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This study examines university-driven partnerships that promote entrepreneurship in underserved communities, drawing from the experiences of NCGrowth, an economic development center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We address the following questions: Who are the central stakeholders? How do they interact? What do their challenges and experiences imply for policymaking and practice in nurturing entrepreneurship ecosystems in underserved communities? We employed social-network analyses of NCGrowth's projects spanning 2013–2019, supplemented by document analysis of archival data and in-depth interviews. The study uncovers highly asymmetric connections among stakeholders, with universities and government agencies emerging as dominant entities, leveraging universities' specialized knowledge and community relationships. Nevertheless, challenges surface due to overlapping roles as facilitators, the absence of consistent community carriers of development plans, and a dearth of financial institutions. Our findings advocate for an ecosystem-focused approach to economic development in underserved areas, emphasizing the involvement of additional anchor institutions such as hospitals, major corporations, and philanthropists. Furthermore, policies and practices should integrate the objectives of entrepreneurship, economic growth, and social equity to cultivate inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of inequality by economists has largely focussed on distributive inequalities of various kinds. The focus on different dimensions of distributive inequality in access and outcomes is welcome. However, it is also important to consider relational inequalities and power imbalances, which economists typically consider to be the domain of sociology, anthropology and related disciplines. Many economic processes cannot be understood without analysing the underlying relational inequalities, which can reveal much about economic processes and associated policies. Some examples from the Indian experience, specifically relating to power imbalances created by gender and caste differentiation, indicate how this can play out. These are not simply 'traditional social forms' that are in opposition to or contradictory with capitalist accumulation. Rather, they are crucial in enabling segmented labour markets and enabling extractivist patterns of accumulation, on which recent Indian economic growth has been dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the complex interplay between economic development and environmental sustainability in the context of India's pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It examines the inherent contradictions and trade-offs involved, particularly in agriculture, industrialisation, and infrastructure sectors. The paper highlights how economic growth, essential for improving living standards, often conflicts with environmental objectives. The paper underscores the importance of integrating economic, environmental, and social objectives to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the relation of four different financial development indicators and export performance, sampled from nine member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, with economic growth for the period of 1995–2020. Its long-run relationship with PVAR analysis has been presented through VECM. The FMOLS and DOLS methods are used for the long-term coefficient estimates. According to the findings, there is a cointegration relationship between economic growth and export, and broad money, domestic credit to the private sector by banks, and monetary sector credit to private sector variables. The findings indicate that both financial development and export have a positive impact on economic growth. On the other hand, the findings have not presented sufficient evidence about the influence of the gross capital formation variable on economic growth while the monetary sector credit to private sector variable has been found to negatively affect economic growth. When the results of FMOLS and DOLS models are assessed together, it is concluded that export and financial development affects economic growth positively in the long term, but the first one's effect is less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between finance and growth is a well-researched area, yet this relationship at the local level has received little empirical scrutiny. We trace the operations of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Africa. We examine the role played by MFIs on local economic development using a model capturing both local geography and MFIs dynamics for the periods 1992–2015. Our sample is representative of 2,170 MFIs operating in 144 cities, 154 towns, and 14 villages in Africa. Using night time data to capture economic growth, our key hypothesis is that MFIs drive local economic progress. Conditioning on the geographical location of MFIs, we find that the presence and density of MFIs increase as the growth in light density and the estimate retains its statistical significance. The results suggest that MFIs operations may foster local economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of this paper, we examine the association between foreign direct investment, openness to trade, infrastructure, innovation, and economic development in 10 members of the Commonwealth Independent States between 2000 and 2020 using a panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag model. According to the results, none of the elements that are researched for this paper has a statistically significant influence on economic growth over the short term. On the other hand, in the long run, each of the variables, including foreign direct investment, infrastructure, innovation, and trade openness, has a statistically favorable and substantial impact on economic growth; furthermore, the findings are in line with the findings of the baseline static panel data models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of ICT progress on economic growth by constructing an ICT diffusion index. Along with ICT, this study further investigates the role of financial development and the combined impact of ICT and financial development on growth in 10 Asian developing economies covering the period 2001–2017. To analyze the panel data, this study employed the ARDL model and estimated the Pooled Mean Group estimator. The estimated results reveal a significant positive long-run relationship between financial expansion and economic progress. While ICT hurts economic growth on its own, it has a significant positive impact when combined with financial development. The robustness of the results has been verified by Fully-Modified OLS (FMOLS) and Dynamic OLS (DOLS) estimations. To promote enduring economic growth in Asian developing countries, the paper recommends ensuring inclusive financial development combined with modern ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the long-term effects of civil war in former Yugoslavia on economic growth and development. To this end, we employ the synthetic control methodology, and estimate