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Between 1957 and 1990, nearly 100 nuclear reactors were constructed throughout the U.S., and nuclear power currently accounts for 20 percent of electricity production nationwide. Nuclear plants are often constructed in small communities for which they constitute a large source of employment and income. To date, 24 nuclear reactors have undergone decommissioning, and more are expected in the future, particularly as nuclear reactors age and face increasingly strict regulations. This paper examines the effects of nuclear decommissioning over time at the county-level on measures of employment, income, and population using difference-in-differences regression and propensity score matching. Panel data are obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, and cover the years 1975-2014. The analysis finds that nuclear decommissioning is associated with positive and statistically significant increases in employment and per capita income over time. Results suggest that nuclear decommissioning may actually be a positive force in regional economic development, and concludes with limitations of the approach and implications for future research. As an emerging area of research, this paper is meant to build on previous work, as well as to provide a basis for further discussion and debate on the economic future of nuclear host communities and regional economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ongoing academic debate examines the implications of 'developmental patrimonialism' for African citizens. Rwanda is a key case study in this debate, with proponents of developmental patrimonialism and 'party capitalism' arguing that companies owned by the ruling party or the military play positive roles in economic development. This debate often focuses on macro-level, elite politics. This paper instead uses a Foucauldian lens to examine the micro-level politics of pyrethrum production in Rwanda, which is managed by a military-owned company. The company utilizes incentive-based governmental strategies, in line with state discourses, in addition to punitive, disciplinary regimes. The paper demonstrates that state agricultural strategies depend on multiple factors, including multi-scale political tensions between the ruling party's desire for control and its discourse of 'entrepreneurship'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature and origins of state-society relations in sub-Saharan Africa ( SSA). It traces the region's predatory state-society relations to slavery and colonialism and the concomitant extractive institutions, which are not conducive to sustainable economic development. Consequently, attempts to achieve sustainable development have been largely futile. The paper proposes a strategy for transforming the region's economic and governance institutions for inclusive and enduring growth and development. This strategy includes the promulgation and enforcement of coherent international codes and guidelines for state-society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine from a multidimensional perspective the possible existence of a single path that could have conditioned the degree of welfare state development ( WSD) in Latin America. Economic/industrial development, trade-openness, democracy and the strength of leftist parties-labour movement are used as explanatory variables in the qualitative comparative analysis. In contrast to previous findings, this paper shows that there is no evidence of a common path followed by countries with a relatively high/medium WSD. Nevertheless, countries that experienced a low economic/industrial development combined with a low democratic experience were conditioned to have low WSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes the case for the conceptual use of the everyday in economic geography. It does this by firstly demonstrating the explanatory potential that lies in attending to the lived experience of economic development and, secondly, the ability of the everyday to occupy a meso-level analytical position that is sensitive to the agency of economic agents without undermining the role of structural forces. As a result of the in-depth, and detailed nature of the everyday, the explanatory powers offered by this initial focus on the micro-scale is useful to those economic geographers wishing to pursue a more qualitative and holistic understanding of the economy and of economic processes. Therefore, this paper contributes to a much longer project in economic geography concerned with broadening how the economy is defined and therefore studied. Specifically, it compliments and builds on the work of economic geographers engaged in practice-orientated research before turning to the work of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau in demonstrating the analytical richness of the everyday beyond a focus on social practice. In other words, the paper argues the need for economic geography to also attend to the lived experience of everyday life, the meanings and values ascribed to it, and not just socio-economic practices themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of crime on regional economic growth in Mexico. We estimate a growth model using a spatial panel data model and test for the presence and type of spatial interaction, as proposed by Elhorst. Our results suggest that a two-way spatial Durbin model best fits the data, crime exerts a negative total effect on economic growth across Mexican states, particularly homicides and robbery, and significant spillover effects seem to reinforce the negative impact on regional growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though voluminous empirical studies examine the linkage between energy consumption (EC) and economic growth, the impact of human capital on EC is scarce. This paper investigates this research issue by using annual data of 73 countries over the period 1990–2014. Furthermore, we classify 73 countries based on income (developed, developing and emerging economies) and regions (Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America). The empirical results indicate that human capital negatively affects EC. This implies that EC can be lowered by improving human capital, which ultimately can help in energy conservation and environmental protection. Policies promoting substitutability between energy inputs and human capital, and structural policies like improving economic efficiency