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This research presents a full picture of the rationale behind China's infrastructure investment under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was formally initiated in 2013. In this paper, we argue that the main reason for China to conduct infrastructure investment under BRI is to strategically respond to the emergence of the "New Normal," which pushes the country to sustain economic growth through further structural transformation. We come up with three relevant factors for why infrastructure projects under BRI could be conducive to structural transformation in China's economy, as it (1) provides a much better alternative to the existing poor logistic conditions and can create accessibility among regions, (2) enables the smooth flow of factor endowments of production that significantly reduce production costs, and (3) indirectly strengthens the influence of the debt provider's home currency. This paper also provides three theoretical pillars: the comparative advantage following (CAF) and defying (CAD) development strategies, the late development theory with antineoliberalism characteristics, and the new international division of labor, from which these three factors might potentially explain how BRI could enhance the structural transformation of this second‐largest economy in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the prospects and promises of continent‐wide infrastructure projects under China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its implications for intra‐regional trade and economic development in Africa. Building on the supply side theory of trade and economic development, and taking cognizance of the impacts of asymmetric market sizes on trade integration, this paper argues that continent‐wide infrastructure projects are perhaps not the biggest constraints to intra‐Africa trade. Consequently, the paper recommends caution in pursuing regional infrastructure projects under the BRI. Given that the economies of most African countries depend largely on natural resources, the BRI could be adopted strategically to establish and manage infrastructure projects that would relax the binding constraints to structural transformation and allow for the development of manufacturing and/or service capabilities in the respective countries, especially in niche areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

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.)

Taking the Yangtze River Delta in China as an example, this paper analyzes the spatial characteristics of passenger rail service in different stages, discusses the evolution of regional multi‐level spatial organization structure under the guidance of passenger rail, and explores the ways to realize efficient and well‐organized regional integration through modern railway infrastructure configuration. Rail transport leads to the formation of several urban subgroups within the Yangtze River Delta. The regional spatial structure is a multi‐level "core‐periphery" nested structure coupled with the internal spatial organization of subgroups and their mutual spatial correlation structure. The organization of intra‐subgroup and inter‐subgroup determine the evolution direction of the whole spatial structure. The development model of constructing a high‐speed railway network with the regional political and economic center cities as hubs has led to each subgroup that starts to rely on these cities to form clusters and achieve spatial reconstruction. In this process, the connection between the "core" areas and the "periphery" areas, as well as among the "periphery" areas within the spatial scope of each level has been strengthened. However, although the gap between the "core" areas and the "periphery" areas has narrowed, it still persists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large scale transport infrastructure constructions connect both large metropolitan cities as well as small peripheral cities. Transportation cost reductions facilitate the reallocation of labor factors between these asymmetric regions. Whether the results of labor reallocation narrow down the inter‐regional considerable discrepancies or reinforce the disparities in productivity is uncertain. This paper explores the opening of China's High‐Speed Railway (HSR) program as a quasi‐natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of the HSR connection on urban disparities in labor productivity. To address the selection bias caused by non‐random placements of HSR routes, we eliminate all metropolitan city nodes and construct a minimum spanning tree as the instrumental variable. Compared with peripheral cities not connected by the HSR, the labor productivity in connected peripheral cities decreases by 12.6% after the opening of the HSR. Using China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), we further find that the decline of labor productivity is driven by the relocation of high‐skilled labor from the HSR connected peripheral cities to the central cities. This article concludes that the HSR widens the productivity disparities between the large central metropolitan and small peripheral cities connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating the impact of geomagnetic disturbances on power grid infrastructure is critical to mitigate the risk posed by geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). In this paper, the geoelectric field and induced voltage distribution in North China were estimated from the SinoProbe magnetotelluric (MT) impedance data together with the geomagnetic observatory data of six INTERMAGNET stations recorded during the significant geomagnetic storm of 17th March 2015. The measured impedances from 119 SinoProbe MT sites were convolved with geomagnetic observatory data to account for the Earth's complex three-dimensional electrical resistivity structure. The resultant geoelectric field was then used to model the induced voltage distribution across the regional power transmission