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This paper discusses issues related to the development of technologies and the relationship of this process with economic processes. Due to the rapid digitalization, the importance and role of artificial intelligence are growing. At the same time there are many problems and they are considered in this paper: unemployment of technical workers, a security problem that is associated with the confidentiality, the existing neural networks cannot be suitable for use in all industries etc. When using the generalization method, the authors have made relevant conclusions and recommendations for using Artificial Intellect: to solve the following universal tasks: automatic translation; getting business intelligence; recognition of visual signs; character recognition; information extraction; understanding and analyzing texts; image analysis; ensuring information security and protection against cyber-attacks; speech recognition; robotic tools for the implementation of tasks at different levels and in different fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are a central instrument in international development cooperation and of key importance in guiding donors' policies towards southern recipients. However, many aspects of the PRSP have been criticised by a variety of development stakeholders. A checklist of 85 questions has been developed to analyse the inclusion of aspects of sustainable development in PRSPs and to point to sustainability challenges and opportunities. It thus facilitates targeted advice and quality improvements. The checklist was applied to a selection of 12 PRSPs of developing countries. The results reveal an insufficient integration of the ecosystem services concept, of biodiversity and of climate issues. Property rights, gender issues, water and energy are as a rule well elaborated. PRSPs show significant variation in the integration of environmental sustainability issues. Sustainability assessments can contribute to significant improvements between first and second generation PRSPs provided the assessments are supported by a strong institutional framework and a dedicated political commitment towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causal relationship between economic growth and defence spending has attracted considerable attention and has been the subject of many empirical studies. Hoping to contribute to the existing pool of literature, this paper examines the relationship between military expenditure and growth in the case of Cyprus, a small island economy, for the period 1964-99. The findings reported suggest the presence of bi-directional instantaneous causality between defence spending and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capitalist globalisation has shown the need to define the semi-periphery as a new category that transcends the traditional core–periphery division. This paper aims to characterise this new category and understand the role it plays in the reorganisation of the production process, in addition to the effects this specific participation has on the global economy. Building on previous theoretical developments, this paper aims to analyse and identify these specific features, examining them through a set of economic, social and technological variables by applying principal component and cluster analyses. In doing so, the empirical analysis identifies a group of countries that have not been able to turn their current or recent economic dynamism into higher levels of socio-economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building a new development pattern based on the "double-cycle" is a major strategic plan of China. Under the background of the new development pattern of the "double-cycle" and the context of environmental constraints, this paper tries to explore the impact of marine economic development on marine cultural industry and marine innovation development, the extent of the impact of marine cultural industry on marine economic growth, and the internal relationship between them under the new development pattern of double circulation. In this paper, Fujian Province is taken as the research object to construct an indicator system of the marine culture development to reflect the living standard, employment level, and spiritual and cultural levels of people in the marine area, and the external influence of the marine economy and marine culture industry is taken as the indicator variable to measure the integrated development. The internal changes are regarded as the index to assess the integration level of the two, and the evaluation theoretical model of the dynamic evolution level of the marine economy and marine cultural industry is constructed. The vector autoregression model and impulse response function are used to study the interactive correlation between the growth of the marine economy and the development of the cultural industry. The results show the following: In the long run, there is a cointegration relationship between the marine culture industry and the gross ocean product (GOP), which is a long-term balanced and stable relationship. The development level of the marine economy and the development of marine culture industry are mutually influencing and promoting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Forest resource Metabolism Network model isdeveloped for ecological and economic analysis. • Exploitation index is developed to reveal the weaker sectors in the ecological relations. • A case study of Guangdong province, China isconducted to illustrate the potential benefits. • Scientific Basis are provided to allocate forestresources and stabilize industrial structure. Abstract Integrating forest resources into the socio-economic system correctly and reasonably is of vital importance to tackle the increasingly scarce forest resources. In this paper, forest resource input-output model and forest resource metabolism network model are established to provide new insights into the relationships among the systems, industries and sectors related to forest resources. A promising indicator named