and improving human capital through educational levels can help economies in achieving greater sustainable growth with low EC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding what stimulates agribusiness firms to lobby the government and what makes the government responsive to lobbying are the two issues that have been discussed extensively in the debates concerning determinants of biotechnology policy. This paper examines the factors influencing agribusiness firms' lobbying and government response using econometric modeling on a new data set of 160 leading agribusiness firms in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries in China. The results show that approximately 10% of agribusiness firms lobbied the government about biotechnology policy and regulations and over half of those that lobbied received a verbal or written acknowledgment from government agencies. Seed and feed companies are more likely to engage in lobbying than chemical companies. Owning GM patents not only has a positive impact on firms' lobbying activities, but firms with these patents are more likely to receive a government response to their lobbying efforts. The experience of selling GM products does not significantly influence lobbying activities or response from the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid sociopolitical and economic progress taking place over the past decade in the remote multi‐ethnic and multilingual Derung community in Dulongjiang Township, in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China, the local Derung people, one of the less populous ethnic groups in China, have been experiencing noticeable changes to their language ecology. This paper sets out to explore in particular the status and functions of English in its interaction with other languages in the Derung's language ecology, through investigating the local linguistic landscape and carrying out a survey of language instruction in the local elementary and secondary schools. The study reveals that English has become the second most frequent language after Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) and further explores the reasons leading to this rise in the status and the functions of English as part of the changing language ecology in the Dulong River valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Zealand government approach to regional development and the economy more broadly has oscillated from the 1970s economic growth and investment focus to 1980s neoliberal neglect, followed by the more recent rediscovery of the regions' importance in national economies, all with tenuous outcomes. This paper explores the changing scope of regional development initiatives by successive New Zealand governments over the last 60 years to show a pattern of opportunism and neglect that suggests regional development is more aligned to electoral priorities than regional success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the impact of financial development on economic growth in the Union Économique et Monetaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA) and non‐UEMOA countries. It also examines the finance‐growth nexus before and after the formation of UEMOA, as well as the indirect effect of economic union on economic growth through the financial sector. The study reveals a significant difference in the finance‐growth nexus between UEMOA and non‐UEMOA countries. Specifically, financial development has a robust positive impact on growth in UEMOA countries, while the impact is tenuous in non‐UEMOA countries. However, we find no remarkable difference in the finance‐growth nexus before and after the formation of UEMOA. We also reveal that economic union has no robust indirect effect on economic growth via the financial sector. The economic implication is that UEMOA could have economic benefits, but financial development is not a channel through which it influences growth. Therefore, it is necessary to reposition the union so that it can enhance the impact of finance on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic and development zones (EDZs) on the productivity of incumbent firms in China. To deal with the selection issue, I first take into account potentially different selection mechanisms across two popular types of EDZs—economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) and high‐tech development zones (HTDZs)—by relying on multiple treatment propensity scores matching techniques. Next, I apply the difference‐in‐differences estimator to the matched sample and conduct an event study analysis. The results show that the respective effects of ETDZs and HTDZs on firm productivity are positive, but subject to a nonlinear trend over time. The size of the productivity gains depends critically on the type of EDZ, however. A new HTDZ (ETDZ) leads to an average productivity gain of up to 30.2% (18.4%) for incumbent firms in the 5 years after the zone was created. These findings suggest that the size of productivity spillovers for spatially targeted firms differ quite significantly depending on the strategic development and policy goals of the EDZ: HTDZs that focus on promoting indigenous‐based factors of learning lead to higher productivity spillovers compared with ETDZs that focus on promoting extra‐local linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the evolution of topics in economics and their geographical specialization by analyzing 13,233 papers from seven top journals between 1985 and 2012 and their forward citations. The share of U.S. publications declines from 75% to 64% with a corresponding increase of the European share from 12% to 24%. We use topic modeling and document the evolution of the discipline over 27 years. We estimate, with a quasi‐structural model, the citation lag distribution for 18 different topics and three large geographical areas. The modal citation lag is about 6.7 years in the entire sample and 4.8 years for citations from the top 100 journals. We quantify (1) the home bias effect in citations, (2) how it fades away over time, (3) the long lasting impact of U.S. publications vis‐à‐vis other geographical areas, and (4) the higher speed of diffusion and faster obsolescence in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mainstream real business cycle (RBC) model, labor can be viewed as temporary employment since the firm's demand for labor behaves directly in response to stochastic productivity shocks in each period. This paper