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India's textile industry is among the largest in the world and contributes significantly to India's GDP and economic growth. As the second largest total exporter globally after China with more than...

This paper probes the nexus between solar energy technology, carbon intensity of energy structures, economic expansion, and carbon emissions (CO2) throughout 1990-2017 in China. The study utilized the vector auto-regressive (VAR) approach to co-integration testing and vector error-correction models to identify the most effective method for reducing CO2 emissions. Results from the Granger causality (GC) suggest a unidirectional causality between the variables. The test of impulse response function (IRF) constituted in the VAR technique was also applied in this study. The results indicate that energy structure intensity and economic expansion positively affect carbon emissions, while solar energy technology negatively affects carbon emissions. Simultaneous IRF analysis demonstrated that solar energy technology, energy structure carbon intensity, and economic expansion all have long-term effects on carbon emissions. The study concluded that when the economy expands, it influences CO2 emissions. Also, there exists a positive impact on CO2 emissions from the number of solar patents, but was seen to be decreasing gradually. The policy implications were also stated.

Context Transnational alcohol corporations (TACs) employ a range of strategies to achieve their business objectives, including attempts to frame perceptions of their activities in media debates. TACs aim to achieve a favourable regulatory environment by presenting themselves as socially responsible actors. However, the need to secure financial investment means they must also emphasise their potential for growth. This article investigates tensions between these objectives in coverage of the global alcohol industry in the UK print media. Methods This article examines coverage of the world's four largest TACs in five British daily newspapers and one industry publication between March 2012 and February 2013. 477 articles were identified for analysis through keyword searches of the LexisNexis database. Thematic coding of articles was conducted using Nvivo software. Findings Two conflicting framings of the alcohol industry emerge from our analysis. The first presents TACs as socially responsible actors; key partners to government in reducing alcohol-related harms. This is targeted at policy-makers and the public in an attempt to shape policy debates. The second framing highlights TACs' potential for economic growth by establishing new markets and identifying new customer bases. This is targeted at an audience of potential investors. Conclusions A fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of these framings, reflecting the tensions that exist between TACs' political and financial strategies. Alcohol industry involvement in policy-making thus involves a fundamental conflict of interests. Consequently, the UK government should reassess the prominence it currently affords to the industry in the development and delivery of alcohol policy.

When construction craft workers consider potential career alternatives, overall job satisfaction is a fundamental factor that influences their retention and productivity. This paper analyzes changes in job satisfaction and job preferences of craft workers in the US construction industry across successive economic recession–expansion cycles. The analysis used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) collected from 1974 to 2014 and compared job satisfaction and preferences of construction craft workers with those in other industries. The authors found that job preferences of the sampled construction respondents changed with each successive recession–expansion cycle and that the desire for high income became more prevalent than that for a sense of accomplishment in physical work, which has traditionally been the top job preference among construction workers in general. Overall job satisfaction among sampled construction respondents was equal to or slightly exceeded the overall job satisfaction of sampled respondents in other industries. Industry craft recruitment efforts can use these insights to design future recruitment and retention strategies.

The target of this research is to obtain a vivid description about partnership of the government, private sector and community and about level in influence of factors determining effectiveness of partnership of the government, private sektor and community for local economic development in Province Sulawesi Utara. Fundamental problems of this research is a lowering role of each are governmental sector, private sector and community to braid cooperation link and less be it is his effective of partnership of the governmental sector, private sector and community. The research was carried out in Propince North Sulawesi and 168 questionnairess were distributed to the fisherman or producer fish cakalang. Methods of the research is a method of explanatory survey. Data that were used are Quantative data. Technically analysed data by using a Path Analysis. The result of this study indicate that a whole, eight of the independent variable perceived in this case: (1).The bureaucracy behaviour, organizational behavioural, economics infrastructure, professionalism, profitability, participate, quality of human resources and social cultural was influence effectiveness of partnership, governmental sector, privat was influence effectiveness of partnership, governmental sector, private sector and community at marine fisheries in development of local economics. (2).Management of the effectivenss of partnership,governmental sector, private sector and community increase the marine fisheries fish cakalang, (3).Partnership governmental sector, private sector and community can be increased development of local economics. Result is increasing in powering of communities in this case the organizational behavioural and social cultural by using the power of bureaucracy behaviour, economics infrastructure, professionalism, profitability, participate, quality of human resources anf for a that element most in active to supporting the development of local economics.

