Search

Copyright of China Rural Water & Hydropower is the property of China Rural Water & Hydropower Editorial Office 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.)

Amidst the rapid urbanisation and increasing calls for sustainable development, this study examines the key drivers and barriers influencing sustainable smart city initiatives in Nigeria. By employing a quantitative approach, the research amalgamates insights from diverse professionals, integrating descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and Spearman rank correlation analysis to illuminate the intricate landscape of sustainable smart city development within the Nigerian context. The findings underscore the interconnected nature of various factors, underscoring the imperative of an all‐encompassing approach that synergistically incorporates infrastructure integration, environmental sustainability, efficient governance, social inclusivity, and economic innovation. Furthermore, identifying specific barriers, including challenges related to integrated urban transformation, socioeconomic equity, and governance and infrastructure, highlights the critical need for precise interventions to surmount these obstacles. The implications and recommendations derived from this study emphasise the pivotal role of collaborative endeavours among diverse stakeholders, accentuating the significance of inclusive decision‐making processes, sustainable environmental practices, and equitable economic expansion. The insights gleaned from this research serve as an invaluable resource for policymakers and urban planners, providing a robust groundwork for informed policy formulation and strategic planning to guide sustainable smart city development in Nigeria and other developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective governance is pivotal in fostering social development and economic growth in modern societies. This paper explores the intricate relationship between social progress and government administration quality, aiming to identify the critical determinants influencing countries' social progress. We hypothesise that effective governance exerts a comprehensive influence on countries' social progress and vice versa, not only at the level of partial correlation. Drawing on the Social Progress Index (SPI) and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), we employ discriminant analysis to understand how different dimensions of government effectiveness contribute to social development (Androniceanu & Georgescu, 2023). The study finds that several factors significantly influence social progress, including Voice and Accountability, Political Stability, Control of Corruption, Regulatory Quality, and Government Effectiveness. By analysing data from 167 countries, we classify nations into high, medium, and low social progress groups based on SPI scores. The discriminant analysis model achieves an accuracy of 92.2% in classifying countries, indicating the robustness of the approach. Furthermore, multivariate Wilk's Tests of Significance reveal that variables related to water and sanitation, access to basic knowledge, access to information and communications, environmental quality, personal safety, and access to advanced education are determinants of social progress. The discriminant functions derived from the analysis provide insights into the relative importance of these variables in determining countries' social progress levels. Our findings underscore the importance of effective governance in driving countries' social development outcomes. By identifying key factors that contribute to social progress, policymakers can design targeted strategies to enhance governance effectiveness and promote sustainable societal advancement. The study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of the relationship between government efficiency and social development on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of eco-environmental governance can be influenced by a variety of factors, and different factors have different effects on eco-environmental governance efficiency. This study attempts to investigate the impact of environmental protection input on the efficiency of ecological environmental governance in China. By using Meta-analysis, the effects of environmental protection input on eco-environmental governance efficiency were selected under 35 independent samples studying eco-environmental governance efficiency in China from 2010 to 2022. Meta-binary analysis and regression analysis were also used to explore the moderating effects of potential moderating variables on the relationship between environmental protection input and eco-environmental governance efficiency. The empirical results demonstrate that: (1) environmental protection inputs have a significant positive effect on the efficiency of eco-environmental governance in China in all dimensions. (2) The relationship between environmental protection input and eco-environmental governance efficiency is moderated by measurement scope, measurement dimension, technological innovation, and environmental regulation. Based on the empirical findings, this study further proposes policy recommendations to improve the efficiency of China’s eco-environmental governance, including increasing environmental protection investment, playing a leading role in the government, addressing regional economic differences, increasing scientific and technological innovation, and improving the environmental regulation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research adopts a two-stage network DEA model to measure marine green economy efficiency from 2006 to 2018 and employs the panel Tobit model to analyze the influencing factors. The results indicate that total efficiency and production efficiency of China’s marine green economy generally show a fluctuating downward trend. Further investigation of influencing factors shows that foreign direct investment and opening up have a significantly positive effect on total efficiency of the marine green economy, while industrial development level and marine economy development level have a negative effect on it. Additionally, these variables have varying impacts on different stages of the marine green economy. Our findings help identify the operational characteristics of the marine green economy at different stages and can assist policymakers in optimizing the development pattern of the marine economy.

The challenges of the digital economy are leading to radical changes in public governance, creating conditions for convenient and prompt access to public services and public information. Moreover, the pandemic has caused drastic changes in the use of digital public service – it has become a necessity. Ukraine has significant prerequisites for the development and effective transformation of public administration to a higher technological level. Furthermore, during the time of crisis (2013-2014, 2020-2021), the government priorities were shifted to support digital transformations to improve the effectiveness of public administration and ensure the sustainability of public finance. The purpose of the paper is to investigate and assess a correspondence between efficiency of governance and sustainability of public finance based on digital transformations under the Ukrainian approach. The main scientific question was: How does the active digital transformation in public governance affect the sustainability of public finance in Ukraine? Methodology. Seeking the solution, own methodological developments were used; correlation analysis of main indicators of government effectiveness and sustainability of public finance was estimated. To assess the impact of digitalization on public governance efficiency, Ukrainian governance practices over the past 13 years were analyzed, expressed by indicators of governance effectiveness, through the introduction of digital technologies. Results. Based on empirical research, it has been found that due to several limitations, a strong direct relationship between active digital transformation and the sustainability of public finances (debt security) has not been identified. But at the same time, significant progress has been made in efficiency of public governance through the implementation of costly but effective digital change. This correspondence is especially noticeable during the crisis caused by the pandemic (2020-2021), during which the involvement of citizens in digital services is very high. Practical implications and value/originality. The convergence of synergies between key aspects – public governance, digitalization, finance, and security – has great potential for relevant solutions that provide a broader view of sustainable development issues. It can be noted that this issue is extremely relevant for further research in the field of public administration and finance in the context of sustainable development of the digital economy.