provides a tractable way of analyzing fluctuations in permanent and temporary employment over the business cycle, as well as the underlying driving forces. This inclusion of heterogeneity helps reconcile the RBC model with the U.S. data given that temporary employees in general only account for a small proportion of total private‐sector employment (about 2%–3%). We draw an explicit division between permanent and temporary employment and resort to this separation to account for stylized facts that characterize a two‐tier labor market. In particular, with regard to the U.S. labor market, our benchmark model can well explain the motivating facts: (1) temporary employment is much more volatile than permanent employment, (2) the share of temporary employment (the ratio of temporary to aggregate employment) exhibits strong pro‐cyclicality, (3) permanent employment lags by two quarters on average, and (4) the correlation between temporary employment and output is stronger than that involving the permanent counterpart. The quantitative analysis suggests that our proposed channels explain the main facts well and the model further provides plausible reasoning for a firm's labor hoarding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the lens of institutional theory to explain the launch and evolution of Austin, Texas's technology‐based economy. The case underscores the importance of context, contingency, and the evolution of key local development organizations in explaining how regional economic development trajectories can change and evolve. The case history provides insights into how economic development networks form and operate to "set off" processes of industrial specialization and agglomeration and how they can promote successful adaptation to change in technology and industrial structure. The Austin story further suggests a "stage" process of regional technology‐based evolution where the development of industrial agglomerations linked to a substantial local research base is seen as a necessary precursor to increasing endogenous innovation and start‐up activity. Successfully navigating these stages is bolstered by the formation of institutions and networks that are durable, strategic, and adaptive, and which, at the right time, recognize and support entrepreneurial firm development to help sustain technology‐based growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although existing studies questioned the simple positive correlation between the technology transfer speed and the benefits, they have been widely condemned for lacking empirical evidence. Using the patent transfer data at the city scale in China, and distinguishing fast from slow by dividing technology transfer speed into four levels, this paper attempts to answer the question in terms of city economic growth, which is whether the faster is the better. Panel regression results show that for economic growth of city, the speed of technology transfer does not mean that faster is better. In other words, technology transfer maintaining a relatively rapid speed (more than 1 year and less than 2 years) can promote city economic growth, although the evidence is weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The new institutional literature widely acknowledges the benefits of growth‐enhancing institutions but rarely discusses the path of institutional reform. While good institutions stabilize the structure of exchange and decrease uncertainty in market transactions, institutional reform may involve institutional volatility. If institutional volatility increases uncertainty, it can mitigate the benefits of reform. Using a sample of 89 countries from 2000‐2015, this paper empirically examines the effects of institutional volatility on economic growth. We find that institutional volatility decreases economic growth, particularly during liberalization for countries with low quality institutions and low income. In fact, a one standard deviation increase in volatility decreases growth by about 0.50 percentage points. This finding is robust to multiple estimation techniques and omitted variable bias. Evidence is provided suggesting that this effect is partially mediated through volatility's impact on private investment. These results support prior works that policy makers should pursue economic freedom, but our work indicates they should do so along a stable reform path to maximize economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Even though exact predictions of the future are impossible in a non‐deterministic world, technology foresight provides relevant indications of possible future developments. Technology foresight methods therefore play a central role in innovation management for a wide range of industries, including the chemical industry. The extremely broad spectrum of methods is constantly being further developed. Usually, combinations of several methods are used, each with very specific approaches to solving a problem. Within the scope of this paper different methods have been examined exemplarily in the field of energy research. Publication analyses provide indications of existing and emerging trends. Creative methods, on the other hand, can be used for scenario development, since possible disruptive events can also be taken into account. Scenario development requires not only an examination of technological aspects, but also taking into account possible sociological and economic developments. The socio‐economic context is critical for the implementation of a technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of agrarian change have long debated the nature of capitalist transition in the countryside, including whether the deepened interlinking of local, national, and transnational economic activities make past trajectories of agrarian transformation unlikely to reoccur in the present. This essay makes the case that Giovanni Arrighi's work has much to add to our understanding of the agrarian question in global historical perspective. We focus in particular on Arrighi's research on trajectories of change in the Calabrian region of southern Italy, and his essay "Capitalist Development in Hostile Environments." In this piece, Arrighi and co‐author Fortunata Piselli develop two key insights. The first is that the pathways to capitalism are diverse, non‐linear, and historically contingent such that within one country—or, in the case of Italy, a single subnational region—multiple trajectories can be found. The