This paper aims to depict the economic expansion strategy [1] deployments for OBOR home and abroad as completely and digitally as possible in the following 3 aspects: inner/outer regions, financing sector and China HSR; further makes analyses and explanations on the above 3 strategic layouts, e.g., Xinjiang and Fujian main hubs, HSR relations between AIIB and OBOR, China HSR cooperation with the countries and regions along the ways of OBOR in where China views HSR as the key to acquiring and exploiting varied resources such as energy, mineral resources, high-tech, financing, infrastructure and agriculture, etc., HSR falls within one of the core benefits of China; visualizes a close loop framework of OBOR, overcapacity production industries, HSR line construction status quo as well as the near future development sketch map, etc. via figures and tables; and furnishes the OBOR economic expansion strategy with 5 valuable suggestions finally. The aim of OBOR is to transfer the domestic excess capacity, excess foreign exchange reserves and excess manpower with the following competitive advantages, e.g., capacity, cost, differentiation and resources acquirement/ exploration to the outside world.

Pakistan's recent economic acceleration together with rapid rates of population growth is having a significant impact on the country's energy supply/demand balances. Energy supplies in turn affect the pace and pattern of the country's economic expansion. Drawing on the empirically-based complex links between energy and the economy, several alternative scenarios of growth and energy needs are developed in an attempt to answer several key questions. In particular, what are some of the key interrelationships between sources of energy demand and supply? What are the economic growth consequences of alternative energy availabilities and, in turn, how do these growth patterns affect the subsequent energy supply and demand patterns? What energy strategies are suggested by the interconnection between the country growth requirements and energy needs? Are these significantly modified under rising or falling energy prices? Based on this analysis, several guidelines are drawn for the country's future energy policy.

This paper examines the archaeological, palynological and textual evidence for economic prosperity in the Anatolian countryside in Late Antiquity. Thanks to the separate analysis of data for coastal and inland regions, it shows that we do not see any substantial differences in the functioning of the rural economy between these two geographical zones. Therefore, the new demand from Constantinople for agricultural produce or a local economy’s proximity to a long-distance exchange network, cannot explain fully the observed phenomena. The vitality and complexity of local economies must also have played an important role in the economic expansion of Anatolia’s late antique countryside.

This issue begins by presenting a “Forum on the Financial Crisis.” The financial crisis, many commentators argue, can be traced to the deregulation of the financial system pursued by the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, then continued and deepened under the Bush Administration. Trevor Evans explores this thesis, examining the patterns of economic growth and contraction since 1980. He argues that “the economic model pursued in the United States since the 1980s has resulted in a massive reconcentration of income to the benefit of those at the very top,” a process that intensified even further from 2002 until the crisis. The expansion in the scale and influence of the financial sector was critical to this development.

Profound and rapid changes in the costs and risks of international trade are now widely acknowledged to be a potent source of domestic political conflict. By altering the relative prices of goods available from world markets, these changes alter the rewards that flow to different factors of production from different economic activities. These distributional consequences of changing levels of trade, in turn, alter the configuration of interests in the domestic political economy, strain existing political alignments, and enable the construction of new political coalitions. Thus, global changes in the economy, such as the transportation and telecommunications revolutions in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries or the collapse of international trade and finance during the interwar years, will have global consequences as they reverberate within and through the domestic politics of all countries that trade on world markets.

