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Against the backdrop of the current political developments in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, such as Ukraine, Poland, and Romania, the question arises as to the role played by economic transformation and the resulting innovation linkages in these countries over the last 20 years. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of economic and institutional dimensions on the development of CEE countries, explicitly distinguishing between European Union (EU) members and non‐members, and thus reflecting the differences in institutions and path dependency. Furthermore, the paper contrasts the performance of CEE countries with that of Western European countries. To achieve these objectives, the impact of factors such as innovation, institutions, and political practices on the economic development of 37 European countries from 2000 until 2020 is followed using fixed effects regression and Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The results of the analysis show the importance of institutional factors such as low levels of corruption, political freedoms, and intellectual property. The effect of institutional variables was particularly pronounced in the case of non‐EU countries, which indicates the particular importance of the development of stable institutions for achieving higher levels of economic development for this category of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic disparities between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi‐ experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city‐upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's gross domestic product (GDP) in the following 4 years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities within 1200 km of Chongqing by about 10%–13% relative to the control cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frankish customs regulations recorded in the tenth‐century 'Inquest on the tolls of Raffelstetten' have long formed a cornerstone of traditional arguments about slavery's role in the early medieval European economic revival. This paper experiments with the application of a more‐than‐human lens to the Raffelstetten record and other evidence to generate new insights into the intimate experience of enslavement and the interspecies networks of relations that shaped the slave trade and slave markets in early medieval Europe. Human and animal entanglements, as revealed in the Raffelstetten record, determined how enslaved people experienced capture, transport, and sale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic impact of resource investments into higher education has been the focus of considerable research in recent years. Many contributions analyse the strength of the connection between economic development and higher education at the local level and the conditions which make certain systems more effective and efficient than others. In this paper, we provide a systematic bibliometric review of the available literature on the subject, various dimensions of this complex issue, constructing and analysing a map of variables used by selected researchers in the field. A summary of knowledge gaps, research limitations, topics explored and applied methods is provided to envisage future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern communication technologies make information more easily and quickly accessible, leading to more transparent and competitive markets. Based on a theoretical model, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the potential impact of online search intensity on asymmetric cost pass‐through. Prices often move as ‘rockets and feathers’: they rise quickly in response to cost increases and they fall slowly in response to cost reductions. A panel threshold error correction model is applied to weekly producer and retail prices of chicken and mutton in Iran. The results suggest that the volume of online searches is associated with a more complete and less asymmetric cost pass‐through from farmgate to retail prices. Thus, online platforms and search engines have the potential to increase competition by bringing prices closer together and reducing profit margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China holds the distinction of being the foremost global consumer of water resources and contends with a significant level of water scarcity. In light of this quandary, China has been assiduously endeavoring to foster water conservation practices with the ultimate objective of reaching a peak point in water use. In this paper, we construct a framework for forecasting China's total water use (TWU) peak path. In this framework, we select influencing factors in terms of both economy and technology to forecast the peak path of China's TWU under six different scenarios, and analyze the economic and technological circumstances at the peak. Our findings indicate that China's TWU will persist in its upward trend based on both the high growth and business as usual scenarios. The projected peak period is estimated to transpire in 2037, 2032, 2030, and 2028, respectively, with the corresponding peak levels amounting to 644.03, 633.93, 625.79, and 620.92 billion m3. However, in the low growth scenarios, China's TWU reached its peak in 2013. The extent of economic development plays a pivotal role in determining the timing and manner of water usage peaking. Early peaking of water usage could potentially result in a loss of gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, technological advancements hold the potential to facilitate a reduction in water use without requiring a significant trade‐off between resource conservation and economic development. The results of sensitivity analysis show that the average acreage of water used for irrigation on cropland, GDP, water use efficiency, and population contribute the most to TWU, while the increase in the proportion of industrial, service, and water‐saving irrigation area can reduce water use. Our analytical framework provides a commonly applicable solution for the water use forecast in areas seeking to reach the water use peak or to achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the processes of market liberalization and globalization increase the confidence of international actors involved in national third sectors, there exists a cosmopolitan tension between ‘mobile elites’ and ‘locked in’ nationals. This paper explores the impact of these tensions on the social enterprise ecosystem in the Republic of Poland and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Focused on the internationalized mechanisms of support, the relationship between the social enterprise incubators and international stakeholders, and power distance inherent to the global versus local debate, the findings suggest that normative isomorphic pressures are causing a fundamental ecosystem shift. The monopolization of support and terms of reference have led to entrepreneurs detrimentally being treated as ‘organizational heroes’ risking burnout, the primacy of international voices within the local context, and the transference of nationals from being ‘locked in’ to national processes to being ‘locked out’ of national support. The research suggests the cosmopolitan‐led transformation of activists into entrepreneurs needs to be more carefully considered, to ensure that enforced alignment to international system does not alienate them from other sources and means of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a discursive analysis of the Conservative