the missing counterfactual scenario for the long-run growth and development of former Yugoslav republics, in the absence of the civil war by matching their growth and development characteristics with non-Yugoslav countries at the similar stages of development. The results suggest that the civil war led to unprecedented long-run growth and development losses. In the absence of the war, per capita income levels of former Yugoslav republics would improve markedly with notable differences in the magnitude of the growth and development gains across the affected countries. The estimated effects of the civil war are robust to a large number of placebo checks, and falsification-based random permutation tests. The results show that not a single former Yugoslav republic down to the present day has achieved the level of per capita income predicted by their synthetic control groups in the years preceding the civil war. Our results show that the Yugoslav civil war appears to be a permanent institutional shock with long-lasting implications for economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for the development of financial system has been the major concern of the Asian economies over the years. Using a System Generalized Methods of Moments technique for 44 Asian countries over the period 1980–2017, we evaluate the effect of financial development on economic growth for the entire Asia, sub-regions and groups of the countries by their levels of income. Additionally, we considered the subcomponents of the financial system. The contribution of this study hinges on the use of a comprehensive measure of financial development, and consideration of the heterogeneity of the Asian countries concerning the finance-growth nexus. The findings revealed that financial development spurs economic growth in Asia. Specifically, the development of financial institutions have a greater impact than development of financial markets on growth of upper-middle and high-income countries while the reverse is the case for low and low-middle income countries in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest that shadow economy has several implications for environmental sustainability. However, the relevance of financial development in the nexus between shadow economy-environmental sustainability remains an open question. This study examines the role of shadow economy and financial development in addition to economic growth, trade openness, and urbanization on the environmental sustainability of a panel of 30 African countries from 1991 to 2017. Specifically, the study investigates the effect of these variables on African countries' ecological footprint and bio-capacity. Findings based on the augmented mean group estimator reveal that shadow economy, financial development, economic growth, and urbanization intensify ecological footprint, while trade openness reduces it. Further investigations reveal that shadow economy, economic growth, and urbanization reduce bio-capacity while trade openness increases it. The interactive term of the shadow economy and financial development shows that a strong financial system significantly moderates the adverse impact of shadow economy on environmental degradation. These results persist when common correlated effect mean group is used to re-estimate the models. Furthermore, Dumitrescu and Hurlin's non-causality tests show two-way causality between ecological footprint and shadow economy, bio-capacity and shadow economy, and financial development. Nevertheless, unidirectional causality is found from financial development to ecological footprint and shadow economy, economic growth to ecological footprint, biocapacity, and financial development. Lastly, the policy implications of the results are discussed in line with these economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An in-depth understanding of the relationship between R&D inputs and green economic development helps to build an eco-friendly society. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2009 to 2017, this study explores the effect of R&D inputs on green economic development from the different perspectives of short-term and long-term and the moderating effect of market in the influence process. This study has concluded the following findings: (1) When considering multiple pollutants as undesirable outputs, China's green economic performance is low in recent years, and there exist great differences among different regions in green economic development. (2) R&D personnel and R&D expenditure can promote green economic performance under the moderation of the market. (3) R&D personnel is conducive to improving green economic growth, however, R&D expenditure has not shown an obvious effect on green economic growth in the short term. From the perspective of long-term, R&D personnel and R&D expenditure all can obviously improve green economic growth under the moderation of the market. Finally, this study puts forward targeted suggestions for promoting green economy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the impact of technological progress and digitization on Ghana's economy using panel data for the period 2009–2019. Technological progress and economic growth inter-dependency was analyzed in two steps. First, the relation was tested using Augmented Dickey–Fuller method. Second, we estimated the long-run relation between the variables by using Engel Granger and Error Correction models. The results indicate that adopting technology or digitizing the economy has the potential to drive sustainable growth and development. In particular, it was noted that ICT investments drive high productivity rates and faster economic growth. In sum, technological progress and digitization have the potential to foster significant growth and therefore must be given high credence in the planning and designing of development programmes. This paper contributes to development theories on the role that ICT plays in economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, emerging, developed, and developing economies have placed great emphasis on the need to attain environmental sustainability while achieving economic expansion. In an effort to offer possible policy options toward the attainment of sustainable development, this study examines the effect of economic growth on carbon emissions mitigation. Yearly panel data for 44 countries comprised of emerging, developed, and developing economies from 1990 to 2017 is used. To address the gap in the literature, this nexus is examined on seven layers of carbon emissions. This study reveals reliable and robust empirical findings with the use of system and difference general method of moments, random and fixed effects using the Durbin-Wu-Hausman test model, and feasible general least-squares estimation approaches. Our findings indicate that for developed economies, carbon emissions by the power industry have been mitigated and increased domestic credit to the private sector leads to a decrease in all layers of carbon emissions. Nevertheless, gross national income increase negatively impacts emissions by the transport sector. In emerging and developing economies, increased