The School of Economics invites you to a HDR seminar by Maruge Zhao and Xiru Li (University of Sydney)

Water portfolio facing climate change

Abstract

Murray-Darling Basin has one of the biggest water markets in the world and water products provided in the market are various. We build a framework to evaluate the water choices of irrigators and pure investors, especially when facing increased variability in the future climate. Portfolios consisting of different products, such as entitlements with different security levels, water allocation and forward contracts, are assessed based on expected return/cost and volatility. The model is built using trading data from state water register and portfolio optimization method. This study will contribute to the current literature by providing the first quantitative analysis on the returns/costs of different water products. In addition, this research will benefit irrigators and investors by providing insightful advices on what water products they should choose facing future climate change.

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Evaluation of the targeted poverty alleviation program in China, an example of Gansu province

Abstract

China launched its updated poverty alleviation program in 2013, known as the targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) program. A distinguishing feature of the scheme is taking interventions at household-level, based on their characteristics. We combine difference-in-difference with the propensity score matching method and take Gansu province as an example to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the TPA from 2013 to 2016 at household-level.