green paper for international development, published as part of the closely fought election campaign of 2010 that culminated in a UK coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. The article examines the paper in comparison with the discursive shifts represented by the first Department for International Development (DfID) white paper, published by the outgoing Labour administration in 1997. In contrast with the optimistic and globalist developmentalism that characterised Labour's development discourse, the green paper sounds a more cautious note, using empire to focus on Britain's leadership role in poverty alleviation rather than on global progress, and brings back the full force of developmentalism only at the point where it seeks to legitimate spending on security concerns as a development concern. The article then moves on to examine the green paper's most explicit discursive move, the signalling of a 'post-bureaucratic age'. This move towards increased information provision to promote transparency and accountability is likely to signal greater control by powerful donors in securitised times, albeit with a potential re-scaling of responsibility for poverty alleviation to the poorest local communities. Finally, the article looks briefly at information technologies in relation to the transnational spatiality of civil society, arguing that attention needs to be paid to the more embodied forms of transnational association encouraged by the green paper, and to the selection and impacts of information, which need to be seen in the discursive context of wider Conservative constructions of the 'big society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Books reviewed in this article: Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor – A White Paper on International Development. By the Secretary of State for International Development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fifth‐generation (5G) technology is seen to be a solution for developing countries to improve their quality of services in terms of transportation, education, health, agriculture, and other fields, thereby holding the promises of economic transformation by improving productivity and the quality of life. The paper considers some of the challenges that face operators, investors, and providers when planning to introduce 5G technology to developing countries. The main focus of this paper is the 5G transport network, in particular, the backhaul network. The 5G transport network architectural options and scenarios are discussed based on several standards and previous studies, the problems of existing infrastructures of developing countries are investigated, and new proposed technologies that may help to address those challenges are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores migrant Black African youths' experiences of looking for and finding work in Newcastle, a deindustrializing Australian city. Data for this paper were drawn from interviews conducted with young people who migrated to Australia as temporary and permanent residents. Drawing on concepts of coloniality, racialization, bodywork, and hidden labor, this paper demonstrates how, when looking for work, participants' names get attached to their racialized bodies—a situation which deems them as suitable or not for specific kinds of work. Their strategies of finding work differ according to their migration status; that is, temporary residents draw on their personal networks, whereas some permanent residents with full citizenship rights rely on social welfare support services to find work. However, irrespective of the different strategies used to find work, they all end up doing jobs that they described as "work which others do not wish to do." I argue that these experiences re‐articulate the coloniality of labor because, as workers in these jobs, they play a crucial role in the economic transformation taking place in the city due to deindustrialization. This is not merely because they form part of the workforce responsible for working in unwanted jobs, but because they are also consumers of Newcastle's emerging welfare support and educational services sectors. The paper contributes to an understanding of how race shapes the labor market experiences of racialized youth in deindustrializing labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City officials are continuously working to attract airlines willing to fly to new destinations. The inherent expectation is that a more extensive aviation network stimulates economic growth. This paper investigates empirically the causal implication of this hypothesis. Using data on nonstop flights by origin and destination over the period 1984–2013, we propose a new measure for a metropolitan area's connectivity to the national aviation network. We then use this measure to investigate its contribution to local economic development, as captured by the growth in population, in total employment, in per‐capita income, and new firm entry. To ensure causality, we use instrumental variable methods that exploit geography and destination airports growth as a way to capture the exogenous variation in the likelihood to add new travel routes. Our results suggest that a metropolitan area's air connectivity, resulting from an expansive local aviation network, has a positive effect on population, on employment and on the number of businesses established in that location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the short‐ and long‐run impacts of gasoline price, macroeconomic factors and road length on road traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities in Nigeria. Annual data from 1995 to 2019 and autoregressive distributed lag approach were employed. Results suggest that gasoline price, per capita income, road length and population density significantly influence road safety outcomes. Gasoline price has a positive short‐run impact on crashes, injuries, and fatalities contrary to findings in developed countries. Road crashes tend to decrease when income increases in the short term. Population density leads to improvement in road safety outcomes while road length exacerbates it. Government's policy on gasoline price increase could worsen road safety outcomes unless it is accompanied by improvement in road infrastructure, safe public transport and economic growth, [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of financial development on domestic investment in West African countries. The study uses data from 1985 to 2019 and employs the pooled mean group technique. The main finding of the study is that financial development has a positive effect on domestic investment in the long run but an insignificant effect in the short run. Furthermore, remittances, real GDP per capita and trade openness increase investment rate. The results of causality tests support the view that investment is a channel through which financial development stimulates economic growth. Therefore, it is reasonable for the selected countries to formulate policies that promote domestic credit to the private sector in order to ease liquidity constraints and increase investment and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent withdrawal of the U.S. military from the Republic of Panama has exposed 64,000 ha of lowland forest in the former Canal Zone to possible development. The forests form a 16-km-wide strip reaching 65 km from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean and function as the water supply for the canal and as home to one of the world's richest terrestrial biotas. We present