exploitation index is developed to reveal the weaker sectors in the ecological relations, which will further help to provide better corrective actions and integrated strategic measures. Guangdong is taken as an example to verify the availability of the model and solve the problem. The results show that the primary manufacturing consumes more direct timber, while advanced manufacturing and the service sector utilize timber indirectly. In addition, Guangdong forest metabolism system shows a negative correlation and the whole network does not achieve the mutualism state, leading to competition relationships between pairwise sectors that should not appear, such as Forestry sector and Papermaking and Paper Products sector. These results provide the corresponding reference for helping the decision makers to allocate forest resources and coordinate ecological and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the circular economy is emerging as a strategy for sustainable development. What is important in promoting the circular economy is to assess its current level and take measures for assessment. This paper discusses some methodological issues in comparing and assessing the efforts for the circular economy at the international level. To this end, the authors explain the theoretical premise related to the assessment of efforts for the circular economy, establish an indicator system for assessing the efforts for the circular economy, and suggest a method for comprehensively assessing the efforts for the circular economy by country. The conclusions are that (a) the comparative evaluation of activities related to the circular economy by country requires a unified standard or category that can cover these activities, including all factors that meet sustainable development; the outcome, process, and guarantee of the circular economy, and this can be the circular economy effort and (b) the circular economy effort of a given country must synthetically be assessed by using the indicators capable of showing all aspects. These conclusions may contribute to establishing a new theoretical foundation that can include various aspects of the circular economy activities and to setting a practical and methodological foundation for evaluating each country's various activities related to the circular economy at the international level and can serve as a policy basis for identifying the weak and strong aspects of circular economy activities at the domestic or international level and establishing technological and economic measures to strengthen the weak aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between culture, history, government policies and the development of economic institutions. Specifically, the paper discusses the impact that history and culture, including the influence of Confucianism, have played in shaping the economic institutions of South Korea and the People's Republic of China. Research results indicate that culture, history and government policies all played a role in shaping the organizational structure of these two East Asian nations. However, China's economic landscape is dominated by small and medium-sized, family-oriented firms, particularly in the rural parts of the country. The South Korean economic landscape, on the other hand, is dominated by large conglomerate firms called Chaebols which are also dominated by one family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge accumulation is considered a crucial factor for generating sustained economic growth. Therefore, both knowledge spillovers and externalities are considered drivers of economic development. Standardization is a vital feature of technological progress. It involves triggering adoptions of innovation by reducing market uncertainty between consumers and producers. Standards cannot be implemented without using technology covered by the claims of patents. This paper investigates knowledge spillover through the inward and outward knowledge flow from technology standards. Studies have investigated the quantitative and qualitative effects of technological standards. However, there still exists a lack of understanding regarding the knowledge spillover and externality that results from technological standardization. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap in the literature by elucidating the codified knowledge spillover that underlies patented technologies at the technical, organizational, and industrial standard levels. This paper explores the characteristic patterns of knowledge spillover associated with technology standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The model-based optimization of the waterflooding process has found significant scope for improving the economic life-cycle performance of oil fields due to geological and economic uncertainties compared to conventional reactive strategies. This paper proposes a new frequency-based system identification method to identify a robust multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) surrogate model for an oil reservoir under waterflooding process so as to describe all the injector-producer relationships. In contrast to the conventional modeling methods, the proposed data-driven modeling approach uses the available injection and production rates as the reservoir input-output data. Meanwhile, it includes a structured-bounded uncertainty model in the form of norm-bounded state-space function blocks to account for uncertainties, facilitating the identified model employed in robust control methodology using linear matrix inequality (LMI) problem formulation so as to eliminate the effect of model uncertainty. The identified MIMO surrogate model is integrated with a desired nonlinear net present value (NPV) objective function in a multi-input, single-output (MISO) system configuration to synthesize a model-based optimization prediction for economical operation and production of oil from oil reservoirs under both geological and economic uncertainties. The introduced approach is implemented on the "EGG model" as a well-recognized three-dimensional synthetic oil reservoir with eight water injection