domestic credit to the private sector increases emissions by the power industry, transport sector, buildings, other combustion industries, and other non-major sectors. For all economies, an increase in domestic savings leads to an increase in all layers of carbon emissions. Compared with prior studies that simply focus on gross domestic product and total carbon emissions, our study provides detailed insights on the carbon emissions mitigation efforts by sector and economic group given the true drivers of economic expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the National Innovation System (NIS) approach to analyze the performance of innovation policy of the sub-Saharan economy: the Senegal. The NIS approach makes it possible to understand how actors create and disseminate new knowledge, in a context of economic growth and economic development. By offering tools adapted to innovation policies, we carry out a case study of Senegal, based on secondary data, which allows us both to verify the incompleteness of its innovation system but above all to analyze why building competencies in this country is so laborious and does not encourage economic development. On a theoretical level, this paper provides new insights into innovation policy in the poorest economies. Empirically, it sheds light on the main obstacles to achieving this towards an inclusive economy based on knowledge and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial inclusion is an important determinant of local economic development. Lack of adequate access to formal financial services can have detrimental effects on households, such as hampering liquidity levels. The benefits of financial inclusion could be especially important in Latin America and Caribbean, a region with modest and volatile economic growth, savings, and investment levels. The objective of this paper was to examine the determinants of financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Overall, our results indicate that greater income and education levels are associated with higher probability of financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have proven a positive impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on economic growth. Nevertheless, some studies have suggested a limited effect, while others have found no statistically significant effect. Faced with this problem, we conducted a study with the aim to assess the role of moderation of ICT diffusion between financial development and economic expansion in Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 2019. Using the bootstrap approach for the ARDL model, the results prove that financial development as well as ICT diffusion affect negatively (positively) economic development. The financial development interaction term with ICT diffusion has a positive and statistically significant effect on economic growth. The results suggest that ICT diffusion does not only directly impact economic growth but also increase the indirect impact of financial development on economic growth. This result indicates that ICT diffusion boosts the role of financial development in economic development. This means that financial development can only boost the Saudi economy when ICTs are well developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital accumulation and financial development are two vital determinants of economic growth. Recently, human development has been increasingly seen as the ultimate goal of development, rather than economic growth, because it primarily affects future well-being. Financial development is expected to have a positive impact on human development. However, the conclusions of previous studies are inconsistent. In this work, we use a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag method and asymmetric causality analysis to probe the potential asymmetric effect of financial development and economic growth on the human capital index per capita in Vietnam from 1992 to 2017. The outcome obtained shows that the influence of financial development and economic growth is strong and positive on human capital. The empirical results also indicate that the impact of financial development is symmetric in the short run but asymmetric in the long run. Asymmetric Granger causality from the positive changes in financial development to human capital is found. Based on the empirical results, several policy implications are suggested for emerging countries, including Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resources are abundant in Africa and must be used to achieve macroeconomic goals like growth and development. Political settlements are important to achieving these results because they materially affect how natural resource governance is carried out. The pursuit of growth and development is impacted by these settlements. Political settlements may either make it easier or harder to achieve these macroeconomic goals. Natural resource rents in some polities do not result in growth and development because of win-lose political agreements. However, this need not be the case as demonstrated by the Botswana case. This study used Botswana as a case study to illustrate political settlements analysis of natural resource governance. It asked, 'what effect do political settlements have on the management of natural resources in Botswana?' It concluded that win-win political settlements produced inclusive resource exploitation, resulting in economic growth and development and a rise in citizen welfare. The final lesson for resource-rich African nations is to establish political settlements that promote both economic growth and development to increase societal welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing economies, banks act as a conduit for the efficient mobilization of financial resources from the surplus sectors for effective allocation to the deficit sectors for productive investment that will in turn lead to economic growth. Thus, the study is aimed at evaluating whether development in the banking sector intermediation process in the form of an increase in the number of branches, credit to private sectors, intermediation efficiency and total assets stimulated economic growth in Nigeria during the period 1987-2018. The study employed the Johansen cointegration test, dynamic ordinary least square regression and error correction model in determining the relationship between the variables. The results of the cointegration test confirmed the existence of a long-run relationship between banking sector development indicators and economic growth in Nigeria; whereas in the short-run only number of bank branches and bank's total assets have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, signifying that much of Nigeria's superior growth performance is attributed to an increase in the number of bank branches and growth in the bank's total assets. Going by the above findings, the study recommends that the Central Bank of Nigeria should monitor the activities of Commercial Banks in terms of branch distribution to ensure a wider spread and even distribution and also review the asset base of banks from time to time so as to measure up to international