second is that the outcomes of capitalist transition vary based on a country's position in the international hierarchy of wealth, meaning that agrarian transformation is compatible with both economic development and underdevelopment. We describe the three methodological principles that enabled Arrighi to develop his analysis of capitalist transition and explain how the papers collected in this special issue reflect and extend the Arrighian approach to agrarian political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the economic impact of a university in a country characterised by the scarcity of significant data and quantitative information. It uses an input–output model that permits the use of gross domestic product (GDP) deflators to portray the economy of years following a year for which a complete data set input is possible. Using commonly available administrative data, the model not only allows for the calculation of monetary multipliers but also employment multipliers that play a major role in the educational sector. The study highlights the role of Higher Education in promoting economic development, even under difficult political, economic and security conditions, where lack of stability is the norm and aims to demonstrate that not only well‐known historically grounded universities have significant economic impact but also smaller emerging universities play an important role in the development of their national economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to shed new empirical light on infrastructure's role in economic growth using a semiparametric smooth coefficient model to avoid specification problems in some existing studies and admit infrastructure‐induced nonlinearity and parameter heterogeneity. Estimated by a three‐step procedure that controls for endogeneity in both the regressors and the environmental variable (infrastructure), the model is applied to the empirical context of telecommunications infrastructure in a fast‐growing economy, China. The results reveal that telecommunications contribute to output through various sources, namely its neutral and non‐neutral impacts. The total/net effect is positive but largely decreases with telecommunications stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents stylized facts on agro-manufacturing, especially the food, beverages and tobacco (FBT) manufacturing value added (MVA) in Africa and empirically analyzes its determinants using data for a panel of African countries over the period 1990-2011. We also estimate for the sample of sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa during the same period. The analysis is extended to food and beverages (FB) only MVA. The analyses point to large differences in sector shares both across countries at different levels of economic development. Using a two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression method, it finds that a large proportion of the cross-country variation in FBT MVA and FB MVA can be accounted for by country characteristics, policy and institutional variables. In particular, the paper finds that an inverted U-shaped relationship with real per capita GDP for FBT MVA and FB MVA, except in FB MVA in North Africa where the reverse is true. Key positive drivers of FBT MVA for the entire continent include government consumption expenditure, household consumption expenditure, social globalization, dependence on oil, minerals, natural gas, coal and forest resources, arable land, and renewable electricity output. Major negative drivers are trade openness and population size. The policy implications and lessons of these results for increasing FBT and FB MVA and feeding Africa are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, economic growth, agricultural land used and exports in Germany. We use time-series data between 1970 and 2012 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) methodology to test for cointegration in the long run. Results show that there is a quadratic long run relationship between N2O emissions and economic growth, confirming the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for Germany. Agricultural land area affects N2O emissions positively, whereas exports affect emissions negatively. The turning point is $27,880, which is within the sample and implies that Germany is in the decreasing part of the curve of environmental degradation. The paper shows that, contrary to testing the EKC in less developed countries, mitigation of N2O emissions does not negatively affect growth in Germany. As such, it is feasible to undertake any conservative policy in order to reduce emissions without major consequences on economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate-related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally-occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), representing country-year-level observations over the period 1980-2007. The study finds that low-income countries are significantly more at risk of climate-related disasters, even after controlling for exposure to climate hazards and other factors that may confound disaster reporting. Following the occurrence of a disaster, higher income generally diminishes a country's social vulnerability to such happenings, resulting in lower levels of mortality and morbidity. This implies that continued economic development may be a powerful tool for lessening social vulnerability to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last year, a central issue in regional economic growth debate has been represented by the empirical analysis of Verdoorn's law related to the long-term dynamic relationship between the rate of growth in output and the productivity growth due to increasing returns. Several papers have tested Verdoorn's law on European countries as well as many other world economies. Recently, attempts have been made to provide foundations for a spatial version of the original law specification. The main contributions were dedicated to the inclusion of spatial dependence in the economic model. Surprisingly, in the literature on Verdoom's law the analysis of the spatial heterogeneity is not often considered. The aim of this paper is the regional analysis of the spatial dependence and heterogeneity in Verdoorn's law, identifying spatial regimes that can be interpreted as clusters of productivity growth in European regions at NUTS 2 level. To pursue this objective, an optimization algorithm for the identification of