wells and four oil production wells. The results demonstrate that economic performance prediction of the oil reservoir, having an uncertain permeability field, lies in the evaluated bound of the uncertainty model. Waterflooding is a well-known method for increasing oil production. A significant amount of time and effort is required even for high-performance processors to numerically simulate a reservoir with thousands of grid blocks. On the other hand, there is a high uncertainty level in oil reservoir model-based economic optimization due to limited information about geological model parameters. Employing robust control methods can provide robustness for the performance and stability of the control system against model norm-bounded uncertainty. However, in all standard identification methods, it is assumed that the uncertainties in the model can be accommodated in the form of noise. Therefore, the challenge of using the models estimated from the standard identification approach in robust control methods can mainly be considered an essential subject. This paper presents a new frequency-based modeling approach to identify a surrogate model and uncertainty modeling for the waterflooding process with the ease of being employed in robust control methods. A desirable relationship is obtained between the injection rate and the economic production function to model the dynamics of the reservoir using the identification of the surrogate model. Then, the concept of structure bounded uncertainty modeling is presented to describe the model geological uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do states pursue industrial policies in the context of China's rise? Examining Indonesia and Malaysia's mineral processing sectors, we argue that these countries illustrate two different pathways that states take to bolster their industrial policies. Indonesia has followed the leading sector strategy to increase domestic nickel processing capacity and decrease reliance on resource exports. Chinese firms and the Indonesian government built the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park to house nickel smelters, fostering a new leading sector. Chinese capital in smelting follows what Albert Hirschman has called 'intermediate investments', maximising forward and backward linkages across the Indonesian economy. In contrast, Malaysia has followed the dual economy strategy, where semi-finished goods are imported and assembled into finished ones to be exported abroad. Chinese firms and the Malaysian government established the Malaysia–China Kuantan Industrial Park to import, process and export steel products. However, due to the dual economy strategy, the industrial park impairs the activities of domestic steelmaking companies and inhibits the potential build-up of smelting capacity. In sum, through an examination of an industrial park in each country, our paper connects the literatures on industrial policy and Chinese capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The study provides a new conceptual framework to account for pro-poor economic development. • This is achieved by extending political settlements analysis with a critical investigation of growth–poverty linkages. • We apply this framework to the recent trajectories of Laos and Rwanda. • We show to what extent Laos and Rwanda have implemented pro-poor development strategies and how they have done so. • This is the first comparative study of the political economy of Laos and Rwanda. Political settlements analysis is a framework that helps us understand different development trajectories. While it has been used to study the politics of pro-poor growth, there has been little explicit engagement with the economic mechanisms that may alleviate or reproduce poverty. This article extends the political settlements approach to that effect and presents a new, integrated framework to account for pro-poor economic development by conceptualizing political conditions as well as key mechanisms – employment and social provision – linking growth and poverty. This framework is empirically applied to scrutinize two recent development 'success stories', those of Laos and Rwanda. Both countries have emerged from a violent past to record over two decades of fast economic growth. The paper assesses how they have done so and to what extent their development strategies have been pro-poor. We demonstrate that the combination of economic growth and of centralized and ideologically committed ruling coalitions has enabled large-scale investments in social service provision that have spearheaded significant reductions in multidimensional poverty in Laos and Rwanda. Moreover, key governance capabilities have enabled both countries to achieve a certain degree of structural change. Yet, this change has been misdirected to extractive industries and hydropower (Laos) and high-end services (Rwanda) with weak employment and limited forward and backward linkages, compounded by a relative lack of productivity growth in the historically more relevant agricultural and manufacturing sectors. This has intensified land pressures and vulnerability, leading to increased inequality in Laos and sustaining already high levels of inequality in Rwanda. Using the ambitious conception of pro-poor development that underpins our integrated framework, we problematize these growth trajectories and argue that neither of them has been pro-poor. We recommend that researchers advance political settlements analysis to examine and strengthen the possibilities for social justice-oriented and bottom-up pro-poor development strategies more systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: China now faces an increasingly aging society which may exert economic pressure in the long run. This study illustrates the spatial pattern and evolution of population aging and economic development in China. The coupling coordination degree of population aging and economic development at the national and provincial levels are calculated and demonstrated, and the spatial patterns and characteristics are investigated. Methods: This paper presents a