standards in order to increase investment and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial agglomeration and green economic growth have become a trend in global financial and economic development. This paper analyzes the impact mechanism of financial agglomeration on green economic growth from two angles: growth promotion and energy conservation/emission reduction. Based on the Slacks Based Model-Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) of undesired outputs, the green economic growth efficiency of 30 regions in China from 2008 to 2017 was measured. The study uses a spatial measurement model and finds that financial agglomeration has a significant positive effect on green economic growth. The specific manifestation is that with a 1% increase in the level of financial agglomeration, the productivity of green total factor increases by about 0.1837% and 0.0964% green economic growth in neighboring areas. Further analysis shows that this improvement in green total factor productivity is mainly achieved through technological advancement that promotes coordinated economic growth, energy saving and emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between governance and economic development. Specifically, it empirically investigates what "good enough" governance means in post-Soviet Eurasia with an emphasis on Central Asia. The subject is crucial for international donors in terms of optimizing interventions to effect change. The findings shed some light not only on which governance dimensions are critical to secure economic growth but also on how much good governance is needed to yield developmental dividends. In this respect, the analyses confirm Grindle's hypothesis that not all governance dimensions affect economic performance. The evidence supports a more radical version of Grindle's argument, namely that political stability is the most crucial component in Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important factor of global marine economic development, high-quality marine economic development depends on the important role played by environmental regulations in dealing with the relationship between marine economic growth and the reduction of marine environmental pollution. The Tapio decoupling model is used in this study to analyze the impact mechanism of environmental regulations on the decoupling between marine economic growth and marine environmental pollution (referred to as 'marine environment decoupling'). The results of the Tapio decoupling model demonstrate that China's marine economy has experienced fluctuations of 'growth connection'—'weak decoupling'—'negative decoupling of expansion'—'strong decoupling'—followed by 'growth connection'. The marine economy is gradually decoupling from marine pollution. The dynamic panel model results show that environmental regulation is nonlinearly related to the marine environment decoupling in a 'U' shape, and technological innovation and industrial structures have a 'U'-shaped regulating effect on the impact of environmental regulation on the marine environment decoupling. Furthermore, market-incentive and social-supervision environmental regulations can promote the marine environment decoupling. The three types of environmental regulations are ranked as follows: 'market-incentive environmental regulations > social-supervision environmental regulations > command environmental regulations' according to their clearly observable and varied roles. For these three major areas, environmental regulations are nonlinearly related to marine environment decoupling in the Pan-Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, and linearly related to that of Bohai Bay. The results provide valuable references for understanding marine environment decoupling drivers and developing high-quality marine economy by considering the role of environmental regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information and communication technology (ICT) revolution has brought positive spill-over effects on institutions and economies across the globe, but it has also increased the information gaps between countries. A key characteristic that may explain these widening gaps is the deepening endogenous relationships between ICT infrastructure, institutions of governance, and economic growth in many developing countries. Thus far, the links between these variables have not been discernible in developing economies, so few studies have explored them. In this paper, we investigate the possible Granger causal relationships among institutional quality, economic growth, and ICT infrastructure development for a sample of developing countries for the period from 2005 to 2019. The application of a vector error-correction model reveals strong inter-relationships between all the variables in the short run. In the long run, institutional quality and ICT infrastructure development stimulate economic growth. These complex relationships are explored and lessons are drawn for policymakers. We assess interactions between institutional quality and ICT infrastructure as well as economic growth. We deploy a panel Granger causality test for low- and lower middle-income countries from 2005 to 2019. We show that there is Granger causality between the variables in the short and the long term. For each case and specification, there is support for the hypothesis that ICT infrastructure and institutional quality both Granger-cause growth in the economy. In the short run, we note a feedback relationship between institutional quality and economic growth. Other short-run results are more varied, based on the particulars proxies for institutional quality and ICT infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and tourism are listed as essential components of economic growth in many countries. However, empirical evidence remains controversial and ambiguous. This paper investigates the long-run effects of international tourism and FDI inflows on the rate of economic growth in Spain as an economy with a great GDP share of tourism and FDI. By employing a non-linear ARDL analysis, this study suggests that although international tourism development improves the economic growth rate, it might be wishful thinking to improve this rate by increasing the current rate of FDI in this country if the quality of FDI and its rate of return is as low as in the past. The reasons and solutions are explored in detail, and policy implications are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Ontario's economy began as a booming nineteenth-century resource frontier because of international market demand for natural resource commodities, private sector business investment, and government initiatives in transportation and protectionism. During northern Ontario's development, economic growth was most robust during eras when these engines came together to provide economic growth and employment creation. Export-led growth approaches to development suggest that such a growth process ultimately expands population and market size and creates self-sustaining economic growth. However, northern Ontario never made that transition because of the inability to retain more