network in North China. Due to the large inter-site distances of the SinoProbe MT program, the derived geoelectric field is mostly homogeneous, except in the Ordos Basin that displays a polarization of the geoelectric field, and with higher magnitudes in the orogenic belts. The estimated geoelectric fields in Taihang-Lvliang, Yanshan, and Luxi orogenic belts of North China were large (>1 V/km) during the storm, due to high-resistivity lithosphere resulting in large voltage gradients in the Earth. However, in relation to locations of major power transmission lines, only the central part of North China experienced induced voltages exceeding 100 V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical distance constitutes friction in searching for research collaborators. Taking advantage of a quasinatural experiment featured by High‐Speed Railway (HSR) lines in China, this paper employs the difference‐in‐differences model to identify the causal impact of a substantial improvement in the intercity transportation infrastructure on collaborative innovation across cities. The data pertain to a universe of patent applications filed by Chinese universities and their citations. We find that HSR contributes to a substantial increase in the innovation quantity and quality of collaborative patenting innovation between universities and corporates. It contributes to industry collaboration by utilizing university academic disciplines in the related technology fields. Lastly, HSR facilitates universities to search for new research partners with better quality beyond the geographical boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of Broadband Network Infrastructure (BNI) on urban ecological innovation (EI). The implementation of China's "Broadband China" Demonstration City (BCDC) construction policy provides a quasi‐natural experiment for examining the causal effect of BNI on urban EI. Using the difference‐in‐differences method, we find that BNI significantly increases the number of green patent applications in local cities, and that the effect is increasing over time. Examination of the underlying mechanism reveals that BNI promotes urban EI through stimulating entrepreneurship, improving human capital level, and attracting investment agglomeration. This paper contributes to the understanding of why significant innovation frequently occurs in places with relatively perfect infrastructure, such as networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have increasingly attended to the role of emotion in geopolitical encounters and the geopolitics of cross‐border infrastructure projects. While scholars have theorised fear as an emotion produced by elite geopolitical discourses and encounters between bodies, we know much less about how infrastructure's materialities provoke fear and anxiety. Furthermore, key distinctions between anxiety – or a psychological state of insecurity and unease – and fear, which is attached to a specific target object, are still not fully understood. Focused on the uncertainties over China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), we develop the concept of sovereign anxiety – a generalised condition of unease over the security of one's political community – to account for how the BRI generates not only the hard materials of infrastructure (e.g., roads, dams and pipelines), but also the social practices of affect and emotion. Sovereign anxiety, we argue, is heightened by the absence of transparency over China's infrastructure investments in Myanmar. In this paper, we trace how sovereign anxiety is variously experienced and grounded in residents' observations, personal biographies, social histories, and sense of community belonging. We also identify three themes by which fears of the BRI are articulated: relations, roads, and resources. This article contributes an emotional geopolitics perspective to grounded studies of the BRI, while also demonstrating the geopolitical significance of attending to the emotional lives of infrastructure in relation to the BRI and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

This paper explores how vulnerable consumers within systematic constraints of economic inequality, institutional barriers, and social segregation in an urban environment cope with their vulnerabilities to achieve their well‐being. Taking China's internal migrant workers as a research context, our study examines their vulnerable experiences and reveals the impact of systematic constraints on migrant workers' self‐perception, interpretation, and actions. It discovers a staged process through which migrant workers acquire resilience to optimize life satisfaction by fulfilling a sense of control over their migration life. Through a situated approach to capture the contextual impact of systematic constraints on vulnerability experiences and the construction of resilient pathways to achieve well‐being, this paper puts forward critical welfare issues such as inclusive marketplace, social capital, and community empowerment which are important to migrants' social integration and capability building. This calls for more coordinated efforts to promote effective resilience building and sustained well‐being among resource‐constrained consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the spatial distribution of foreign aid has aroused a widespread academic interest, the existing research is limited mainly to the transnational level and lacks an analysis of aid allocation within a single recipient country. Moreover, more attention is paid to the factors influencing the aid allocation than to the interactions among different aid allocation stakeholders. To fill the research blank, this paper proposes a "three‐party relationship model" to analyze the spatial allocation of aid within a recipient county, and uses the case of Japan's aid to China to validate the model. We find most of the aid has been allocated to the economic infrastructure, over time, and the key aid sector has shifted from economic infrastructure