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This paper examines the effect of bilateral air connectivity on bilateral service trade flows. Our service trade data includes 'commercial', 'transport', 'travel', and 'government' services. We developed a reduced-form gravity-type model using the Chinese data. An instrument variable (IV) approach is adopted to address the endogeneity issue between bilateral air connectivity and the service trade variables. Our key results are: (a) increasing the number of direct routes can significantly promote bilateral service export and import trades; (b) the average route-level traffic density has only marginal positive effects; (c) improving air connectivity would enlarge China's overall service trade deficit, because the transport and travel services imports are promoted more than their exports; (d) The 'commercial' service exports can be stimulated more than the imports, making China achieve larger commercial service trade surplus by improving bilateral air connectivity. •Increasing the number of direct air routes significantly promotes bilateral service trades in China. •Improving air connectivity enlarges China's overall service trade deficit. •Enhancing bilateral air connectivity stimulates China's commercial service exports more than imports. •China's growing international air transport, facilitated by the Belt-and-Road Initiative, has had a substantial impact on bilateral service trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporary trade barriers, such as safeguards, is a measure to rescue the economy in such a way as to protect domestic industries from foreign competitors. Safeguards provide opportunities for domestic industries to make structural adjustments and reshape their business process to increase their competitiveness during the validity period. Indonesia's government has imposed safeguards for most textile sub-industries, from the upstream industry (yarn and fibres) to the downstream garment industry and other related textile industries. This paper aims to evaluate whether the application of safeguards meets its objectives in improving the competitiveness of domestic industry against its foreign competitors with a long observation period. It is found that the effectiveness of the application of safeguards was limited to rescuing the trade balance. In terms of export competitiveness, safeguards have not been effective in increasing the export competitiveness of the textile industry in the world market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the renewable energy consumption responsibility weight system is gradually implemented in various provinces, there is a closer intersection between the excess consumption and green certificates trading. Existing trading platforms can only meet the needs of green certificates trading. This single-platform solution is no longer sufficient to meet the trading requirements under this system. Consequently, this paper proposes a excess consumption and green certificates trading platform based on blockchain technology. This platform utilizes the decentralized, open, and anonymous characteristics of blockchain technology and rely on its smart contract capabilities to simultaneously meet the comprehensive trading needs of surplus consumption and green certificates trading through combining user-initiated transactions with platform-intelligent recommendations. It adapts to the complex excess consumption and green certificates trading market that has emerged following the issuance of the renewable energy consumption responsibility weighting policy. To conduct simulated transactions, 16 groups of buyers simulate a total of 215,792 excess consumption vouchers and 143,861 green certificates in this paper. The transaction results all meet the expected transaction scenarios under the conditions of smart recommendation, demonstrating the platform's transaction feasibility. [Display omitted] • Design a blockchain-based smart contract solution for volume consumption trading and green certificate trading. • Build a database containing 215,792 excess consumption vouchers and 143,861 green power certificates. • Simulate the purchase of 160 buyers by establish a transaction platform. • Analyzed the application direction of the data produced by the trading platform [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Countries that issue internationally acceptable currencies tend to have lower interest rates and higher price levels than those whose currencies are not internationally acceptable. • Differences in interest rates and price levels are likely to cause asymmetric transfers of biophysical resources from low-income to high-income countries. • Currency hierarchy can be empirically operationalized as a categorical variable based on the liquidity of currencies and the degree of monetary sovereignty of their issuers. • Ecologically unequal exchange is driven not only by diverging monetary compensation for exported resources, but also by the impact of currency hierarchy on countries' trade balances. • Alternative explanations for the empirical correlations between currency hierarchy, interest rates, price levels, and ecologically unequal exchange have theoretically and empirically limited. Asymmetric transfers of biophysical resources from the Global South to the North are a key obstacle to sustainable development. The underlying causal drivers of this 'ecologically unequal exchange' are not well understood. This paper accounts for the causal role of hierarchy between currencies as one driver of ecologically unequal exchange. Drawing on dependency theory, I propose testable hypotheses that explain why countries that issue internationally acceptable currencies create net inflows of embodied labour, land, energy, raw materials, and carbon from countries whose currencies lack international acceptability: Countries with lower-ranking currencies face higher interest rates, which constrain their policy space, drive income outflows, and necessitate resource exports. Such countries also tend to have lower price levels (measured as the ratio between exchange rates and purchasing power parity rates) because their currencies are not demanded internationally, resulting in reduced dollar income per exported resource. To test these hypotheses, I use a novel categorical operationalization of currency hierarchy. I compare different observable correlations to the theoretical correlations implied by the proposed hypotheses, and test multiple regression models against cross-country data. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypotheses. Considering alternative explanations, the conclusion seems justified that currency hierarchy is a significant driver of ecologically unequal exchange, and that this mechanism operates specifically through cross-country divergences in interest rates and exchange rates. In short, the monetary cost of a dollar impacts the biophysical cost of a dollar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable, reliable, and affordable energy access is a major challenge in many parts of the world. The paper addresses this challenge by proposing a local electricity market (LEM) design for nanogrids deployed in Madagascar. Each nanogrid shares a solar PV and battery system, and it meets demand locally before trading surplus energy with other nanogrids on a microgrid bus, facilitated through the creation of a LEM. Two distinct market approaches are investigated and compared: central clearing and bilateral trading. Bilateral trading generates trading prices through direct interaction between consumers and producers, whereas central clearing sets a single trading price based on the cost-ordered supply curve. Our study shows that central clearing generates more consumer-friendly prices and facilitates the trading of all technically feasible energy, while bilateral trading may results in unmatched trading capacity. We find an average price for central trading of 0.49 €/kWh compared to 1.24 €/kWh with a bilateral trading mechanism. To promote the low market prices, a bottom-up retail tariff structure is proposed. The aim of this simplified tariff is to promote initial electrification by minimizing entry prices for end-users' first electricity access to 0.89 €/kWh compared to the current average of 2.11 €/kWh. The discussed results were evaluated in consultation with the local company in Madagascar to ensure practical suitability and to achieve maximum significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• China's sustainable development relies on agricultural trade and carbon emissions. • Carbon emission transfer index in agricultural trade is measured. • Decoupling-recoupling model and integrated prediction model are constructed. • A unified framework for trade, environment and technology is established. Under the new development pattern of domestic and international "dual circulation" in China, studying the relationship among green technology innovation, agricultural trade deficit (ATD) and carbon emission transfer embodied in agricultural trade (ATCT) becomes crucial for achieving coordinated and unified high-quality economic development and efficient environmental protection. Based on this, the paper uses environmental input–output model, "two-stage" decoupling and recoupling model, panel vector auto-regressive model, spatial econometric model and "rolling" Grey-BP neural network prediction model to explore present status of ATD, ATCT and their relationship, driving role of green technology innovation, as well as whether that relationship will be improving in the future. The results reveal the following: (1) China's ATD and ATCT show an increasing trend year by year, and their inter-provincial differences are gradually significant over time. The overall relationship between ATD and ATCT does not display ideally, which makes it necessary to quickly transform that relationship into reasonable and ideal state. (2) Green technology innovation has significant positive "U-shaped" and inverted "U-shaped" local effects on ATD and ATCT respectively, with a reasonable range of ATD reduction while ATCT increase valuing from 0 to 0.290, and has significant positive "U-shaped" spatial spillover effect on both without any reasonable range. The short-term effect of green technology innovation on coordinated promotion between ATD and ATCT is superior to the long-term one. (3) Green technology innovation has a significant regional heterogeneity. Regional differences must be taken into consideration seriously, and the measures adapted to local conditions are crucial. The role of fundamental and progressive green technology innovation has heterogeneity, which means that targeted development and utilization of green technology products are important. (4) Regardless of the time horizon, the relationship between ATD and ATCT will improve, which can provide a key step for coordinated development of economy and environment in agricultural trade. Therefore, in order for China to implement and promote further opening-up, reduce agricultural trade dependence, ensure food security and important agricultural product supply, as well as achieve the unity of high-quality economic development and ecological efficient protection, it is necessary to reasonably reverse trade deficit and increase carbon emission transfer in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]