Search

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, first, we measure Chinese time preferences as a whole and by region based on the Euler equation under an assumption of rational expectation. The calculating results show that the rates of Chinese time preference are markedly low for most hypothetical risk attitudes over the concerning period, and there exists heterogeneity in time preferences across regions in China. Second, compared with the estimates for other advanced and emerging countries under the same assumptions and same methodology, the rates of Chinese time preference are the lowest for any given risk preference, suggesting that Chinese are more patient during the time of our examinations. Third, our measured time preferences are powerful in predicting China's high saving rates and rapid growth rates of gross domestic product. In addition, the differences in economic growth rates between China and other sample countries can be partially explained by the differences of estimated cross‐countries time preferences within our sample period. Fourth, we investigate the additional factors that affect the Chinese time preferences. Our study provides insights on the regional and international differences in economic growth rates and other economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of China's population control policy on its economic transitions and long‐run equilibrium theoretically and quantitatively. The model‐predicted technological progress is assumed to be driven by population size and education level. With population control, the total number of children decreases; however, the average education level increases. Since the overall effect on technological progress is ambiguous, we performed a quantitative analysis of the model. The results demonstrate that population, technological progress, and income per capita move in endogenous cycles. The impact of China's population control policy depends on the timing of its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, several studies have assessed whether foreign aid plays an active role in promoting economic growth of the recipient country, but to date, it is still an unresolved question. Based on the case of Japan's aid to China, this paper uses the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model to evaluate the economic effect of aid, compared with the ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models. The results reveal the following: (1) In the OLS model, Japanese aid to China surprisingly hampered China's economic growth. (2) In the GWR model, the Japanese aid's effectiveness appears a noticeable regional differentiation in line with both the orientation and extent of aid. (3) In the GTWR model, however, the economic effectiveness of aid changes both over time and in space. The spatiotemporal heterogeneous relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in a recipient country challenges the traditional belief that aid either can or cannot promote the recipient country's economic growth. This finding provides a new perception of the economic effectiveness of aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International travel has been hypothesized to shape large cross‐country differences in productivity and income. However, evidence supporting this hypothesis, especially from developing countries, remains scarce. This paper fills this gap by studying a novel historical natural experiment—China's removal of travel restrictions on foreigners to designated Open‐to‐Foreigners‐Counties (OFCs). Utilizing the county‐by‐county rollout of the OFCs, we find that removing travel restrictions on foreigners led to a 7.4% increase in per capita industrial output for the OFCs in 1985–1991. The positive effects are larger in counties with more foreign equipment and greater industrial human capital. We highlight the role of person‐based international knowledge diffusion in the economic catch‐up of technology recipient countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of social mobility vary across countries. However, past studies have mostly focused on populations in Western developed countries. Little is known about perceptions of social mobility in non‐Western developing countries. The current paper focuses on Chinese perceptions of social mobility using a large‐scale nationally representative sample. We found that, overall, Chinese believed in upward social mobility. Moreover, different patterns of perceptions of social mobility were identified, which suggest that respondents experienced either upward or downward social mobility in the past, but all of them thought that they can move up in the future. Perceptions of social mobility were also linked to important sociodemographic and economic factors. We discuss these findings in relation to the Chinese economic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new empirical evidence on the effect of population aging on economic growth in China. Aging is widely assumed to impact economic growth by shaping the labor market performance and human capital. Using an interactive fixed effects model and a provincial panel data set during 1990–2015, and also exploiting the predicted province‐by‐year variation in population aging fraction as an instrument, we examine the impact of population aging on the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, labor force ratio, and labor productivity. The results show that a 10% increase in the fraction of the population aged 65+ decreases the growth rate of GDP per capita by approximately 2%. Furthermore, channel decomposition shows that half of the decrease is due to slower growth of the labor force ratio, whereas the rest may be due to slower productivity growth. In addition, the negative effect of aging on GDP growth is more substantial after the year 2000, and the effect of aging on the labor force ratio and productivity shows different patterns during different periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a panel of 31 provinces and cities from 1990 to 2019, we first conduct an empirical analysis using the maximum likelihood (ML) procedure to examine the effects of various disasters (i.e. droughts, floods, earthquakes, storms, typhoons and low and freezing temperatures) on the medium‐term economic growth of China and its three economic regions (i.e. the eastern, central and western regions). We identify the transmission channels through which these disasters affect economic growth by investigating the medium‐term relationships among disasters, capital accumulation, human capital accumulation and total factor productivity. The interprovincial empirical analysis demonstrates that the effects differ across the economic regions. Thus, disasters affect economic growth through different channels but mainly through capital stock. Further research indicates that the growth effect of disasters largely benefits from Chinese government expenditures on disaster relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the diffusion of industrial robots has had a significant impact on the economy and society, more research is needed to understand how robots contribute to sustainable growth. This study uses paired data on China's county‐level carbon emissions and industrial robot installations from 2008 to 2017, employing a Bartik shift‐share instrumental variable design to estimate the economic and sustainable effects of industrial robot diffusion. The study finds that industrial robots significantly promote economic growth and contribute to carbon emission reduction as confirmed by robust IV 2SLS and general PSM‐DID methods. Additionally, a heterogeneity analysis shows that industrial robots have a stronger impact on sustainable growth in underdeveloped and small‐medium cities, especially in low‐skilled industries. Finally, the study identifies industrial structural change, clean energy use, and improved productivity and innovation as key factors that mediate the impact of industrial robots on sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic growth is making it difficult to deal with the issue of decreasing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency as the world's largest energy user and supplier. This research, which uses theoretical and empirical studies and chooses 30 provinces panel data from China between 2005 and 2021, demonstrates the impacts of natural resources, technological advancement, and the growth of sustainable energy sources and their methods. The findings indicate that (1) Natural resources significantly promote the growth of renewable energy sources, (2) The development and technological innovations can benefit from using natural resources and (3) The growth of sustainable energy is positively affected by technological improvement. The study provides significant suggestions to assist regions in improving their energy sustainability. The results guide developing nations looking to leverage financial development, green investment and technological innovation in productive areas to achieve sustainable development objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global economic recession caused by COVID‐19 has posed a severe threat to the feasibility of renewable energy projects, hampering the United Nation (UN) sustainable development goals. Sustainable financing (SF) is a crucial instrument for promoting investment in renewable energy (IRE) sources, as it is regarded as a crucial aspect in achieving long‐term sustainability. This study sheds insight on the impact of SF, geopolitical risk (GPR), economic growth (EG), and environmental regulation (ER) on IRE sources by evaluating 10 years of data from 35 Chinese energy businesses from 2012 to 2021. The data analysis is done by utilizing quantile regression and dynamic analytic techniques, demonstrating that SF, EG, and ER have a significant positive effect on IRE sources. However, GPR has a significant detrimental impact on IRE in China. This is one of the early studies to examine the crucial role of SF, GPR, EG, and ER in IRE, which is critical for environmental sustainability. In addition, it provides policymakers and environmentalists with crucial insights for developing and executing environmental strategies that can deliver long‐term benefits and meet SD goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to investigate the possibility of achieving Chinese climate and sustainable development goals (SDGs) with technological innovations and renewable energy policies. Currently, China is ranked first in global emissions. Hence, we utilized Chinese data of 1996Q1 2018Q4 to investigate the policy implication of technological innovation and renewal energy towards its climate goals. Economic development, technology, energy and environmental policies are incorporated in our study for clear insight on the impact of technology and renewable energy on China's climate goals. We adopt different scientific approaches (structural break, bound method of co‐integration, autoregressive dynamic lag‐ARDL dynamics and granger causality test) for both quantitative and theoretical analyses. Our discussions and policy inference are based on the findings from ARDL and granger causality analyses. Findings from ARDL tests debunk the inverted U‐shape EKC hypothesis for China. Technological innovations and renewable energies are found impacting favorably on Chinese environment by reducing carbon emissions. Output derived from Causality supports the results from ARDL with nexus established amongst the selected instruments. From the findings, we conclude by advocating for policy to be framed on renewable energy sector through investment and technological boosting towards a SDG for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a performance‐based promotion mechanism that rewards economic growth, we demonstrate how local governments' chiefs are incentivized to make policy decisions favored by upper‐level offices. Using annual data from prefectures in China, we find evidence that in response to a higher level of competition in the geographic cluster, local chiefs implement several growth‐enhancing policies. These include prioritizing investment in public infrastructure over redistributive spending and allocating additional resources in the core regions, relative to the cross‐jurisdictional borders. We also find that these policies lead to further regional growth. The results remain consistent even when we instrument the endogenous political replacements with the sudden death of chiefs, and when we use various measures for the effectiveness of chiefs. This evidence suggests that relative performance evaluation plays an essential role in the political system of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research considers the effects of air transport on economic growth and asks how airport development affects regional convergence across three Chinese macro‐regions. A growing body of research has examined national aviation‐growth relationships in developing countries over the last decade. Yet few studies have sought to determine whether air transport boosts regional development, especially in developing and emerging economies. Using a dataset spanning from 2005 to 2017, and drawing on panel data regression and instrumental variable analyses, we provide empirical evidence that air transport drives economic growth in China and its macro‐regions. However, we find no major synergy across air, high‐speed rail, and waterway transport as drivers of economic growth at national and regional levels. Furthermore, air transport has a significant effect in widening China's per capita income disparity. On that basis, we suggest Chinese local governments should carefully consider equity‐efficiency trade‐offs and provincial and municipal conditions and regional contexts when planning new airports, increasing airport services, or extending aviation connectivity. Others elsewhere may derive insights from these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although researchers have made significant efforts to explain the influence of institutions on environmental indicators such as CO2 emissions, the relationship between institutional quality and the ecological footprint has been neglected. The gap in the literature reveals an outstanding question: can institutions reduce their countryʼs ecological footprint? As a result, this study aims to investigate the effects of institutional quality and control variables on the ecological footprint for the period 1992–2015 in E‐7 countries through the AMG and CCEMG estimators. The findings show that institutional quality reduces the ecological footprint for the entire panel. Conversely, economic growth and energy consumption increase ecological pressure on E‐7 countries. In addition, the impact of institutional quality on the ecological footprint demonstrates heterogeneity at the country level. While institutions decrease the ecological footprint in China, India, Indonesia, and Russia, the study does not find such a relationship in other countries. Besides, energy consumption seems to be the most important factor in increasing ecological pressure in all countries. As drawn from the results, it can be said that improving institutional quality and increasing renewable resources in the energy portfolio are strategic actions in terms of improving environmental quality in E‐7 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the causal relationship between financial innovation and economic growth in China, India, and Pakistan over the period of 1970–2016. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing and Granger causality‐based Error Correction Model (ECM), this study finds that financial innovation generally has a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth in the short‐run and long‐run. These results show that in the long‐run, monetary management and credit flow to the private sector play an essential role in economic growth. The trade openness and gross capital formation contribute considerably to the economic growth in China, India, and Pakistan. For robustness, this study also applies the Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) method. The findings of this study suggest that the financial sector plays an essential role in supporting innovation activity in Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]