to social infrastructure and general environmental protection; The allocation characteristics of total aid and key aid sectors are various; The spatial allocation pattern of aid reflects an interaction between the donor (Japan) and the recipient country (China). The degree of importance of each aid allocation stakeholder is different at different stages of the total life cycle of aid, and the aid allocation stakeholder relationship in the three‐party relationship model may be constantly reshaped during the allocation processes of aid in space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates a translog cost function for 29 Chinese provinces between 1979 and 2018. The results imply that investment in public infrastructure reduces costs in all provinces. Comparing the estimated rate of return to infrastructure with the rate of return to private capital, our results indicate underinvestment for the initial period after the economic reforms; however, after 2010 our results show overinvestment in infrastructure. Infrastructure capital is a substitute input to labor, private capital and intermediate inputs. Finally, public infrastructure growth contributes positively to labor and total factor productivity growth, but the effect is small. The growth of private capital and intermediate inputs are the most important factors that boost the growth of labor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the paired assistance policy (PAP) in facilitating recovery after the Wenchuan earthquake in China on 12 May 2008 is best analysed from a network perspective. This paper makes five assumptions to explore the relationship, and then draws on three additional cases to examine them. The key findings support all five assumptions. First, the interactions of authority compliance initiated the PAP, and second, the interactions of resource input significantly contributed to rapid reconstruction following the earthquake. Third, the interactions of knowledge transfer supported social system recovery, and fourth, the interactions of benefit reciprocity laid the foundation for sustainable recovery. Fifth, by contrast, the interactions of performance comparison caused suboptimal overfunding of particular public infrastructure projects and reduced local self‐reliance to some extent. Finally, suggestions are made to improve the policy implications of extending the use of the PAP in other administrative contexts. The PAP could become an even more important policy device in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Transnational higher education represents a lesser-known aspect of the international education industry. In relation to the UK, transnational education is a booming business. British qualifications are offered in 217 countries outside the UK, representing in excess of 388,000 students in total. These students are fascinating precisely because they are acquiring an 'international education' in situ, raising a number of pertinent questions relating to the 'capital' young people are developing. How valuable is a British degree delivered entirely overseas? What does it actually represent - both conceptually, in terms of students' (im)mobilities, and in relation to individuals' embodied experiences of transnational higher education? This paper draws on the findings of a qualitative project examining British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong and their implications for young people locally. We focus on the experiences of students and graduates and the intentions of a number of UK 'providers' (representing different British higher education institutions). We explore the social capital accessible to students undertaking transnational educational programmes and focus in particular upon the spatial availability of 'institutional social capital'. We argue that the ability of young people to cultivate social capital in the context of transnational higher education is circumscribed in various ways, with implications for subsequent employment opportunities and social mobility. Our paper furthermore responds to recent calls to spatialise the conversion of social capital. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is heralded as the largest investment in infrastructure in history and is expected to re‐shape the geographies of urbanisation in the coming decades. In this paper we review the burgeoning, yet still embryonic literature on the BRI. Our aim is to move beyond currently dominant framings of the BRI as a geopolitical or economic strategy that tend to overlook the complex embeddedness of infrastructure. Drawing on theories of planetary urbanisation, we argue that the BRI constitutes a form of urbanisation that is bound up with the socio‐spatial and ecological restructuring of global capitalism. We illustrate this by mapping and analysing energy projects under the BRI. Overall, we outline a research agenda on the BRI that calls for (1) a more nuanced analysis of its spatial and scalar politics; (2) approaching the BRI as a distinctly urban question; and (3) a disruption of the dominant China‐centric discussions through critical in‐depth case‐study analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Chinese activities in sub-Saharan African countries with respect to the growth performance of economies in that region. Using a Solow-type growth model and panel data for the period 1991 to 2010, we find that African economies that export natural resources have benefited from positive terms-of-trade effects. In addition, there is evidence for displacement effects of African firms due to competition from China. On the other hand, Chinese foreign investment and aid in Africa does not appear to have a significant impact on African growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are not only connected through conventional infrastructure, but also through digital infrastructure. This paper tests whether digital connectivity patterns follow traditional ones. Using a generalized spatial interaction model, this paper shows