coupling analysis of the elderly population rate (EPR) and per capita Gross Regional Product (GRPpc) in China by using the coupling and coordination model. Further, the spatial pattern and evolution of population aging and economic development are investigated based on the standard deviational ellipse. The collected data is at the level of provincial administrative units in mainland China covering the period 2002 to 2020. Results: The results reveal the spatial difference in the coupling and coordination degree between EPR and GRPpc across provinces. The eastern coastal areas are higher than the central and western regions of China. The orientation and directions of EPR are more than GRPpc, indicating that the polarization in population aging is more severe than economic development. Significant positive correlations between coupling coordination degree and sustainable competitiveness are detected. Conclusions: Policymakers should fully consider regional differences and sustainable development in policy formulation of China. The western and northeastern provinces should be given priority in the regional sustainable development plan. At the same time, the coordination between population aging and economic development also requires to be examined especially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While promoting the economic growth, energy has also brought pollution problems to the world environment, which has gradually become a bottleneck impeding sustainable economic development. In view of the rapid evolution of urbanization and industrialization, economic growth is increasingly dependent on the energy consumption, the development of the two is difficult to coordinate, and the internal contradictions are becoming increasingly serious, which hinders the sustainable development of economic growth. This study establishes the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth according to the energy Kuznets curve and studies the future trend of China's sustainable development through the comparative analysis of the energy Kuznets curve of the United States and Germany. The results show that, at the turning point of energy consumption, China's energy economic rate is higher than that of Germany and the United States. In addition, in terms of urbanization rate and industrial structure, although China's tertiary industry has made a breakthrough, it is still lower than that of the United States and Germany, but the level of urbanization rate has made significant progress. In short, China has obvious advantages in future economic development and has a late developing advantage compared with the United States and Germany. This paper makes an empirical analysis of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in OECD countries and finds out the turning point of energy consumption, so as to provide a theoretical basis for coordinating China's energy consumption and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2019 Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to three scholars on the grounds that their pioneering use of randomized control trials (RCTs) was innovative methodologically and contributed to development policy and the emergence of a new development economics. Using a critical feminist lens, this article challenges that conclusion by interrogating the storytelling practices deployed by "randomista" economists through a critical reading of a widely cited essay by Esther Duflo, one of the 2019 Nobel recipients, on the relationship between women's empowerment and economic development. The paper argues that the limitations of randomista economics have given rise to a particular way of thinking characterized by piecemeal analysis, ad hoc resort to theory, indifference to history and context, and methodological fundamentalism. It concludes that the randomista argument that broad-based economic development alone – without focused attention to women's rights – will lead to gender equality has not been borne out by recent data. HIGHLIGHTS Despite claims of impartiality, Duflo's interpretations of evidence and the language she uses indicate that the randomista method and narrative is not objective or impartial. The randomistas' treatment of preferences as random and idiosyncratic ignores what feminists have long espoused: that the formation of preferences derives from entrenched social constructions. The randomistas' claims to methodological superiority result in a discounting or dismissal of findings from nonexperimental studies in favor of experimental studies that report the same findings. Duflo's main argument discussed in this paper is that while gender equality is desirable in its own right, it is better achieved through gender-neutral policies because gender-affirmative policies "distort" the allocative process and lead to efficiency costs. Yet, these so-called distortions stem from historical structures that have curtailed women's productive potential and protected male privilege. In other words, patriarchal discrimination introduces structural costs that are unlikely to be visible when the focus is on individual economic actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital accumulation is the first and foremost important factor to induce economic growth and development in a country. Yet, not every country in the world is bestowed with abundant capital. Thus, in this instance foreign direct investment (FDI) emerges as a good option to supply the necessary amount of capital to countries which are deprived of the necessary capital stock. Moreover, FDI, besides being a catalyst of economic development, is a significant means of transferring technology, knowledge, managerial know-how and constitutes new potentials to create employment opportunities, increase the production volume and enhance the foreign trade balance. Furthermore, the impact of FDI inflow on the economic growth is researched in this paper for Brazil by means of utilizing various econometric methods for the period of 1970–2017. According to the results of this study there is no positive causality between economic growth and FDI inflow in the