The sources of growth in any country can be examined from several different perspectives, each suggestive of policy actions undertaken by the government: (1) the factors of production--the relative contribution of labour, capital and the like to overall output; (2) the major sources of demand--consumption, investment, exports; and (3) the sectoral contribution to growth--the contribution made by agriculture, manufacturing, etc. With regard to the sectoral contributions to growth in Pakistan, Burney (1986) found (over the period 1960-85) that the commodity-producing sectors (agriculture and manufacturing) accounted for then 40% of the growth in GDP, the major crops being the main source of the varying contribution of agriculture, while in the case of manufacturing, the large-scale sector's output accounted for more than 60% of the contribution. The Pakistan economy has gone through a number of major changes since 1985. In particular (but especially from 1988 onwards) progress has been especially strong in the area of freeing the private sector from regulation and artificial price distortions. In addition, a complementary privatisation programme was launched with the aim of reducing the role of the public sector in manufacturing and services. As a side benefit, the programme was seen as alleviating the government's financial and administrative burden and creating new opportunities for the private sector. While growth in large-scale manufacturing output has not accelerated in recent years (nor has its overall contribution to GDP growth increased), there is hope (particularly among official policy-makers) that this activity is finally beginning to play the classic role of a leading sector.

This study represents the first detailed multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental investigation associated with a Late Iron Age lake-dwelling site in the eastern Baltic. The main objective was to reconstruct the environmental and vegetation dynamics associated with the establishment of the lake-dwelling and land-use during the last 2,000 years. A lacustrine sediment core located adjacent to a Late Iron Age lake-dwelling, medieval castle and Post-medieval manor was sampled in Lake Āraisi. The core was dated using spheroidal fly-ash particles and radiocarbon dating, and analysed in terms of pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, diatoms, loss-on-ignition, magnetic susceptibility and element geochemistry. Associations between pollen and other proxies were statistically tested. During ad 1–700, the vicinity of Lake Āraisi was covered by forests and human activities were only small-scale with the first appearance of cereal pollen (Triticum and Secale cereale) after ad 400. The most significant changes in vegetation and environment occurred with the establishment of the lake-dwelling around ad 780 when the immediate surroundings of the lake were cleared for agriculture, and within the lake there were increased nutrient levels. The highest accumulation rates of coprophilous fungi coincide with the occupation of the lake-dwelling from ad 780–1050, indicating that parts of the dwelling functioned as byres for livestock. The conquest of tribal lands during the crusades resulted in changes to the ownership, administration and organisation of the land, but our results indicate that the form and type of agriculture and land-use continued much as it had during the preceding Late Iron Age.

Let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that econometric analyses such as those described in this issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology correctly characterize the association between the performance of the US economy and all cause, age standardized mortality, and that the relationship generalizes to other times and more functionally and geographically discrete economies. Epidemiologists would be left, we believe, with at least two questions. First, what can we infer regarding the effect of changing economies on health from these findings? Second, what do these inferences imply for theory or public health practice? We do not think that epidemiologists will, or should, infer from such econometric findings that loss of jobs and or income, the most feared experiences presumably inflicted by contrac

The purpose of this paper is to suggest the close relationship between economic development and movements of moral reform in Canada. From the beginning of Canadian history, organized attempts have been made to control such problems as intemperance, crime, gambling, juvenile delinquency, sexual promiscuity, and prostitution. These movements were indicative of a condition of disintegration of the mores, and their role was that of establishing a new moral code to govern behaviour. But disturbances which resulted in the breakdown of moral standards extended throughout the range of society, and affected the organization of economic and political life as well. Movements of moral reform, like those of an economic or political (or purely religious or cultural) character, were products of economic expansion.This fact becomes evident if consideration is given to the broad features of the social development of Canada. Beginning with the establishment of the fishing industry in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canadian development may be represented in terms of a series of stages marked by the emergence of new areas or forms of economic exploitation. The expansion of economic life involved new accommodations in economic, political, and social institutions, and the points of greatest social disturbance were to be found where the impacts of the new techniques of production were most felt. It was within these interstitial areas of social organization, where the traditional culture came in conflict with new economic developments, that movements of reform took their rise.