an overview of the distribution of bird diversity in the forests of the canal area based on 10 years of inventories. A total of 498 terrestrial species has been recorded, of which 177 occur only in lowland forests. More species reside in Caribbean- than in Pacific-slope forests and in the largest forest tracts. The Panamanian government, recognizing the importance of the forests for protection of biodiversity and for proper functioning of the canal, has created two national parks and a national monument in the canal area. One large park, Soberania National Park, currently contains 92% of the region's forest-dwelling species. Two large tracts on the Caribbean coast, the Achiote Road forest and the Fort Sherman forest, are not designated as national parks but are recognized as important forest areas. Those two forests harbor species found nowhere else in the canal corridor. Extensive fragmentation, disconnection of forested corridors between foothills and lowlands, and anthropogenic degradation of forests near towns have altered regional bird-community dynamics. Some dynamics occur on large spatial scales, such as the poorly understood movements of elevational and transisthmian migrants. Long-term maintenance of bird species diversity in the canal area will require preservation of the large forest tracts and reestablishment of a forested connection from the canal corridor lowlands to the Chagres lowlands and foothills in the east. Such conservation activities will be challenging to execute given the region's growing human population and desires for a stronger national economy. We recommend protection of remaining forests and active enforcement of protection laws to reduce hunting and further intrusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radically new economic arrangements are needed for just and sustainable transitions to a more environmentally and ecologically resilient world. Yet little progress is being made to imagine the new economy‐environment relations around which resources, actors, and ethics might be configured to enact the novel economic forms needed. This article uses a Social Studies of Economisation and Marketisation (SSEM) approach to examine a suite of differently scaled and structured environmentally focused economic development initiatives in New Zealand. We explore how the initiatives have assembled diverse actors and investment projects into experimental economy‐environment relations. Our account highlights experimentation as a pivotal mode of economisation, and we argue that the initiatives studied by us expose a new experimentation‐led agenda for transitioning to more environmentally and economically just futures. Working with the idea of experimentation in an SSEM framework, we also argue that the diverse initiatives are creating an experimentation infrastructure that provides a more generative platform for novel economy‐environment relations than top–down models of change such as transition pathways. The article opens up a critical politics of environmental economy that focuses attention on emergence, agency, and practice and allows us to reimagine processes of transitioning. This paper brings the Social Studies of Economisation and Marketisation to a suite of diverse environmentally‐focused economic development initiatives in New Zealand. We argue that the initiatives register an experimentation‐led agenda for societal transitioning and that not only is experimentation a pivotal mode of economisation, but it can cohere into an experimentation infrastructure that has a wider collective potentiality, offering us other ways to stimulate processes of transitioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discursive analysis of Great Britain's Conservative Party 2011 Green Paper "One World Conservatism: A Conservative agenda for international development." It offers a comparison of the conception of development in that paper with the 1997 Labour Party White Paper which launched the development of the Department for International Development (DFID). The discourse used to describe Britain's role in promoting global development and reducing poverty is examined.

A total of 94% of lemur species are currently threatened with extinction and more than 17 species of giant lemur are already extinct. To help prevent the extinction of Madagascar's remaining lemurs, Dr. Patricia Wright initiated conservation programs in the Ranomafana region of southern Madagascar in the 1990s. These continued and expanded, and in 2003 were consolidated with Dr. Wright's research activities when Center ValBio ("CVB") was founded in 2003. CVB believes in the "One Health" approach in understanding the relationship between humans and the environment, and one of their core principles is that effective conservation is science‐based. CVB's environmental education (EE) programs (discussed herein) operate in various primary schools surrounding Ranomafana national park (RNP). The all‐Malagasy team consists of long‐term conservation educators as well as young intern teachers, who together address the issues of valuing lemurs and the forests that they require to survive. In this paper, we will describe three of CVB's EE programs and evaluate their impact. The primary tool used to assess impact was an analysis of pre‐ and post ‐intervention test scores evaluated using a Kruskal–Wallis test. We show that these programs (1) are popular, (2) produce concrete outputs that can change rural villages, and (3) improve local knowledge on the importance of biodiversity and sustainable development. Highlights: Local communities benefit from the conservation of a protected area through an environmental education program that has broad goals.Environmental education generates concrete outputs that can change rural villages for the better.Environmental education improves local knowledge about the importance of biodiversity, and offers paths towards sustainable development and income through tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature highlights the importance of export sophistication for economic development. Given the newness of the literature on export sophistication, its determinants are under‐exploited. As a pioneer study, this paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining the effect of infrastructure development on export sophistication. Based on a panel of 45 African countries over the period 2003–2016, the results of the different estimations show that infrastructure, including transport, electricity, ICT and access to water and sanitation, improves export sophistication in Africa. Our results also show that the effect of infrastructure varies at different intervals of the export sophistication distribution. Therefore, improved infrastructure would allow African countries to not only improve their export structure but also achieve sustainable and durable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research evaluates the management efficiency of the European Structural Funds according to whether their productive orientation is based on employment or on economic and social development. The data refers to 2000–2020 for the 28 EU countries. The paper includes an analysis of the influence of the country's governance and economic freedom on the production function associated with the funds received. The results show that there is a technological gap between groups of countries defined by their goodness of governance. On the other hand, there is a positive relationship of economic freedom and the efficiency scores of the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]