short-run. Yet, there is a positive and significant causality between FDI inflow and economic growth in the long-run as well as this stems from the fact that investments lead to positive results gradually in the long-term which also means that investments shall be converted into production as much as possible. Moreover, the novelty of this paper is that it is one of the most up-to-date studies to research FDI – economic growth correlation on Brazil in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-profit organisations (NPOs) are prominent in stimulating local economies - more particularly in rural areas - thus this paper documents the role of non-profit organisations that support agriculture in fostering local economic development and utilises a case study of the Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre. The theoretical framework of this paper employed hypotheses that include: economic theories of the NPO; the co-management or co-production theory; and the stakeholder theory of the NPO. This paper employed a qualitative research design. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with Siyavuna representatives and the LED officer from the Hibiscus Coast Local Municipality. The findings of this paper reveal that Siyavuna is an organisation that is highly active in LED activities. Its representatives regard the organisation as a LED project. The findings further demonstrate that Siyavuna has been striving to establish relationships and partnerships with local government since the time that it had been operating as a project and had not yet been registered as an NPO. The results reveal that within this relationship is a lack of trust and further issues such as conflict, in terms of respective community development approaches: Siyavuna uses the "bottom-up" approach, while local government uses a "top-down" tactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing population age structure has a significant influence on the economy, society, and numerous other aspects of a country. This paper has innovatively applied the method of compositional data forecasting for the prediction of population age changes of the young (aged 0–14), the middle-aged (aged 15–64), and the elderly (aged older than 65) in China, India, and Vietnam by 2030 based on data from 1960 to 2016. To select the best-suited forecasting model, an array of data transformation approaches and forecasting models have been extensively employed, and a large number of comparisons have been made between the aforementioned methods. The best-suited model for each country is identified considering the root mean squared error and mean absolute percent error values from the compositional data. As noted in this study, first and foremost, it is predicted that by the year 2030, China will witness the disappearance of population dividend and get mired in an aging problem far more severe than that of India or Vietnam. Second, Vietnam’s trend of change in population age structure resembles that of China, but the country will sustain its good health as a whole. Finally, the working population of India demonstrates a strong rising trend, indicating that the age structure of the Indian population still remains relatively “young”. Meanwhile, the continuous rise in the proportion of elderly population and the gradual leveling off growth of the young population have nevertheless become serious problems in the world. The present paper attempts to offer crucial insights into the Asian population size, labor market and urbanization, and, moreover, provides suggestions for a sustainable global demographic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world has been globalized much more than ever before and this process integrates the economies of countries. Moreover, one means of integrating the economies of countries is trade. In this instance, the export-led economic growth emerges as a considerable determinant. Export-led economic growth is beneficial for the countries since it facilitates the inflow of foreign exchange, increases production, creates new employment opportunities and enhances the overall commercial volume. In this study, the correlation between export-led economic growth is explored for Brazil. Therefore, according to the findings of this paper as well as econometric and statistical applications, there is a bi-directional causality in Brazil since 1960s between economic development and exports in the long-run (this could also be termed as feedback); furthermore, in the short-run, there is export-led economic growth. The novelty of this paper is that, it is one of the latest studies investigating export-led economic growth for Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The paper employs newly constructed structural reform indexes that focus on reforms "genuinely" implemented. • Reforms under consideration increase productivity growth, with real sector reforms having the most sizeable effects. • The pace of reforms matters since being a "strong reformer" is associated with clear productivity dividends. • The relationship between reforms and productivity is nonlinear and shaped by certain firms' characteristics. • There are complementary effects between reforms except for trade and financial reforms. Abstract This paper assesses the effects of selected structural reforms on labor productivity growth for 37 developing countries over the 2006–14 period. It combines newly constructed reform indexes using the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangements dataset and firm-level productivity from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The paper highlights the following results. Structural reforms under consideration in this study, i.e., financial, fiscal, real sector, and trade reforms, significantly improve productivity at the firm level. Interestingly, real sector reforms have the most sizeable effects on firms' productivity. The relationship between reforms and productivity is nonlinear and shaped by certain firms' characteristics, including financial access, a distortionary environment, and firms' size. The pace of reforms matters