Historical understanding of the dynamics of economic and social change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been transformed in the last twenty or thirty years by an enormous volume of original research. A fascinating picture has emerged of an economy and society in turmoil under the influence of population growth, inflation, the commercialisation of agriculture, the growth of a huge capital city, the emergence of distinct forms of manufacturing, and changes in the international economic context. Traditional forms of production, traditional social structures, and traditional values, all came under increasingly insistent attack from the forces of change, leading to radical economic and social readjustments. In this book, Christopher Clay draws on this flourishing research to provide a lucidly written analysis of the economy and society of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, logically organised on a thematic rather than a chronological basis.

The drive toward the attainment of sustainable environment globally through clean energy development or energy efficiency is not more desirable than in the 21st century, thus the existential policy moderations of economic, trade and security mechanisms. On this premise, and foremost in the literature, the current study examined the country-specific (for the United States) and the driving impacts of economic policy uncertainty, trade policy and national security on the development of cleaner energy sources by using quarterly frequency time series data for period 1990:Q1-2018:Q2. By employing economic expansion as additional factor, the study implemented the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds Testing approach to reveal interesting results: (1) there is a significant evidence that economic expansion, economic policy uncertainty (EU), trade policy (TP), and national security (NS) exhibits long term properties in common, (2) the increase in economic expansion and NS effectiveness significantly yields more cleaner energy development, and (3) a more tightened TP and high EU are statistically significant and detrimental to the development of clean energy. The Granger causality evidence substantiates the role economic expansion, TP, EU and national security in renewable energy development. Generally, the study posits cleaner and energy efficiency policy directive for policymakers in the United States and other countries of interest from the framework of climate action and sustainable development.

This research scrutinizes economic expansion, CO2 emissions and energy utilization relationship in Kenya by using FMOLS estimate. This study considers the causality matters among oil (Non renewable), electricity (Renewable) use, CO2 emissions, and GDP growth in Kenya by employing time series techniques and annual data for the period 1980–2017. The obtained empirical results from this study indicate that CO2 emissions and electricity effect negatively economic expansion while oil consumption affects it positively. The Granger-causality test conclude that there is no causal relationship running from economic expansion to CO2 emissions, which means that economic expansion can continue without escalating CO2 discharge. However, the study finds unidirectional causality running from economic expansion to oil, and electricity energy use, which implies that Kenya should make an effort to triumph over the constraint on oil and electricity utilization to achieve economic expansion.

South Africa is one of Africa's most polluted countries, with rising CO2 emissions posing a threat. South Africa must discover ways of minimizing pollution and take necessary steps before it is too late in order to achieve sustainable growth. For this purpose, this research assesses the ecological consequences of globalization, nonrenewable energy use, economic growth and renewable energy consumption in South Africa. The study leverages on the non-linearity advantages of the novel quantile on quantile regression (QQR) method for a robust analysis as opposed to the use of conventional linear approaches, thereby overcoming conspicuous shortfalls in extant studies, while offering a detailed explanation of the overall dependency structure between CO2 emissions and globalization, nonrenewable energy use and renewable energy use using a dataset covering the period between 1970 and 2018. The outcomes suggest that nonrenewable energy use, globalization, and economic growth contribute to environmental degradation in the majority of the quantiles, while the effect of renewable energy use on CO2 is not strong at all quantiles. The study highlights that economic expansion, nonrenewable energy use and globalization play key roles in in mitigating environmental sustainability in South Africa, while renewable energy is not sufficient to meet environmental requirements.

This paper examines the predicament of educated youth belonging to socially marginalised groups in realising their aspirations in the city of Delhi. It critically foregrounds the potentials of education and urban location and analyses the educational and employment negotiations and outcomes of the urban youth living at the margins. It is based on a qualitative field study in a settlement predominantly inhabited by Dalits and other backward classes. The paper argues that the local aspirations amid neo-liberal economic expansion in a metropolitan city, alongside the long-cherished dream of respectable jobs, place an enormous hope on pursuing higher education and advanced skills. However, the nature and quality of education and skills that are accessible to these youths hardly enable them realise stable white-collar jobs. Armed with educational degrees, they join and shift between low-end precarious jobs while waiting for stable employment. Gender relations preclude some of these precarious possibilities for female youths who negotiate terms of patriarchal norms to gain economic autonomy. Overall, this paper identifies and elaborates on how urban structural conditions and individual negotiations combine to reproduce social inequalities through a process of socio-economic mobility which is adverse and rarely upwards.