linkages from resource extraction because of decision-making external to the region. As a result, the latter part of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century became an era of arrested development. Economic decline since the 1970s caused by less labor-intensive transportation and resource sectors was met with ineffective and essentially palliative government attempts to counter the decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-speed rail (HSR) network in China has expanded rapidly, significantly reducing transportation costs and improving accessibility. However, scholars are concerned about whether HSRs further centralize resources and intensify regional polarization. This paper studies the role of HSR in the process of urban development and regional integration in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD). We use two indicators (overall connectivity and weighted centrality) to examine the impacts of HSR connection on spatial redistribution, and we adopt a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis to investigate the effects of HSR on local economic development. The results show that HSR operation enormously improves the overall connectivity of urban networks in the YRD. However, it also exacerbates the disequilibrium of urban centrality, forming a hierarchical spatial structure with Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou as hubs. HSR connections also impede local economic growth in peripheral areas. Moreover, the results confirm the existence of a dynamic time-lagged effect on local economic growth, and the heterogeneous impact of HSR also aggravates regional economic disparities. This paper highlights the effects of HSR on the development of cities and regions, and suggests that government should exert greater efforts to reduce the negative effects of the development of HSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge innovation is a key factor in industrial development and regional economic growth. Understanding regional knowledge innovation and its dynamic changes is one of the fundamental tasks of regional policy-makers and business decision-makers. Although many existing studies have been conducted to support in understanding knowledge innovation patterns, data-driven and intuitive visual analysis of georeferenced knowledge innovation has not been sufficiently studied. In this work, we analysed knowledge innovation by visually exploring big georeferenced scholarly data. More specifically, we first applied network analysis and statistical methods to derive key measures (e.g., the number of publications and academic collaborations) of knowledge innovation with multiple spatial scales. We then designed geovisualizations to explicitly represent the multiscale spatiotemporal patterns and relations. We integrated the analytical methods and geovisualizations into an interactive tool to facilitate stakeholders' visual learning and analysis of knowledge innovation with a spatial focus. Our work shows that geovisualizations have great potential in supporting complex geoinformation communication in knowledge innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite high economic growth rates experienced recently, socio-economic challenges such as poverty still prevail in Tanzania. This has been attributed to unsuccessful economic transformation where labour has moved out of agriculture into mainly relative less productive services and informal sectors, leapfrogging the highly productive manufacturing sector. The government is targeting the expansion of agro-processing activities for economic transformation and four policy options were explored. Results of a computable general equilibrium model indicated that policies such as (1) attracting foreign direct investment to improve productivity should be encouraged, especially if (2) coupled with export strategies. (3) Agricultural expansion is also crucial to expand the input base for agro-processing activities. (4) Non-targeted policies such as improving education may not be sufficient for the sector's expansion but are crucial for the expansion of the whole economy. Government should be mindful of the varied implications of different policies on factor returns and household incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims at determining the effect of inflation on finance-growth nexus on 23 Sub-Saharan Africa countries with 5-year averaged data set over the period 1982–2016. A non-dynamic threshold approach is utilized. Strong evidence of inflation threshold of 31% beyond which the impact of financial development on economic growth turns negative from positive is obtained. There is also inflation threshold of 13% obtained when financial development is represented by private credit by deposit money banks and other financial institutions (% of GDP) but with an even higher positive impact of financial development on economic growth beyond the identified inflation threshold. This supports the view that financial development can only become inversely related to growth at much higher-inflation level of above 31%, below which there is robust positive finance-growth nexus. It is, therefore, recommended to always keep inflation levels at lower levels, preferably below 31%, which would ensure sustainable development through financial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we have explored the dynamic causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Uganda during the period from 1980 to 2015. Although the finance-growth nexus debate has been raging for decades, Uganda, similar to many other low-income sub-Saharan African countries, has not yet received adequate coverage on the subject. To eliminate the variable omission bias associated with some previous studies, two intermittent variables, namely savings and inflation, have been included alongside financial development and economic growth in a multivariate Granger-causality setting. In addition, five proxies of financial sector development have been used in the current study, namely money supply to GDP, deposit money bank assets as a percentage of bank assets, liquid liabilities to GDP, private credit by deposit money banks to GDP, and bank deposits to GDP. Using the ARDL approach, the findings of the study reveal that the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth in Uganda is not clear-cut. It varies from one model to the other, depending on the proxy used for financial development. When financial development is proxied by liquid liabilities to GDP and bank deposits to GDP, a unidirectional causal flow from financial development to economic growth is found to prevail. When deposit money bank assets to bank assets ratio is considered a proxy of financial development, astrong bi-directional causal relationship between financial development and economic growth is found to predominate. However, when money supply to GDP and private credit by deposit money banks to GDP are used as proxies, no causality is found to exist between financial development and economic growth in either direction. Based on these results, it is recommended that when drafting policies aimed at boosting economic