since being a "strong reformer" is associated with a clear productivity dividend for firms. Finally, except for financial and trade reforms, all macroeconomic reforms considered are bilaterally complementary in improving firms' productivity. The findings are robust to several sensitivity checks including alternatives measure of productivity, and a counterfactual experiment based on unsuccessful reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments around the world are adopting inclusive growth agendas. The ambition to align economic growth ambitions with broader-based social benefits is increasingly embraced by corporations to limit the ‘negative externalities’ and enhance the ‘positive externalities’ of their operations. Therefore, micro-level corporate strategies and macro-level national ambitions meet at the meso-level of networks and clusters. This requires societal spheres to collaborate and search for alternative governance constellations. In this discourse, port development is only recently receiving attention. In March 2018, ports around the world signed the World Ports Sustainability Program declaration, which aims to contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), whilst a number of national port (master) plans have started to include social along with environmental standards. Extant studies on partnering and stakeholder inclusion in port development are proliferating but are primarily aimed at environmental rather than social (inclusion) issues. This paper adopts an exploratory research design to consider conditions for inclusive port development. A novel taxonomy considers port development as a driver for inclusive growth, where partnerships are the missing link between micro-level business strategies and macro-level effects in the port region and economy at large. This paper shows the first findings and delineates areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public Works (PW) programs are popular development interventions due to their potential ‘double dividend’ of transferring income to the poor while at the same time creating public infrastructure. However, PW programs are costly and demanding from an administrative perspective and it is not clear whether they are the most cost-effective intervention to reduce poverty. Therefore, an assessment of PW programs needs to understand which benefits and costs these programs entail relative to other interventions, and whether or not the extra cost can be outweighed by generating benefits over and above those of alternative interventions, such as Cash Transfer programs. This paper seeks to identify these benefits, and develops a conceptual framework that highlights four mechanisms through which PW programs could strengthen the productive capacity of poor households beyond the effects of Cash Transfers: productive investments, labor market effects, skills development, and increases in trade and production. It then reviews available empirical evidence from PW programs in developing countries. The results suggest that PW programs can induce productive investments via income and insurance effects when the program is sufficiently reliable and long-term. PW programs can also have positive welfare effects by raising wages, but potential adverse effects on labor markets have to be taken into account. Implicit or explicit training components of PW programs do not seem to increase the employability or business earnings of participants. Finally, there is only scant empirical evidence on the productive effects of the public infrastructure generated by PW programs, and further research is crucial to understand and quantify those effects. This paper concludes that PW programs are only preferable over alternative interventions if they generate substantial investments among the target group, if there is clear evidence that private-sector wages are below equilibrium wages, or if the public infrastructure generated in PW programs has substantial growth effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on developmental states has built theories of growth-enhancing strategies through a mutually constitutive state-business relationship and institutionalised expertise through a professional bureaucracy. Whilst most evidence bears on the East Asian context, recent empirical work has focussed on state agency and new industrial policies in response to global market integration. Our paper contributes to this debate by exploring multiple patterns of state enterprise reforms that have enabled governments to generate competitive domestic firms. These reforms, then, lead to new theoretical insights as regards the diverse institutional arrangements co-constituting state-state relationships across countries and sectors. Overall, the paper views state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as complex organisations that bear new developmental capacities rather than vessels of rent-seeking interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon the renowned media reports-based “Economic policy uncertainty” (EPU) index and analyzes its Granger-causal interrelationships with consumer confidence and aggregate economic activity. Employing a heterogeneous panel Granger causality test on data from 13 world countries, the authors find that: (1) the analyzed countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of the found causality patterns; (2) the EPU index does not Granger-cause the overall economic activity in the vast majority of the analyzed economies; (3) consumer confidence is confirmed as a significant predictor of aggregate output in all countries; (4) news media uncertainty and consumer confidence largely represent two distinct psychological transmission channels. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that consumer confidence (i.e. first moment, expectation) is considerably more important for the aggregate economic activity than economic uncertainty (i.e. second moment, variance). Two robustness checks are provided (an alternative lag structure of the Granger causality test, and the usage of monthly (industrial production) instead of quarterly (GDP) economic activity data). The obtained inferences are quite robust to both model alternations. Additionally, the leading characteristics of EPU index are found to be less pronounced than those of GARCH uncertainty and forecast disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia’s several major mining booms since the 1840s have impacted positively on national economic growth and non-trivially on the competitiveness of other sectors of its economy. This paper shows the latter to be consistent with economic theory only when sectoral policy developments are taken into consideration. It reveals several features that make the sectoral composition of Australia’s economy unusual. One is that the manufacturing share of GDP was unusually high until protectionism was phased out from the 1970s. Another is that the farm sector continued to enjoy a strong comparative advantage despite mining booms and high rates of assistance to import-competing manufacturers. Also, the agricultural and services sectors’ shares of GDP remained fairly constant rather than diverging during 1860-1960. The paper concludes by drawing out implications for future policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the broader setting of urban and economic development that links ports and cities in Europe and aims at enhancing our understanding of the port‐city interface. A relational view is taken for linking local developments and policies with overarching, more remote spheres of influence and impact, which can be considered both beneficial and critical for the port and the city. In order to illustrate the argument, a framework of three issues is applied to discuss the port‐city interface: first, the role of ports as economic engines of their wider region; second, the cruise ship industry as a market segment that re‐connects port and city; third, semi‐political bodies and institutions that play key roles as intermediaries and knowledge brokers. The paper finally discusses the implications of relationality for governing the port‐city interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper focuses on community development and its relationship to eco-tourism as a means of creating a sustainable future for local Cuban communities. If communities control local resources to create economic opportunities for local goals, there is a greater chance that community development will be more effective and sustainable. Local empowerment can play a key role in community development through ecological and cultural tourism. The focus of this paper is Cuba's potential to develop into a major ecological and cultural tourism center within international tourism. Recent policy announcements regarding the intention to diversify Cuba's economy and move people into private enterprise will require new employment opportunities, especially those with lower opportunity costs and resources. The growth of small paladares (restaurants run by self-employed owners) and casas particulares (rooms for rent in private homes), which provide low environmental impact and resource use, are compatible with ecocultural tourism's emphasis on the local. In an era of increasing environmental costs and resource scarcity, eco-cultural tourism offers a sustainable alternative to conventional tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the evolution of industry structure in the World Bank’s eight high performing Asian economies (HPAEs) displays the U-shaped relationship between manufacturing concentration and per capita income widely held to foster economic development. Increasingly prosperous HPAEs have long been hailed as models for success by other emerging economies. Focusing on a regional group of high performing economies enables us to relate policies used by successful HPAEs directly to observed patterns of manufacturing diversification and provide policy guidance to emerging economies.Design/methodology/approach A robust locally weighted scatterplot smoothing procedure is employed to generate the U-shaped relationship between manufacturing concentration and level of economic development. Policies used by the most successful HPAEs are discussed.Findings The relationship between manufacturing concentration and level of economic development is found to be U-shaped. Diversification of manufacturing is a prerequisite for successful economic development. Countries further along the economic development path such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan made extensive use of active and selective interventionist policies to diversify manufacturing before eventually specializing in a narrower range of export activities.Practical implications Emerging economies should follow examples set by the most successful HPAEs that demonstrated significant government assistance is required to foster economic development.Originality/value The paper is the first to investigate the evolution of manufacturing concentration over the economic development path HPAEs. Success enjoyed by HPAEs holds important lessons for developing and emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to evaluate if the Latin American structuralist approach is still relevant to understand capital accumulation dynamics of peripheral countries and their insertion in the global value chains. It's a theoretical paper that strives to improve the building blocks of structuralism with the incorporation of elements from different approaches to establish a nexus to understand capital accumulation dynamics in the periphery. Considering the relevance of technological accumulation, its impacts over the productive structure and over the international insertion, we strive to analyze factors that perpetuate income diversion in relation to the center. Under this perspective, we conclude that the particularities of peripheral economies changed their form of manifestation without effectively overcome the dependence relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-banking deposit taking institutions play a vital role in the economic development of Mauritius and it is thus central to ascertain the determinants that commonly effect