groups is used. This constitutes a modified version of Simulated Annealing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Okun's Law using a spatial panel approach on NUTS 3 data for Great Britain over the period 1985-2011. The basic specification used as a starting point for the spatial analysis is the relationship between real output growth and unemployment rate changes. This is extended to incorporate spatial lags, to test for the presence of commuting effects, and to accommodate spatial residuals dependence. We estimate various spatial panel models, controlling for heterogeneity across areas, and find consistent evidence of a significant Okun's coefficient. Results also show that spillover effects from labour mobility and interregional linkages matter and have important implications for the validity of the empirical law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between commodity dependence and human development measured by the human development index (HDI). Commodity dependence negatively affects human development through several channels, including the negative secular terms of trade affecting commodity-dependent developing countries (CDDCs), slow economic growth, high macroeconomic instability, and political instability. The paper finds that although the effect of commodity dependence on human development is negative, on average, this relationship is complex. It changes with the level of dependence as well as the type of commodity a country depends on. This negative effect is strongest in countries where commodities account for more than 60 percent of total merchandise exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of financial innovations on the stability of money velocity. The paper contributes to the existing literature in three ways; first, we develop a simple analytical framework for money velocity taking into account the effect of financial innovations. Second, we test the model on Ugandan time series data using the ARDL bounds testing approach. Third, we check for the stability of the long-run money velocity function. Results show significant negative and positive effects of financial innovations on the money velocity in the short and long run, respectively. In addition, the long-run money velocity equation is stable despite the financial innovations that have evolved over time. Furthermore, other macroeconomic determinants of money velocity, including real income, the 91-day treasury bill rates, inflation expectations and the exchange rate exhibited a significant and positive long-run relationship with money velocity except for real income. These results suggest that financial innovations have not altered the long-run stability of money velocity in Uganda. Thus, given the importance of financial innovations in enhancing the access to financial services, we recommend that more technological advances and diversification of financial products should be enhanced so as to improve financial sector development and overall economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal is the main energy in China, which has already played and will continue to play an important role in the national economy. Coal geology, as a practical science, has an access to gradual development with the growth and prosperity of China. From the meaning of the coalfield geology, this paper introduces the research progress and status of coalfield geology, including the research on coal basin, stratigraphy of coal-bearing stratigraphie sequences, coal-forming process, structural geology of coalfields, and exploration and development status of coal resources. The paper specially focuses on coal-forming process, including coal formation in terrestrial facies and transgressive / regression events, and introduces new technology which has been applied to research progress in structural geology of coalfield. This paper puts forward a new comprehensive exploration system for coal exploration and reviews regional coal geological exploration results in recent years, such as coal-poor regions of seven provinces in southern China and the coal resources area in northwest China, which will be an important coal-producing area in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an intra-metropolitan approach to analyse the impact of urban spatial structure on local economic growth. Focusing on the Barcelona metropolitan region (BMR) between 1986 and 2001, we estimate a municipal employment growth model in which dynamic agglomeration economies related to urban spatial structure are considered using distance to employment centres, to assess metropolitan effects, and distance-weighted variables, to measure neighbourhood effects. The results obtained show the existence of neighbourhood specialization economies and metropolitan urbanization-localization economies fostering local growth. All of this leads to the paper's main conclusion: urban spatial structure is important for economic growth in an intra-metropolitan context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political institutions are an essential component to explain income variation. Brazilian municipalities are characterized by a great contrast in the colonization process and its impacts on the current income level and distribution, and other development aspects. This study analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of the relationship between institutional quality and the municipalities' economic development. We use a spatial moving window method applied to weighted regressions—Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). We find evidence that good institutions increase income and other variables related to economic development. In addition, the institutional quality influence on economic development measures is distinct across the Brazilian regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to study the influence of related variety on the economic performance of Spanish provinces during the international crisis (2009–2013) and the post‐crisis period (2014–2018), with the goal of contributing to assess the validity of the skill‐relatedness approach. The research is based on labor flows in a sample of more than one million affiliated workers. Our results confirmed the influence of related variety on the growth of GDP and employment in knowledge‐based industries, in protecting against unemployment, as well as on the creation of new firms, although with marked differences according to the economic