that geography (and distance) still matters for an extensive set of world cities. With a view to the rapidly rising urbanization, the attention is next focused on the emerging large cities in China to test the relevance of distance frictions − next to a broad set of other important explanatory variables − for digital connectivity. Various interesting results are found regarding digital connectivity within the Chinese urban system, while also here geography appears to play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A construction industry encountering uncertain workload, difficulty in workforce renewal, and ultimately endangering its own sustainability jeopardizes not only the long-term health of the industry, but also the sustainable development of a city's infrastructures. Hong Kong is a city facing this problem and there are growing concerns within the industry that there will be an inadequate workforce to meet future demand and that the industry is unable to attract sufficient young talent, in part because of the negative image of the construction industry. This paper aims to examine the role and impact of societal engagement in infrastructure projects. The notion of using societal engagement as a vehicle for enhancing the image and sustainability of the construction industry, thereby also improving the ability to attract new entrants, is proposed in this paper. It is also suggested that the construction industry's interaction with the public should be a continuous process on a daily basis through a professional workforce that promotes safety, environmental responsibility and caring for the needs of society, rather than only during public engagement events for individual projects. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data for 29 provinces in China during 1990–2004, the present paper attempts to explore a possible link between financial development and China's foreign trade. Three measures of comparative advantage in manufactured goods have been applied in our study, including Balassa's revealed comparative advantage, the net manufactured export index, and the Michaely index. We also use four indicators of financial development to identify the different functions of regional financial development, and to determine both size and efficiency features of financial institutions. The estimation results suggest that besides factor endowments, foreign firms and infrastructure, financial development has a quantitatively large and robust effect on China's manufactured goods trade. Therefore, further reform of China's financial system should be encouraged to fully exploit the comparative advantage of China's foreign trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore key determinants of competitiveness in the textile and apparel industries, with special reference to Chinese Mainland. The authors conduct a survey that is designed to use productivity, supply-side and demand-side determinants to measure enterprises' competitiveness. The collected survey data is then analyzed using factor analysis to capture the related determining factors indicative of competitiveness at the enterprise level. The findings demonstrate that government policies and related industry infrastructure are the most important determinants of competitiveness in the textile and apparel industries, followed by domestic demand. This suggests that the improvement of industry infrastructure can foster industry performance, and that more resources should be endowed to enhance the domestic business competitiveness of local enterprises. The development of domestic demand will foster the competitiveness of the textile and apparel industries on a more sustainable basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparison is not restricted to Mumbai and Shanghai but also to Bangalore and Hangzhou, Delhi and Beijing and so on. The Chinese and Indian economies are expected to be the growth engines of the global economy. In this process cities are expected to play an important role, through their transformation into “World Class” cities, a term now doing rounds in the policy circles in Mumbai, to be achieved through massive infrastructure investments made in them. In China, this has been possible because of the decentralized administrative and fiscal system in China. In contrast, in India, the system of urban infrastructure is currently evolving and making a transition from a centralized to a decentralized system. This paper: (i) compares the Chinese and Indian financial systems to explain differences in the quantum of funds available in cities in both countries; (ii) looks at urban responsibility allocations in terms of institutions; and (iii) compares capital investments made by one city each in the two countries, in Beijing (China) and in Mumbai (India). Edited by Xinyu Fan [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been heavily investing in transportation infrastructure since the 1990s. Consequently, connectivity has been significantly improved, both within China and between China and other countries. Such large-scale investments have been made possible by various financing mechanisms from the central government, local governments, and the private sector. Research findings generally indicate that these infrastructure investments bring economic prosperity to the country, affect the distribution of economic activities, reduce poverty to a certain extent, and promote economic integration. The future trends of connectivity changes in China and relevant policy recommendations are also discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a dataset for 31 Chinese provinces from 1998 to 2006, this paper provides a spatial Durbin panel analysis to test for fiscal interactions among China's provinces in their public spending on infrastructure. We find significant positive interactions across Chinese provincial governments. Further analysis attempting to distinguish between the possible sources of such fiscal interactions reveals evidence of expenditure