growth, policymakers should target growth-led financial development proxies as policy implementation outcomes may vary depending on the targeted financial development proxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial development and economic growth nexus is still an ongoing debate. Several studies have indicated the positive benefits associated with enhancing financial development. Nevertheless, more work can still be done to reap the full benefits of financial development. With growing social disparities in African countries, identifying the channels through which financial services can be effective is important to maintain stability on the continent. This paper employs a system generalized methods of moments (GMM) technique, to attempt to identify the channels through which financial services can be effective. The paper tests such an effect using a panel of 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2005 to 2016. The results suggest that credit provided by financial institutions and liquid liabilities affect economic growth negatively. Credit to the private sector, on the other hand, contributed significantly to GDP growth. The study underlines the important role of a vibrant private sector to serve as an engine for growth and reduce poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of solar energy production on financial development and economic growth in 11 leading countries in solar energy production over the period 2000–2019. The results of the analysis indicated that solar energy production had a positive and significant impact on financial development, however, not on economic growth. It was found that the impacts of capital and direct investment variables on financial development and economic growth were positive and significant. According to Dumitrescu-Hurlin's causality test results, a bidirectional causality relationship was determined to exist between solar energy production and financial development. Furthermore, a unidirectional causality relationship running from economic growth to solar energy production was detected. In this context, the analysis results confirmed the conservation hypothesis. The results could be a guide on solar energy production policies. By considering the impacts of solar energy production on financial development and economic growth, more effective policy decisions could be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of rural populations is increasing year by year, but the rural economy is developing slowly and lacking certain vitality, and resources are wasted excessively in the process of agricultural production. As a result, the agro-ecological complex system is inefficient, unreasonable in structure, low in output, and slow in regional economic growth. This paper uses the spatial panel model to study and analyse the agricultural innovation ecosystem and economic growth and by analysing the spatial influencing factors of various variables a spatial Dubin model is constructed. Moreover, this paper combines the classic panel and the space model and expands the space model into a space panel model. Finally, this paper combines the regional economic development to conduct an experimental analysis on the correlation of the agricultural innovation ecosystem and economic growth. From the research results, it can be seen that the method proposed in this paper has certain practical significance. Finally, this paper advances agriculture innovation progress over harmless to the ecosystem agrarian innovation development exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the causal link between bank-based financial development and economic growth in Morocco between 2003 and 2018 using a vector autoregression framework. We test for causality between economic growth and four different measures of bank-based financial development in both the short and the long run. Our results show that bank-based financial development causes economic growth in the short and the long run. Moreover, our results show that economic growth only causes bank-based financial development in the long run. At last, we show that the Moroccan banking sector's integration with the international financial markets only affects the causal link between economic growth and bank-based financial development by providing short-run liquidity to Moroccan banks. Based on these results, barriers to the financial development of the Moroccan banking sector should be investigated and public policy should focus on designing appropriate policies and programs to alleviate these barriers in order to stimulate the growth of the Moroccan economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, economic growth and development have been in the forefront of economic research. In a global context, the highest levels of poverty as well as malnutrition problems are found in sub-Saharan African countries. Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) are useful tools to describe the economic situation of these countries, the interactions among economic agents and to support policymakers in implementing their policies. The paper shows the macro- and micro-economic indicators of Kenya, which can be directly extracted from the described SAM 2017 for Kenya The analysis of the SAM multipliers shows that agri-food multipliers are in general above the average reflecting the strength of backward and forward linkages of Kenya's economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used a threshold regression model to examine the existence of real sector threshold effects in the relationship between financial development and economic development in 38 sub-Saharan African countries from the period 1986–2015. The study identified threshold values of 31.1860, 33.8982% and 1.2241% for industrial value-added, agricultural value-added and total factor productivity respectively in sub-Saharan Africa. The study found that only when the real sector is proxied by industrial value-added that financial development has a significant impact on economic growth. The conclusion drawn from this empirical study is that financial development will only have a positive and significant impact on economic development when the growth in the real sector accompanies the growth in the financial sector. This study, therefore, recommended that the government of sub-Saharan African countries should ensure that the real sector is not below the threshold value so that financial development can bring development to the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, the most used mainstream model for economic growth and development was that used and promoted by the global north. However, this model has not seen the same results in the developing global south as it has in the developed global north. BRICS emerged as an organisation that presented an alternative means to the global north's approach to economic growth and development. This article examines whether BRICS membership has fostered the economic growth and development of South Africa and Brazil. This article examines the five years before and after Brazil and South Africa joined BRICS. Key findings of the study are that economic growth and development gains have been minimal. The study concludes that Brazil and South Africa have achieved political gains from their BRICS membership, which is considered to offset the absence of tangible economic growth and development gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent decades, neoliberal policies have prioritized economic growth to the detriment of social cohesion and the environment. Within these policy tendencies, some societies have attempted to promote sustainable collective wellbeing through comprehensive policy mixes. From an institutionalist economic sociology perspective, this article compares how the four regions in Spain with the highest economic growth have dealt with social cohesion and the environment. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, two models are found: the liberal cases of Madrid and Catalonia, focused on economic growth, and the collectivist cases of the Basque Country and Navarre, aimed at comprehensive wellbeing. Each model displays a configuration of politics (institutional power relations and the organization of socioeconomic interests) and policy mix (the relations between two sets of policies: economic development policies and comprehensive wellbeing policies). The policy mix of the collectivist model has generated higher sustainable collective wellbeing driven by transformative public-civil collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 45 million workers, India's textile industry has long been the subject of criticism concerning labour exploitation and environmental damage. Since 2016, nevertheless, Narendra Modi's government has started to take a different yet somewhat perplexing approach to introducing and environmentally friendlier and more sustainable direction in its textile industry. This article aims to comprehend the reasons behind India's new policy arguing that—despite such changes—environmental sustainability has not become India's full concern in the textile sector at the moment. Such a shift was part of India's international market expansion strategy towards the European Union market which had imposed non—tariff import restrictions on India's textile products. This article also shows contradictions and tensions in the government's eco—friendly textile policy concerning its high production costs and India's yet dependence on conventional production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether Ghana's continuing reliance on primary products has contributed to its economic growth and such economic growth would be sustained in the long run. It shows that Ghana's economic growth since the 1990s can be attributed to a series of fortunes and heavy reliance on a few primary products will not lead to a sustainable development. The experience of Ghana provides important policy implications. Structural reforms, such as a well-designed industrial policy, would be needed for the long run economic development. For Ghana, industrialization did not progress since the 1980s. The infrastructure could not support the manufacturing development and the tertiary level education is not appropriate, particularly in science and engineering. Focusing on selected industrial estates would be meaningful in light of the limited resources. It is needed to prepare a stable supply of electricity and to reduce an exchange rate volatility. A modification of tariff structure depending on the stages of processing and an active utilization of export incentive schemes would be helpful. The government is to pay attention to a further development of the agro-processing industry, textiles and garments industry, aluminum production and the petrochemical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic characteristics are outlined of the UN's Gender Inequality Index (GII) and its Gender Development Index (GDI). Their trends in relation to India's real Gross National Income (GNI) per capita indicate a decline in its gender inequality with its economic growth. However, these trends give a distorted and incomplete picture of changes in Indian gender inequality. Several assumptions underlying GII and GDI are questioned in the Indian context, for example, within India more education of females is not associated with a reduced wage gap between males and females, and greater access of females to the labour market can raise gender inequality. The effects of economic growth (absent in the above indices) are assessed on Indian male–female ratios and on violence against women. Variations in gender inequality in India within households are also considered. New data results in the questioning of several existing hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somalia is a country of two realities: the internationally recognized Federal Republic of Somalia and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland. While the Federal Republic endures chronic instability and unrest, Somaliland has established security, economic growth, and a functioning government. This article argues that a significant contributing factor to this divergence is the radically different colonial regimes that ruled the two regions before their unification and independence in 1960. British rule in British Somaliland sought primarily to deny other empires control of the Protectorate and to trade livestock with the indigenous communities. Italy, however, engaged in a protracted and violent effort to establish a plantation colony in Italian Somaliland. Drawing from colonial-era sources and with a focus on the earliest years of imperial and Somali engagement, this article situates the long-run divergent trajectories of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland within the broader literature on colonial institutions and long-run economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Xi Jinping became leader of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he has promoted the goal of realizing the "China dream," which centers on the effort to sustain rapid economic growth so that China can join or even surpass the rich countries of the world. Given the slowing of economic growth even before the 2020 coronavirus epidemic, debate has arisen about whether China can achieve this ambitious goal. This paper recounts the author's personal experiences thinking about the history of China's efforts since the Qing Dynasty to develop economically in order to ponder the issues in this debate. This overview leads to the conclusion that China's dramatic and surprising acceleration of economic growth in the decades after 1978 was driven by circumstances and forces that no longer work in China's favor, and that the nation now faces several serious problems that could make realization of Xi's China dream problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study endeavors to explore the dynamic causal relationship between economic growth and financial development in Kuwait, covering the time span between 1991 and 2017. Based on the objective of presenting robust results in relation to the research focus, a combination of time and frequency-domain methodologies has been applied. Using the Toda–Yamamoto and the Fourier Toda–Yamamoto time-domain techniques, no