Economic expansion gives rise to modern and energy-efficient technologies and, thus, contributes to a decline in energy usage. Developing countries, including Pakistan, require tremendous efforts to sustain economic growth. However, to attain economic growth, these countries have to cope with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental problems. This research focuses primarily on the asymmetric impacts of energy consumption and economic growth on Pakistan's environmental quality. Accordingly, secondary data spanning from 1971 to 2018 was used, and carbon dioxide emission (CO2) was considered a target variable (a proxy for environmental quality), whereas energy consumption (E) and gross domestic product (GDP) as a proxy for economic growth, and trade accessibility (TR) and foreign direct investment (FDI) as control variables. The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach is used to verify the asymmetric co-integration between the variables selected. Moreover, to examine data stationarity and nonlinearity, we used the Zivot-Andrews structural break unit root and BDS tests, respectively. The findings confirmed the asymmetric and symmetric co-integrations among the considered variables. In addition, the causality analysis reveals that only negative shocks to TR have an effect on CO2 emissions. Similarly, negative shocks to FDI asymmetrically cause CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, GDP symmetrically affects CO2 emissions. Finally, a neutral causal response was observed between E and CO2 emissions. These findings have policy implications in terms of environmental management and carbon neutrality, and they serve as a baseline for future research.

This study examines the relationship between internal absorption, financial and business cycles in selected African countries. Using Markov’s regime change model on data for the period 1960-2018. The data was obtained from the online version of the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. The results show that the Keynesian or monetary effects on each phase of the business cycle is different in the various countries. During the phase of economic expansion, the rate of evolution of consumption and gross fixed capital formation accelerate the expansion trend. During the phase of recession, these variables play a stabiliser role by moderating the fall in real GDP. Liquidity ratio and nominal exchange rate affect the behaviour of real GDP in a mixed manner in both the phase of economic expansion and economic recession. These results show that economic policies should focus on household consumption and gross fixed capital formation to regulate the dynamics of the economy.

ECONOMIC progress was rapid between 1925 and 1929, as illustrated by the League of Nations World Index for Manufacturing Industry, which rose eighteen points during this period; the figures for Europe (excluding the USSR) and North America show rises of nineteen and twelve points respectively [LN World Production and Prices 1935/6]. The boom was not a period of uninterrupted national growth, but recessions, such as those experienced by Britain and Germany in 1926 and by the United States in 1927, were shortlived. During this period international trade expanded even faster than production, and the output of raw materials increased substantially.

Japan has historically been a major player within the Indo-Pacific region due to its rapid post-war economic expansion, technological advancement, massive overseas development aid as well as its cu...

China has a large and professional diplomatic team spread all over the world. Chinese diplomacy mainly relies on soft power in its relations with international partners. Despite the unified outlines, Chinese foreign policy differs from one country to another, depending on the geographical location, the political system and the volume of trade exchange. Chinese foreign policy has gone through many stages, most notably the period of Mao Zedong who strictly applied the rules of socialism, and the period of Deng Xiaoping, known for its reform and openness policy, thus establishing a modern and more flexible Chinese system. President Xi Jinping's term is an extension of Deng Xiaoping's rule of thumb, but with more openness to international partners and economic expansion, especially with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. This paper deals with China's foreign policy towards Myanmar, and refers to the development of bilateral relations and China's interest in a distinguished relationship with Myanmar. The research indicates the strategic factors that make China interested in developing the relationship with Myanmar.