competition instead of yardstick competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Despite extensive public infrastructure spending, little is known about the benefits of access to 'green amenities' like parks within cities. This paper uses spatial econometric methods to estimate the value of proximity to parks using land markets in a Chinese megacity. Our research design captures mechanisms of spatial interaction effects and highlights the importance of avoiding the biases inherent in the traditional valuation approach. Our results suggest that land adjacent to parks is significantly valued by land developers and that these valuations are not distributed evenly over space. Our evidence provides support for considering locations in explaining the amenity value differentials that are grounded in the social, economic, and local contextual forces at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Jones' test for the empirical validity of AK-type models to the Chinese economy over the period 1952-2006 (Jones C. I., Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110, 1995a, 495-525). We aim to establish whether large permanent movements in the physical investment rate cause permanent movements in output growth. The evidence indicates that the one-sector AK model cannot be rejected. We also find that augmenting the model to allow for transitional dynamics-via imbalances in factor endowments, structural transformation, and R&D-based technology transfer-does a better job in describing China's growth dynamics than the basic AK model. ( JEL C22, O41, O47) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contribution of exports to growth in China since the early years of the decade. It is estimated that, despite a high import content ranging between 40 and 50 percent, approximately one-third of Chinese growth before the global crisis was a result of exports, due to their phenomenal growth of some 25 percent per annum. This figure increases to 50 percent if spillovers to consumption and investment are allowed for. The main reason for excessive dependence on foreign markets is underconsumption. This is due not so much to a high share of household savings in GDP as to a low share of household income and a high share of profits. It is argued that China can no longer maintain such high growth rates for its exports, and, therefore, needs to turn to consumption-led growth by expanding the share of wages and household income in GDP and accelerating public spending in social infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several decades, China has made tremendous progress in market integration and infrastructure development. Demand for natural resources has increased from the booming coastal economies, causing the terms of trade to favour the resource sector, which is predominantly based in the interior regions of the country. However, the gap in economic development level between the coastal and inland regions has widened significantly. In this paper, using a panel dataset at the provincial level, we show that Chinese provinces with abundant resources perform worse than their resource-poor counterparts in terms of per capita consumption growth. This trend that resource-poor areas are better off than resource-rich areas is particularly prominent in rural areas. Because of the institutional arrangements regarding property rights of natural resources, most gains from the resource boom have been captured either by the government- or state-owned enterprises. Thus, the windfall of natural resources has more to do with government consumption than household consumption. Moreover, in resource-rich areas, greater revenues accrued from natural resources bid up the price of non-tradable goods and hurt the competitiveness of the local economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) promises to have profound effects on the development of the nation's economy and on nationwide enterprise reorganization. This paper attempts to address the relationship between China's WTO accession and state enterprise reforms, and their impacts on the performance of China's spatial economy, including the possible rise and fall of several large national financial centres, such as Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is argued that China's new international ties will enhance current enterprise reforms and promote changes in the existing pattern of enterprise organization, with enterprise mergers, acquisitions, takeover activity and the formation of large multinational corporations (MNCs) becoming dominant trends within China's industrial development. Alongside these changes, some economic sectors, such as information technology (IT) and advanced professional services are predicted to become concentrated in several national information ‘heartlands,’ each having its own well-developed information infrastructure and other comparative advantages over traditional industrial centers. Meanwhile traditional industrial enterprises, while continuing to rely upon their pre-assigned resource priorities, will certainly face fierce international competition in the turbulent global market. The spatial shift of production and trade undoubtedly requires that Chinese enterprises, especially those that are state-owned, reorganize their production-trade systems according to the global ‘rules of the game’. All of these changes, due to take effect imminently with China's WTO accession, will fundamentally restructure China's spatial economic landscape, including the creation of a new information heartland and hinterland that will in turn determine the life or death of the country's national financial centres. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the effects of the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure on rural employment and income. We use a triple‐difference framework and exploit the geographic variation of the recent universal telecommunication service in China. Empirical results reveal increased broadband adoption after the implementation of the program with governmental subsidy. The universal telecommunication service led to an increase in rural residents' income and their employment in the non‐agricultural sector, especially salaried work. The findings suggest that digital infrastructure promotes the transformation of the rural economy in emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interregional infrastructure promotes market integration and enhances the mobility of capital, thereby intensifying fiscal competition among local governments. Exploiting the expansion of China's high‐speed rail (HSR) network as plausibly exogenous shocks, this study examines how Interregional infrastructure affects the fiscal competition among local governments. We find that after connecting with the HSR network, city governments tend to dedicate a lower proportion of public spending to consumption goods, which benefit immobile households, and invest more in productive inputs, which attract mobile firms. We also find that the negative effect of HSR connection on the proportion of consumption goods is more pronounced in peripheral cities than core cities because periphery cities face a larger increase in capital mobility due to the core–periphery effects of trade integration induced by HSR. Our findings indicate that the behavioural responses of local governments should be accounted for when assessing the social welfare of interregional infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When institutional frictions threaten to disrupt collaborations, an external authority can be brought in to resolve disputes. How effective is such external imposition? What are the institutional circumstances in which it works? Framed by the collaborative governance regime (CGR), which sees established procedures and institutions as a critical collaborative capacity, this research employs a unique concept—collaborative friction—to explore the role of external imposition in collaboration among entities with significant institutional differences. We examined 965 recorded collaborative frictions from four large collaborative infrastructure projects between governments in Hong Kong and mainland China. Our finding suggests a significant, but limited, effect of the central government's imposition on collaborative frictions. We also find a significant role of sociopolitical circumstances in collaboration. Based on the findings, we make several theoretical propositions articulating external imposition's role in collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers comments on a paper "Is China's Development Finance a Challenge to the International Order?" by Dollar. It mentions about China's development finance which focuses on infrastructure development; maintenance of environmental and social safeguards with international norms by the country; and role of China Development Bank in offering finance for the same. It also mentions about financial policy of the country.

Taking advantage of information communication technology, a smart city is a city that has its critical urban infrastructure upgraded to optimise resources allocation and maintenance activities. It serves as a new technology‐based solution to mitigate urban diseases and to improve urban development in China. However, unbalanced and uncoordinated smart city development potential (SCDP) would impede the future construction of the smart city. Consequently, this study aims to measure SCDP and further examine the equality of its spatial distribution in China. In this regard, a brand‐new hybrid multiple attribute decision‐making (MADM) model is proposed to evaluate SCDP. Subsequently, a series of spatial analyses are introduced to uncover the spatial differentiation of SCDP. The results suggest that (a) overall SCDP in China has a continuous upward tendency, and the SCDP compositions of six subsystems contribute variously; (b) over time high‐SCDP cities agglomerated in the east, whereas most of the low‐SCDP cities clustered in the west. This feature indicates that SCDP in China is unevenly distributed; (c) high‐SCDP cities preferred to cooperate in coordinated efforts rather than develop independently. This study makes new contributions to smart city development research in terms of methodology and empirical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City‐regional development is a key lens to understand the interplay between geo‐economics and geopolitics (re)shaping multiscale geographic processes. We advance this thesis by foregrounding the state–finance–infrastructure nexus underpinning contemporary city‐regional development. We argue that unpacking this nexus is important for understanding how the co‐constitution of crisis‐driven state restructurings and state‐mediated geographic processes arises as a solution to pressing crises emerging from the current conjuncture. In this conjuncture, the financial sector and the city‐region are the focal points of state regulation for addressing multidimensional and multiscale crises. We substantiate this argument by tracing how and why the Chinese central state restructured the municipal financing policy to prompt the rapid transformation of Chengdu from a less‐developed city in Western China to an emerging gateway city on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since the mid‐2010s. We contribute an inward and material approach to understanding the geostrategy by shifting the attention from the broad‐level abstraction of external geopolitical/geo‐economic goals to (1) the material processes in which the geostrategy unfolds through internal institutional restructurings and territorial reorganisation and (2) how the BRI‐related infrastructure projects are enacted for addressing social, political and economic requisites at the (sub)national scale. [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]