causal direction is found through the former test, while the causality flowing from financial development to economic growth is demonstrated by the latter. Nevertheless, the spectral causality test developed by Breitung and Candelon [(2006). "Testing for short- and long-run causality: A frequency-domain approach." Journal of Econometrics 132 (2): 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2005.02.004] gives a more thorough overview of the dynamic causal relationships because it allows the temporary and permanent movements in the linkages between variables to be differentiated. The findings show proof of a bidirectional causality between financial development and economic growth. Our findings highlight the emphasis on covering the frequency causality to provide greater insight into the interrelationship between the variables under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies in feminist literature have found that development effects gender equality in labour force participation, but gender equality has also been found to effect economic growth. These two streams of literature, however, lie largely distinct with few studies directly investigating the inter-relationships between development, growth and gender equality, and as such, this lack of knowledge curtails the development of appropriate policy. This study explores the effect of development on gender equality in labour force participation and the effect of this gender equality on economic growth in South Africa on a quarterly basis from 2008 to 18 using Autoregressive Distributive Lag models. Economic development is found to have a positive effect on gender equality in the long run while greater female participation in the labour market is found to have no effect on growth. These results suggest that further development should be prioritised to support gender parity in economic opportunities in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a comparative review is provided of the quality of EIA systems in 65 countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Furthermore, whether the quality of EIA systems is correlated with national GDP per capita in each country is explored. The review is carried out by means of an integrated EIA index (EIA Quality index – EQI). In developing the EQI, views and perceptions of experts were considered, based on Multi-Criteria-Decision-Analysis (MCDA). Results of the comparative evaluation indicate that there is great disparity between EIA systems in the 65 countries. Countries with existing challenges, such as poverty, civil war and institutional instability tend to achieve lower EQI scores. Finally, a positive (albeit weak) correlation is found between EQI scores and GDP per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling urban growth in Economic development zones (EDZs) can help planners determine appropriate land policies for these regions. However, sometimes EDZs are established in remote areas outside of central cities that have no historical urban areas. Existing models are unable to simulate the emergence of urban areas without historical urban land in EDZs. In this study, a cellular automaton (CA) model based on fuzzy clustering is developed to address this issue. This model is implemented by coupling an unsupervised classification method and a modified CA model with an urban emergence mechanism based on local maxima. Through an analysis of the planning policies and existing infrastructure, the proposed model can detect the potential start zones and simulate the trajectory of urban growth independent of the historical urban land use. The method is validated in the urban emergence simulation of the Taiping Bay development zone in Dalian, China from 2013 to 2019. The proposed model is applied to future simulation in 2019–2030. The results demonstrate that the proposed model can be used to predict urban emergence and generate the possible future urban form, which will assist planners in determining the urban layout and controlling urban growth in EDZs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses China's provincial panel data for 2003–2016 to estimate the turning point of technology spillovers promoting economic growth in the coastal and inland areas. The results show that the turning point in coastal areas is significantly higher than that in inland areas. However, improved absorptive capacity as a result of regional disparity increases the threshold of technology spillovers from promotion to suppression in inland areas but decreases it in coastal areas. Then, this study further tests the threshold characteristics of absorptive capacity factors influencing international technology spillovers using a double-threshold regression model and estimates the threshold values of both forward and reverse spillovers from the viewpoint of knowledge context, economic development, opening degree and human resources infrastructure. In conclusion, the effect of absorptive capacity factors on international spillovers is nonlinear, that is, when absorptive capacity factors are between the two threshold values, technology spillovers are maximised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have considered the importance of technological development to economic growth, which lead to more research on policy interventions that would promote innovation and technological development. However, developing new technologies without a vehicle or mechanism to deliver the technologies to the marketplace implies that the impact of new innovations and technologies will be limited. Consequently, research that investigates the development of tech-entrepreneurs, the conduits who deliver new technologies to the market place, forms a crucial component in developing policies that link innovation to economic growth in today's modern, knowledge-based economies. This study therefore considers the outcome of the training provided by the Swiss-South African Venture Leader Programme. By using the results from the Tech-Entrepreneurship Survey, which was administered by the authors, this study provides a review of South African tech-entrepreneurs' views on tech-based concepts, South African tech-based industries within a global framework, as well as the tech-entrepreneurs' reflections on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the South African tech-based sector. The latter views provide an insight for policymakers as to areas where the South African tech-based sector can be assisted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic impact assessment (EcIA) has attracted some criticism due to its limited focus. Typically, EcIA is used to validate the proposed proposals based on growth in income and employment. This paper argues that EcIA should play a more active and stronger role in impact assessment. For example, the impacts of the proposed projects should be assessed using the economic development goals rather than only changes in economic growth. The conceptual framework for the comprehensive impact assessment is discussed. Examples of indicators that can be used in relation to sustainable development goals are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]