cycle. Robustness issues and possible lines of progress using this novel methodology are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to examine the effects of investment in human capital, as funded by EU cohesion policy, on economic development in Poland at the local (LAU 2) level, that is, at the level of municipalities. We found evidence that human capital investment has a positive effect on local revenues. This effect is stronger than what is observed for the assistance programmes not related to human capital. The impact of intervention on migration balance is in turn not significant. We also observed that the effectiveness of the assistance within the cohesion policy depends on existing regional preconditions for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key Messages: The cultural narrative of how German immigrants have shaped today's technology economy and entrepreneurial culture in Kitchener‐Waterloo appears questionable.Members of Kitchener‐Waterloo's German community neither have strong professional ties with other members of that community, nor close connections with other regional communities.Kitchener‐Waterloo's German community has been absorbed into the region's self‐image and creates common reference points for joint initiatives. This paper investigates the relationship between culture and economy and scrutinizes cultural narratives of economic development in Kitchener‐Waterloo, southern Ontario. It argues for the need to carefully conceptualize the link between culture and economic development to avoid boosting deterministic stereotypes. In the case of Kitchener‐Waterloo, a notable hub of high‐technology firms and technology development, a link is frequently drawn between the German community and culture and the region's technology economy and entrepreneurial culture. A social capital analysis, however, reveals that the German ethnic community neither has the strong professional internal ties nor the external social ties to other regional communities that could constitute a lead role in economic development. Rather, the legacy of Kitchener‐Waterloo's ethnic German population has been absorbed into the region's self‐image and creates a feeling of belonging and common reference points for joint social and economic initiatives in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secular discourse about problem of economic inequality rests on two foundational premises that are problematic from a theological point of view. First, individuals enter into society with the aim of bettering their own condition. Second, bettering one's own condition entails accruing more wealth and power so that one can fulfill more of one's desires. In this paper I argue that insofar as these premises shape market behavior, they actively promote excessive economic inequality. Ethical responses to the problem of economic inequality that do not challenge these assumptions are unlikely to effectively promote justice. A theological response to the problem of economic inequality should work to promote cultural change by reminding us that genuine human flourishing depends on communal ties and the higher human goods that material wealth is properly meant to support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compare three functional regression models from a growth curve perspective to predict the relationship between two economic variables, specifically we compare a functional concurrent model, a functional historical model and a functional autoregressive model (FAR). The dependent and the independent variables are cumulated over the annual time window for the growth curve analyses. These models are used to predict exports (real) for the South African economy in terms of electricity demand. The data analysed consist of 33 years of exports (in ZAR million) at annual quarterly frequency, and electricity demand (in GwH) at monthly totals. Exploratory analysis included phase‐plane plots for the two series. For the prediction exercise, the baseline concurrent model was evaluated against the other two models, and their performance compared using the root‐mean‐square error (RSME) measure, the relative performance in terms of the ratio of the RMSEs, and a Kolmogorov–Smirnov based hypothesis test to compare the distributions of the RMSEs of the models. Our results show that from the growth curve perspective, for the prediction of exports in terms of electricity for the SA economy, the FAR model of lag(1) outperforms both the concurrent model and the historical model by far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine and analyze the impact of financial development and foreign bank penetration on African economies. An empirical study for the period 1995–2015 is conducted using the system GMM estimator. Our empirical results indicate that foreign bank entry has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the countries of North and Southern Africa, while in the other two regions considered in this study (West and Central Africa, East Africa) the impact is negative and rarely significant. In addition, our results show that the development of financial markets has a positive and significant effect on economic growth only in the Southern African region. The paper concludes that policymakers should focus on long‐term policies to strengthen the financial sector to truly meet the needs of African people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last ten years Turkey has gone through two different types of crises, namely the global economic crisis of 2008–2009 and the (geo)political crisis after 2015. This paper analyses the resilience of the economy of the tourism city of Antalya to both crises by focusing on the development of GDP of its inbound tourism countries and the births and deaths of both tourism and non‐tourism firms. The impact of the global economic crisis was moderate. The (geo)political crisis of 2016, by contrast, had a strong impact on Antalya's economy. The city's tourism arrivals strongly decreased, new firm formation stagnated, although the death rate of firms did not increase, and the sectoral diversification of new firms declined. Antalya conforms more to the engineering type of resilience to both crises than to the adaptive one which requires ability/willingness to shift into new sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all economically disadvantaged—"less developed" or "lagging"—regions are the same. They are, however, often bundled together