India's ambition of playing a prominent role in regional and global affairs has been particularly visible since the assumption of office by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014. The ambition has resulted in India's external engagement, abandoning the posturing of non-alignment for a more proactive multi-alignment strategy. Its efforts to engage with major powers such as the US and China, as well as other global middle powers such as Japan, the UK, and Australia, have been positioned on rapid economic progress, enabled by one of the fastest rates of growth among major economies. Attempts to expand global strategic influence, a natural outcome of robust economic expansion, should have seen India pursuing an aggressive outward-oriented external trade policy for increasing its share in global trade. India, though, has shown a marked resistance to open trade, including being reluctant to engage in regional and bilateral trade negotiations. This paper examines the dichotomy between India's desire to play a prominent global role and its aversion to open trade policies. Attributing the inward-looking approach to lack of competitiveness of Indian industry, absence of domestic pro-trade constituencies, and discomfort in negotiating new-generation trade issues, the paper argues India's quest for greater global strategic influence might be adversely affected by its restrictive trade policies.

As a pathway to environmental sustainability, several approaches to sustainable agriculture practices have consistently been echoed through international government agencies such as the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations Development Programme. Given this perspective, this study examines the carbon emission effects of the categories of agricultural land utilization (this includes arable land, permanent cropland, meadows land, and forest land) for Turkey over the period 1988-2019. The study further explores the dimension of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emission from agricultural land use for sown crops, fruits and beverages, vineyards, and olives, in addition to the effect of economic expansion. By employing the autoregressive distributed lag empirical approach, the study finds that the use of agricultural land for arable farming, permanent plantation helps to reduce carbon emission, especially in the long-run while the impact of meadows is also desirable only in the short-run. Consequently, the study further shows that the use of farmland for fruits and beverages, and vineyard mitigates carbon emission, especially in the long-run. Whereas, the use of farmland for olives plantation and fallow exhibits a significant contribution of carbon emission, especially in the short-run with elasticities of 0.91 and 1.48 respectively. Moreover, economic expansion in Turkey causes significant harm to environmental quality in the long-run thereby truncating its short-run desirable environmental effect. In order to sustain the largely efficient agricultural practice in Turkey, the study offers two policy dimensions to the government and the country's stakeholders in the agricultural sector. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article considers how international economic expansion impacts on the composition of elite groups on boards of companies. We examine, why, at the height of the British Empire, boards of national, imperial, and international railway companies, financed from London, were dominated by elites drawn differentially from the aristocracy, the military, finance, and politics. To investigate the reasons for these differences, we conduct a social network analysis of railway company boards in three countries during the second half of the nineteenth century. Results reveal that aristocratic directors were dominant in Britain, military directors in India, and financier directors in Argentina, suggesting that their influence drew on local knowledge, resource access, and network connections. They did not serve on boards for merely ornamental purposes.

Stringent environmental regulations and economic expansion in the recent decades has justified the need for sustainable water usage in the process industry. This work presents a mathematical formul...

This article was compiled based on the results of a study aimed at knowing and understanding the Strategy to Face the Challenges of Global Cultural Flow through Cultural Education Based on Culture. This study uses a qualitative method. Data obtained through observation, interviews, documentation, and literature study, in a natural setting. Data analysis was carried out through three activities simultaneously, namely: data reduction, data presentation, and conclusions or verification. The results of the study indicate that the world of education is currently facing the challenges of global cultural currents, namely the process and system of economic expansion of a transnational free market economy that has penetrated into various fields of life such as politics, religion, socio-culture, including education. In the era of openness marked by the dynamics of local, national, and global communities that have the potential to cause various impacts it is impossible to avoid. Therefore, it is important for a nation to have character and identity in the face of global cultural currents, in order to remain firmly established on the noble values ​​of the nation's culture. Culture-based character education can be used as an educational strategy and symbolic investment strategy accompanied by efforts to create a conducive social environment through a tri center of education (family, school, and community). Reviving local cultural values ​​in certain packages is one cultural approach to empowerment. Thus the revitalization of local cultural values ​​in the era of globalization plays an important role. This needs to be done considering the cultural behavior among children and adolescents has begun to change along with the growing pressure of global cultural currents.

