinalphos, and there was some doubt as to whether the residue levels exceeded the MRLs when the Japanese positive list system for pesticide residues in food was applied. Pesticides were detected from pickles and dehydrated vegetable, but not from products that had been treated with heat and water, such as boiled vegetables and purees. Many samples of products from Asia, and North America area contained detectable levels of pesticides. Residue levels of these pesticides were calculated as between 0.006 and 20.3% of their ADI values according to the daily intake of vegetable products. Therefore, these vegetable products should be safe when eaten in a normal manner.
Deliberative Democracy and the Resource Curse: A Nationwide Experiment in Tanzania
Oil and gas discoveries in developing countries are often associated with short-sighted economic policies and, in response, calls to insulate resource management from populist impulses. We report on a randomized experiment testing methods to overcome this apparent tension between sound resource governance and democratic politics. Soon after Tanzania’s discovery of major natural gas reserves, we invited a nationally representative sample of voters to an intensive public deliberation of policy options featuring nationally recognized experts and small-group discussions. Democratic deliberation reinforced the public’s strong preference for rapid spending of gas revenues, but also increased support for various prudential and economically orthodox measures, including independent oversight of gas revenues, limits on government borrowing, and selling gas abroad rather than subsidizing fuel at home. These effects were driven by deliberation per se, rather than a pure information treatment, and show no evidence of contamination by facilitatoror peer-effects in group deliberations. www.cgdev.org Justin Sandefur, Nancy Birdsall, James Fishkin, and Mujobu Moyo