for the purposes of innovation policy design and implementation. This paper attempts to determine whether such bundling is warranted by conducting a regional level investigation for Canada, the United States, on the one hand, and Europe, on the other, to (a) identify the structural and socioeconomic factors that drive patenting in the less developed regions of North America and Europe, respectively; and (b) explore how these factors differ between the two contexts. The empirical analysis, estimated using a mixed‐model approach, reveals that, while there are similarities between the drivers of innovation in North America's and Europe's lagging regions, a number of important differences between the two continents prevail. The analysis also indicates that the territorial processes of innovation in North America's and Europe's less developed regions are more similar to those of their more developed counterparts than to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the extent to which cultural diversity induced by internal migration affects urban innovation in China. We measure cultural diversity by an index of "plurality" of provinces of origin. Using the 2000 and 2005 population census data, we find that innovative activities are higher in cities with a higher degree of cultural diversity. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that cultural diversity, not only of the highly skilled, but also of the low skilled, has a positive effect on innovation. Our study contributes to the scarce evidence on the effect of cultural diversity on innovation in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulators have long been interested in protecting consumers borrowing for a home as it is likely the single greatest financial obligation they will undertake. In this paper we examine the approach taken in Australia to mandating the disclosure of simple comparison data to reduce the complexity involved in the home loan decision. This article highlights that while the form of the legislated disclosure significantly improves decision accuracy, the failure of the regulator to account for the consumer's purchase behavior and lenders' motivations has undermined its effectiveness. We provide a number of recommendations for how to rectify these failings, principally that regulators need to consider the role of borrower information search and lender motivation as part of any regulatory reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically examine the efficiency of a cost‐share agri‐environmental program through a farm life cycle lens. Faced with a growing environmental impact from agricultural production, the farmer must decide when and how aggressively to invest in environmental capital. The steady state of the optimal control problem reveals the trade‐off between allocating farm profits to consumption versus environmental improvements. A payment from a cost‐share program reduces the time to investment in environmental capital, and also permanently increases the farmer's level of investment. A lack of targeting results in inframarginal farmers being paid more than the minimum amount that is required to induce investment. The portion of both the marginal payment and the average payment that induces new investment declines as the government's share of the payment increases, and this decline decreases overall program efficiency. Despite this inefficiency, a larger payment from a cost‐share program is shown to decrease the farm's environmental impact in both the short and long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the magnitudes of border effects on Canada's beef exports, and assesses the prospects for market access. The empirical analysis relies on a gravity model derived from a supply‐based framework, and implements different econometric methodologies. It covers the conventional measurement of border effects that is determined relative to the intranational trade baseline. Also, it sets alternative baselines to estimate the wedge between the border effects on beef exports of Canada and those of other countries. The estimated parameters are used to carry out different scenarios to examine the tariff‐related and nontariff border effects, and to evaluate the impacts of trade preferences for Canada's bilateral beef exports. The results reveal significant trade impediments facing Canada's bilateral beef exports to many large markets (e.g., EU‐15, Japan, Republic of Korea, China, and Russia), and they often indicate that the effects of tariff reductions become considerably larger when coupled with reductions in nontariff impediments. Also, they underscore the significance of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)'s preferential market access for Canada's beef exports. The export opportunities for the Canadian beef industry that are generated through lower trade barriers would, however, decrease when trade barriers facing other beef‐exporting countries are reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial development is influenced by the dynamics of multiple factors which have remained insufficiently explored up to date. In view of this, an attempt is made in this paper to investigate the impact of internet adoption on financial development in sub‐Saharan Africa, using Nigeria and Kenya as case studies. The dynamic ordinary least squares and vector error correction mechanism methods were employed in the study which revealed that the internet, complemented by financial openness, exerted a significant positive impact on financial development in the period 2000–16. The null hypothesis which states that the internet does not encourage financial development is therefore rejected. It follows that the level of financial development in both countries, and indeed most countries in sub‐Saharan Africa, could be enhanced by adopting appropriate policies that encourage more inclusive use of the internet. The policy recommendations of this study therefore include (i) relaxing the stringent requirements for licensing internet operators in order to make more services available for financial transactions, (ii) integrating internet technology into the national infrastructure framework in order to sustain its application, (iii) fostering local skills and expertise that will be maintaining internet infrastructure and (iv) providing a legal framework that protects personal information and ensures responsible usage of internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the