CLOs and Leveraged Loans 2020 was a virtual (online) event held June 16–17, 2020. Many of the speakers and panelists expressed strongly positive outlooks for the CLO and leveraged loan sectors. Although the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic was a central theme in many sessions, the dominant view was that leveraged loans and CLOs will be able to weather the storm. Sessions covered include: • Get to Know Your CLO Manager! • Opening Keynote: The Longest US Economic Expansion Comes to an End • The Evolution of CLO Documentation Standards • CLO Master Class for Allocators • The New Normal: Evolution of the 2.0 CLO Manager • LIBOR Transition in a Covid-19 World: Preparation Amidst the Chaos • Mezzanine Investor Roundtable: Getting Your Cash Back to Work! TOPICS:CLOs, CDOs, and other structured credit, manager selection Key Findings • The CLO and leveraged-loan markets have withstood the stresses of early 2020 and are well positioned to handle further stresses that may appear. • CLO notes, especially highly-rated notes from recent vintages, have high levels of credit enhancement and other structural protections that enable them to survive adverse scenarios. • Still, tail risk remains. A double-dip recession or a second wave of COVID-19 could derail expectations and lead to tail-risk scenarios.

The essential transition step from a startup to a sustainable organization in early-stage entrepreneurs is very crucial. The four stages in the life cycle of an entrepreneurial venture consists of ideation, transition, scaling-up, and growth/exit and is efficiently done by knowledge-based services (KBS). The founding team faced the key challenges which emphasize assessment, validation, and enhancement of the business concept. KBS is a large and fast-growing economy based on businesses and professions which lays a concrete foundation to build a scalable business. KBS are highly recommended opportunities for new venture investment and growth and have created more than 79% out of all nonfarm US jobs. This area has been paid very little attention to entrepreneurship research and education which hampers national economic expansion. This article discusses entrepreneurship education, research and investment in KBS. KBS research work explores exclusive features, opportunities, and challenges in new venture development to a scalable enterprise.

The Baltic states and Belarus serve as the good illustration of how different states and regions respond to the process of global political and economic system transformation, which is characterized by the weakening role of the Western states (particularly US, but also unclear path of the EU transformation) and the rise of aspirative China. The chapter analyses how the Baltics states and Belarus differently react to the Chinese economic expansion in the region. The Baltic states despite publicly declared interests on deeper economic cooperation with China (including the participation in 17+1 format) have just minor economic dependency on Beijing. Trade volumes, transit and FDI flows are minimal and do not represent an official comparatively high level of “economic expectations diplomacy”. At the same time, China can not easily implement the patterns of its economic expansion in the Baltic states because of their comparatively good financial situation, presence of the vast EU funding for the strategic projects. The strong security relations with the United States is also one of the major factors, which lowers the interest of the decision makers in cooperation with China. This is particularly visible in the cases of the 5G and possible Chinese investments in the transportation infrastructure. Despite some similarities (patterns of trade), Belarus has no access to benefits of EU membership, is in a considerably more economically vulnerable position and heavily depends on Russia. This makes its cooperation with China more similar to the patterns observed in the developing states, where China has a growing footprint in the economies, using debt diplomacy and other influence tools.

“One of the principal conclusions of modern economics is that finance is good for growth. The idea that the economy needs intermediation to match borrowers and lenders, channelling resources to their most efficient uses, is fundamental to our thinking” (Cecchetti and Kharroubi 2012; Arcand, Berkes and Panizza 2012). Some researchers purportedly “have established a convincing causal link running from finance to growth” (Goldsmith 1969). However, the “iron link” between real economic growth and financial intermediation is overstated as recent empirical work has shown. Increased financialisation is adverse to aggregate real growth, draws resources away from their most productive use, and exacerbates financial crises. In addition, the premise, unless substantially qualified, that financial services are responsible for economic growth is misleading and ignores compelling non-financial factors that drive economic expansion. It also fails to recognise the political use of the financial industry to gain advantages in international trade and to impose suffering upon populations to push regime change. As already stated, financial services do not exist in a vacuum and are instruments of multiple purposes. This chapter demonstrates the fallacy of the “principal conclusion” in its strong form, illustrates legitimate use of finance driving economic expansion, identifies factors unrelated to finance that increase GDP, and lastly shows how countries misuse the financial sector for political policy.