Infrastructure systems play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of cities and the well‐being of residents after earthquakes. Meanwhile, infrastructure systems are vulnerable to earthquakes and may fail to provide necessary services, highlighting the significant need to improve seismic emergency performance. Nevertheless, the seismic emergency performance of infrastructure systems still lacks effective enhancement strategies and optimization models, which makes it challenging to devise and benchmark appropriate emergency enhancement actions. This study proposes an emergency performance optimization model for infrastructure systems against earthquakes. The model aims at maximizing the effects of resistance actions and short‐term recovery actions on infrastructure systems with consideration of residents' expectations of infrastructure performance after earthquakes. The efficacy of the proposed model is tested by a case study in China. Experiments and results illustrate advantages of the seismic emergency performance optimization and prioritize resistance and short‐term recovery activities within constraints set by available resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments in many countries have offered various incentives to promote the diffusion of electric vehicles (EVs). This study examines the effectiveness of various policy measures that underlie the rapid development of the EV market in China, by far the world's largest such market. The analysis is based on detailed data on EV sales, local and central government incentive programs, and charging stations in 150 cities from 2015 to 2018. The empirical framework addresses the potential endogeneity of key variables, such as local policies and charging infrastructure, by using a city‐border‐regression design and instrumental variable approach. We find that consumer subsidies for vehicle purchases accounted for more than half of EV sales in China. Nevertheless, investments in charging infrastructure were much more cost‐effective than consumer subsidies. An inexpensive policy that merely provided EVs with a distinctive, green license plate was strikingly effective. These findings demonstrate the varying efficacy of different policy instruments and highlight the critical role of the government in promoting clean technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy & Internet 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.)

China and India were relatively unscathed by the global financial and economic crisis: after a brief downturn, stellar economic growth is back on track. New global and regional economic and political orders are also emerging in the post-crisis period with both nations playing a prominent role. There is heightened attention being given to the nature of their development paradigm and related matters such as governance. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the subject. Second, China and India's paradigms for development progress are outlined. Third, the key current and emerging risks and challenges facing these nations are discussed. Fourth, their respective fault lines are exposed. Fifth, some final thoughts are offered on the possible shape of the next development paradigm shift. I conclude by suggesting that the next paradigm shift in China and India will likely successfully tackle some of the unresolved developmental problems that these nations face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual attributes have been demonstrated to influence the entrepreneurial decisions of returnees, but little is known about the regional factors. This study employed a dual-level logistic model to explore the effects of both individual characteristics and regional context on returnee entrepreneurship in China. The results indicated the significance of both individual-level attributes and regional context in the entrepreneurial entry: regional prosperity, government fiscal expenditure, tax burden, rainfall, and transportation infrastructure significantly affected the entrepreneurial probability. This study extends the returnee entrepreneurship literature by first, elucidating the importance of regional context in entrepreneurship and second, highlighting the joint impact of economic, institutional, and geographical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to assess whether counter‐cyclical fiscal policy to release infrastructure bottlenecks achieved the goal of "Beyond Keynesianism," that is, to stimulate long‐term economic growth. The proactive fiscal policy during the Asian financial crisis dramatically expanded the National Highway System in China. Taking the highway project as an example, we evaluate its impact on per capita output and employment growth and investigate the underlying mechanism. Using provincial panel data from 1995 to 2016, our system generalized method of moments estimation finds that this large‐scale high‐rank road infrastructure project leads to an increase in per capita GDP growth. Automobile‐intensive industries benefit most from it. A channel analysis indicates that the growth effect is driven by structural transformation. Further, the project increases overall employment, mainly in secondary industries. It also creates extra demand for road transportation and longer‐distance road freight transport by facilitating the flow of both commodities and passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 21st century, accompanied by the tremendous achievements of China's economic growth is an increasingly severe income gap between the rich and the poor. Based on panel data from 2000 to 2018, this study systematically examined the relationship among transport infrastructure, economic growth, carbon emissions, and income inequality in China, using the panel vector autoregressive model estimated by the generalized method of moments. We further divided China into three regions to investigate the regional heterogeneity of these relationships. The results show a long‐run equilibrium relationship between transport infrastructure, economic growth, carbon emissions, and income inequality. Income inequality in the previous year significantly affects that in the current year positively. Whether