seminal paper by Rajan and Zingales in 2003, a plethora of studies have been motivated to establish whether the simultaneous opening of trade and capital borders leads to financial sector development. We test whether the simultaneous openness hypothesis is valid for Nigeria, with a focus on the banking sector and stock market. Using annual data from 1990 to 2015 and an instrumental variable regression estimation technique, we show that the simultaneous increase of trade and financial openness limits banking sector and stock market development. Thus, there is no empirical evidence to validate the simultaneous openness hypothesis in Nigeria. It also shows that trade openness is more beneficial for banking sector and stock market development in Nigeria than financial openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies on international trade highlight the role of innovation on international exchange but do not capture the effect of technological innovation when unobservable common factors (UCFs) are considered. This paper examines the long‐run relationship between technological innovation and international exchange using panel data for eight African countries over the period 1981–2013. The non‐stationarity and cointegration between technological innovation, international exchange, public investment, real gross domestic income and foreign direct investment were examined, controlling for cross‐sectional dependence and heterogeneity between countries. The results suggest that technological innovation in Africa remains low after controlling for UCFs, while public investment, real gross domestic product and foreign direct investment have significant impact on international exchange. Moreover, the results from the homogeneous and heterogeneous estimates, with and without UCFs, show that ignoring UCFs is likely to bias the coefficients. These findings reveal that African countries should invest more in public infrastructures and research and development to upgrade their capability To play an active role in the international market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial deepening is universally considered to be one of the vital means to trigger inclusive growth, in economies the world over, Tanzania being no exception. However, the lack of traditional collateral among the poor has made it virtually impossible for them to have access to financial services particularly in the formal financial institutions. It is in this context that the informal financial groups (IFGs) are so crucial in filling the financial inclusiveness gap among the poor in Tanzania. It is thus crucial that the efficacy of IFGs in improving the well‐being of the poor is assessed. It is in this context that the present study employs a quasi‐experiment mixed methodology to answer research questions. Findings have categorically shown that membership to IFGs has a positive and significant impact on various socio‐economic variables. Efforts to intensify education and training activities in IFGs, and their access to loans are some of the key recommendations that this paper suggests. It is hoped that the newly promulgated 2017 National Microfinance Policy shall be implemented to that effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Product/service‐systems (PSS) that focus on selling service and performance instead of products are often mentioned as means to realize a circular economy (CE), in which economic growth is decoupled from resource consumption. However, a PSS is no implicit guarantee for a CE, and CE strategies do not necessarily lead to decoupling economic growth from resource consumption in absolute terms. Absolute resource decoupling only occurs when the resource use declines, irrespective of the growth rate of the economic driver. In this forum paper, we propose a two‐step framework that aims to support analyses of PSS and their potential to lead to absolute resource decoupling. In the first step, we present four PSS enablers of relative resource reduction that qualify as CE strategies. In the second step, three subsequent requirements need to be met, in order to successfully achieve absolute resource decoupling. Conditions and limitations for this accomplishment are discussed. Danish textile cases are used to exemplify the framework elements and its application. We expect that the framework will challenge the debate on the necessary conditions for CE strategies to ensure absolute resource decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A substantial literature exists on the effects of military expenditures on economic growth, yet no study has analyzed the effects of military occupation other than in anecdotal cases. This paper uses a panel of 214 countries from 1950 to 2013 to study how economic growth is impacted by different forms of military occupation. Transformative occupations aim to establish institutions to promote stability once the occupation ends, while subdual occupations are more malevolent in their objectives. Our results show that transformative occupations produce positive growth in occupied countries after the occupation period concludes. Separating these effects into the short run and long run, we find that while countries subject to a subdual occupation experience a short‐run increase in growth at the end of the occupation, countries with transformative occupation experience long‐run increases in growth. These findings are robust to the inclusion of traditional drivers of growth. Policy implications suggest that regional conflicts that are solved using military intervention may have lasting effects on growth as long as the intentions of the occupying force are transformative in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews how income inequality at the micro and regional levels influenced the inequality in educational outcomes for children and adolescents in China over the past decades. First, we find that the economic condition of the family influences children's and adolescents' education through home educational resources and parental involvement. Second, income disparity is significantly correlated with the regional differences in educational outcomes. Finally, the differences in the development of child and adolescent education between different regions are mainly due to the uneven distribution of educational resources, which is closely related to the public education financing system and local economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]