THE American banking system, with its 14,000 banks and 20,000 banking offices, presents a conglomerate structure unlike that of any other major country. The reasons are to be found in our political system of divided state and federal powers, in our persistent bias in favor of small-unit banking, and in some part in pure historical accident. In recent years (since 1945) a perceptibly altered growth pattern has again focused attention on the inherent problems of this hybrid system. In the first two decades of this century the peculiar forces shaping American banking developments were reflected in a proliferation of banks unmatched in any other enterprise economy. The number of banking offices was more than doubled in the period 1900-1921, growing from 14,044 to 32,114. There followed a period of very rapid decline, approximately 14,000 banks being discontinued between 1921 and 1933. The events of these years of violent contraction in the number of banks were largely a product of the basic weaknesses in American commercial banking, and they left a legacy of conservative preoccupation with overbanking which has dominated the subsequent attitudes of bankers and regulatory authorities alike. This latter aspect now assumes considerable significance, for the relative stability in numbers of banks during the 1933-45 period has, in the postwar years, given way to an accelerating rate of growth.

This chapter discusses several major aspects of agricultural work in Scandinavian mixed farming: work in the field and meadow. It examines the late medieval economic expansion, with its increase in production and consumption, and to some extent, the following contraction after the Black Death. The chapter explores experimental archaeology as a neglected possibility. A compilation of pollen diagrams clearly states the changes in the medieval landscape, first colonization and expansion, then decline and abandonment. The life of people in the emerging, medieval state of Sweden can be divided into different units. In Scandinavia a major part of the population during the medieval era were farmers or dealt with farming products from cultivation and/or animal husbandry. The wooden parts of the implements could be manufactured at home and the wood was probably possible to acquire within the farming household. During the medieval expansion changes in the farming system brought larger arable areas, crop-rotation and trenches.

The security of critical information infrastructure is a core issue of a national cybersecurity mechanism. Each state develops a specific regulatory and institutional mechanism of regulation. Russia and China both pursue the digital nationalism model. The advantages and disadvantages of the Russian and Chinese national mechanisms are determined. The need and possibility of implementation of the Chinese positive practice is considered. A few general scientific (system-structural, formal-logical and hermeneutic methods) and special legal methods of cognition (comparative legal and formal-legal methods) are being used. The Chinese mechanism for ensuring the security of critical information infrastructure is undergoing the formation phase. The specific Russian federal act clearly defines the CII sectors and the system of state authorities with the strict distribution of their powers. The Chinese mechanism envisage the extension of the CII sectors by executive regulations. The structure of institutional mechanism is undefined and there is a partial duplication of the powers of some authorities. The formation of the Chinese mechanism is complicated by the need to simultaneously achieve goals in the spheres of national security and economy (in the aspect of opposing the US economic expansion into the Chinese market). Both the Russian and the Chinese mechanisms reflect the features of national security systems of each state. The positive practice of People’s Republic of China is to be considered in the aspect of simultaneous achievement of national security and economic goals.

We examined the impact of energy generation on economic growth in Nigeria by explicitly focusing on the two significant sources of energy generation. The study covered the period 1980–2017, and we made use of the error correction model as a technique of estimation. Our results indicated the existence of cointegration among the variables. We found that gas energy, physical capital and interest rates are crucial to the development of economic growth in the long run. However, in the short run, hydropower contributed to the development of the economy. The two sources of energy generation need massive investment and upgrading as the current generation is not sufficient for economic expansion in Nigeria. The efficiency of the gas fire plants is hampered by insufficient gas supply, while hydropower is suffering from the lack of modern technology and outdated facilities.