on the overall profitability of these institutions. This paper investigates empirically the elements that conclude the profitability of Mauritian Non-Banking Deposit Taking Institutions (NBDTIs) for the period of 2007-2015 based on the set of information acquired from the annual reports and financial accounts of NBDTIs while bearing in mind internal and external variables. The empirical examination uses the accounting measure Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) to represent NBDTIs' indicators. The outcomes obtained by employing multiple linear regression model and Generalised Least Square on panel data to the sample show that internal variables explain largely the variation in profitability. The research discovers that with ROE, capitalisation, and size, deposits and real interest rate are substantial to influence the profitability of the NBDTIs while GDP is not conclusive. On the other hand, with ROA it was found that size, capitalisation, deposits and macro-economic variables such as real GDP growth rates and real interest rate have significant impact on NBDTIs' profitability. Conversely, it is to be noted that these institutions listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius have no effect on the profitability. The implication of this paper is that profitability of NBDTIs is influenced by size, capitalisation, deposits as well as the macroeconomic surroundings such as GDP and real interest rate prevalent in the nation. The verdicts of the paper clinched that the variable used in investigating the profitability of Mauritian NBDTIs lead to a significant increase in their profitability. For this reason, executives of NBFIs must take into matter these features in their administration strategies since they have the capability to considerably effect on profitability. Forthcoming research might also need to contemplate other measures of risks so as to broaden the understanding on the concerns established in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are increasingly affected by migration which raises new questions for urban development and planning. In the paper at hand, this issue is addressed from two perspectives: First, we stress the high social, representative as well as economic potential of ethnic economies and the emerging neighborhoods, showing that they serve migrant communities as well as urban development. Second, we bring in perspectives from the ‘planning for diversity’ and ‘multicultural planning’ discourses into the German debate. This paper takes the planning conflict on the development of the Dong Xuan Center (DXC), Germany's largest Vietnamese-run trade center, into an Asiatown as empirical basis. It examines legal implications for the German context and therewith contributes to the ‘planning for diversity’ discourse from a non-multicultural setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remittances are a critical source of foreign exchange for developing countries. As the volume of remittance transfers to many countries surpasses that of foreign private capital and official development assistance (ODA), there is a consensus that remittances have been a key stimulant of economic growth in many developing nations. With data from 1970q1 to 2017q4, this paper analyzes the impact of remittances on Nigeria's economic growth. Remittances from Nigerians are estimated to reach $24.3 billion in 2018, ranking second only to oil exports as a source of foreign exchange. To determine the responsiveness of output growth to remittances (REM), the empirical model draws on Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz (2009) and other studies which use gross fixed capital formation as a proxy for investment in physical and human capital, external sources of capital represented by foreign aid, FDI, and openness of the economy as measured by the ratio of the sum of imports and exports to GDP. For this study, the model is modified to include a vector of other control variables that affect real GDP [used as proxy for economic growth]. These variables include domestic investment (INV); openness (OPN), measured as the ratio of exports plus imports to GDP; FDI; and exchange rate (EXCH). Unit root tests were conducted on all the variables of interest and showed that the variables were nonstationary in their levels but stationary after their first difference at the 5% level of significance. Next, the appropriate lag length was determined, and an error correction model was estimated to account for the dynamics of the model. The variables included were four lags each of ΔGDPt, ΔREMt, ΔFDIt, ΔINVt, ΔEXCHt, and ΔOPNt. The study finds that worker remittances have a positive impact on economic growth in Nigeria, with a 1% increase in REM increasing RGDP by 0.0238%. Remittances in the short and long run are statistically significant and cointegrated with economic growth, but with low elasticities of 0.02 and 0.03, respectively. To fully harness the benefits of remittance inflows, the Nigerian government should reduce the costs of receiving funds sent by Nigerian emigrants overseas and also provide an environment conducive to investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the economics of ridesourcing (or app-based ride-hailing) with a particular focus on the US. It brings together the rather dispersed literature on the subject focusing on the economic characteristics of the underlying industry and sets this within the broader context of transportation economics. In particular, it sorts out the realities of ridesourcing from some of myths that were perpetrated in its early days and, in many cases, still persist. It considers some of the empirical evidence that has emerged regarding the key parameters that determine the way Uber and the like operate, and the welfare implications of this, together with comments on some of the regulatory reactions to the new transportation platform. It concludes by suggesting some ways in which recent developments in economic could move forward our understanding of the industry as technologies and markets change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]