at the national or regional level, economic growth affects income inequality negatively. For the national sample, the highway reduces income inequality, while the railway increases income inequality. For both the subsamples and the national sample, carbon emissions significantly increase income inequality and are the Granger test cause for income inequality. Furthermore, we discuss some of the possible mechanisms of these results. Our findings generate policy implications for reducing income inequality in regard to economic growth, transport infrastructure, and carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's internationalization has been heralded by some as a new era of South–South cooperation. Yet such framings of development are pitched at an abstract space of the 'global South' which conceals more than it reveals. With some theory moving towards ontologies of 'global development', we need to capture both the connectedness and the local specificity of increasingly diffuse processes. This article sets out a more fine‐grained understanding of how political territories and processes are imagined and produced by and through China's internationalization, focusing on infrastructure as a 'technology' of territorialization. Much of the focus on China's internationalization has been on state‐to‐state relations, but this obscures the 'omni‐channel politics' that China practises. Using a critical literature review and illustrative case study, this article develops the idea of omni‐channel politics to posit a view of 'twisted' territories in which political processes and development outcomes are more complex and contingent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China's reform and opening up, public infrastructure investments have significantly improved. These investments drive China's long‐term economic growth. Based on panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2006 to 2017, the simultaneous equation models (SEMs) are constructed to explore the regional impact and spillover effect of infrastructures with resolving endogenous problems. Public infrastructure investment remains to have a systemic effect on household income, urban population, and land prices in certain regions. In certain region, the estimated coefficients of public infrastructure investment are consistent with expectations and significant, which are 0.523, 0.142, and 0.781 with three‐stage least squares method. And the endogenous variables also affect public infrastructure investment. But, the coefficient of the spatial term is −0.019, negative and not significant. The cross‐regional spillover effect of public infrastructure investment is nonsignificant using the generalized spatial three‐stage least squares method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers comments on a paper "Is China's Development Finance a Challenge to the International Order?" by Dollar. It mentions about China's development finance which focuses on infrastructure development such as transportation and power generation; maintenance of environmental and social safeguards by the country; and role of China Development Bank and China Export–Import Bank in offering finance for the same.

This study replicates and extends previous research focusing on China, to a sub-Saharan African emerging economy environment. Specifically, the study directly replicates the impact of social capital derived from the micro-managerial networking relationships and ties with top managers at other firms and government officials on macro-organizational performance using data from Ghana. This study further extends previous work by examining the impact of social capital derived from managerial social networking relationships and ties with community leaders on organizational performance. It examines how the relationship between social capital and organizational performance is contingent on an organization's competitive strategic orientation. The findings suggest that social capital developed from managerial networking and social relationships with top managers at other firms, government officials (political leaders and bureaucratic officials), and community leadership enhance organizational performance. The findings from the contingency analyses reveal some interesting trends. The impact of social capital on organizational performance differs between firms that pursue the different competitive strategies (low-cost, differentiation, and combination of low-cost and differentiation) and those who do not pursue those strategies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on an article published within the issue about the status of infrastructure investments by comparing its transport infrastructure with Japan's. He claims that the annual growth rate of China's high-speed rail network is 70% versus three percent of Japan. But China failed to connect cities to high-speed rail rather than focusing solely on the speed of the train. He mentions why he thinks road congestion is higher in Beijing than in Tokyo even if the latter has more cars.

Abstract: This article studies the causes for unequal access to rural community and social development infrastructures in China. We use a dataset in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011–2012), the National Baseline Survey of Communities, to examine the availability of four types of infrastructures: public transportation, sanitation, health care and aged care. Three hundred and seven villages are included in this study. The findings suggest that the primary funder of infrastructures and the status of village governance have impacts on the unequal availability of rural infrastructures. The effects vary by the type of infrastructures under discussion. This is the first attempt to combine planning, finance and governance factors in explaining rural infrastructure availability. It has strong policy implications and shed important light on state–society relations and the urbanisation trends in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]