Using data mining to improve the efficiency of government governance in the context of carbon neutrality is an important way to achieve the modernization of the national governance system. This study starts with the logic of carbon neutral issues, analyzes the factors and indicators that affect the effectiveness of social governance, and constructs the evaluation index system of government social governance efficiency based on data mining application under the background of carbon neutral, including per capita GDP, per capita domestic power consumption of residents, per capita CO2 emissions, per capita green area, industrial waste gas treatment rate, industrial wastewater discharge compliance rate and other indicators, which includes 4 first-class indicators, 19 second-class indicators and 38 third class indicators. Then, the CV-CRITICAL (coefficient of variation critical) index weight determination algorithm is used to determine the index weight. The Pearson correlation coefficient method is used to evaluate the correlation between the two vectors, and then the rationality of the government social governance efficiency evaluation index system based on data mining applications is evaluated. The evaluation results show that the level of social governance effectiveness of the Chinese government is on the rise from 2016 to 2021. This study promotes the application of improving the efficiency of government social governance in the context of carbon neutrality, and provides tools for relevant assessment through data mining technology. This research can not only deepen the theoretical connotation of government governance effectiveness, but also help promote the application of big data in government governance practice.

ObjectivesBased on incentive theory of motivation, this paper aims to estimate China's basic pension insurance's annual efficiency and inter-period efficiency changes from 2015 to 2019 and further examine the relationship between official tenure and basic pension insurance governance performance.MethodsThe DEA—BCC model was used to evaluate the operating efficiency of basic pension insurance in 31 provinces of China. And four panel Tobit models were constructed to examine the heterogeneous linkages between officials' tenure and governance efficiency in different regions of China.ResultsThe results showed that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between the official tenure and the governance efficiency of basic pension insurance. The younger an official was in his current position, the more apparent the inverted U-shaped relationship between the tenure of an official and the governance efficiency of basic pension insurance. We also found that localized government officials showed better governance efficiency of basic pension insurance. However, as the term of office of officials increased, the governance efficiency of non-localized officials showed a steeper negative effect.ConclusionThis study firstly reveals a significant relationship between the characteristics of officials and the operation of China's basic pension insurance system, which is a complement to the study of China's basic pension systems.

Copyright of Journal of Engineering Management / Gongcheng Guanli Xuebao is the property of Journal of Engineering Management Editorial Office 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.)

The main purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of social capital level on environmental governance efficiency in economically developed areas. We choose China’s richest province Guangdong. Compared with other Chinese provinces, Guangdong’s local governments are in better fiscal status, and they can allocate environmental spending in line with the trend of gross domestic product per capita. We want to observe the important factors related to social cognition other than capital investment to gain a more profound influence on the efficiency of local environmental governance. This article assumes that the degree of local social capital will have a great positive impact on the efficiency of regional environmental governance. Super-efficiency slacks-based measure method of data envelopment analysis is adopted to calculate the environmental governance efficiency by considering the expected output and the nonexpected output. Then, short-panel regression was used to analyze the relationship between social capital and environmental governance efficiency. Through an empirical analysis of urban panel data of Guangdong province from 2001 to 2019, it is found that the degree of social capital does have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of local environmental governance. After the research conclusion, we propose some policy suggestions to local governments.

The three-stage DEA method and super-SBM are combined to measure the urban environmental governance efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2016. Then, ArcGIS software is used to illustrate the spatial–temporal evolution of urban environmental governance efficiency, and DagumGiniratio is calculated to show the regional difference. The results indicate that the provinces characterized by high or low environmental governance efficiency are shown to cluster in space over time, and the spatial dependence of the environmental governance behavior of government is the greatest source of the regional difference of urban environmental governance efficiency. Our findings imply that the environmental governance behavior of government is spatial dependent, which highlights that the policies for improve environmental governance efficiency should be made globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has certainly reduced its influence in the global economic affairs. Despite the fact that it unites 28 nations, including the former great powers such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy, the political and economic power of the community has considerably decreased starting with the second half of 2000s. The present research is undertaken with the aim of increasing the readers' awareness regarding the necessity of enforcing the EU economic security through consolidating the authority of the supranational bodies in relation with national representatives. The objectives to be reached in this regard include assessing how much the governance efficiency alternations among the EU member countries influence the efficiency of the single market in a globalised society. It was found that several processes determined the decline of Europe's strength including raising globalisation and increasing competition, economic weaknesses of the EU which worsened during the crisis, stagnation of the integration process, feeble leadership and lack of resoluteness, especially in the most developed EU nations, declining adherence to "core" values, migration crisis, little political commitment to protecting EU's citizens' interests, and countries' individualism in promoting key initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various factors possibly impact on national innovative capacity. Governments are makers and implementers of national innovative policies, then, does its governance efficiency matter for the innovation of a country? Empirical evidence about the relationship between governance efficiency and national innovative capacity is still inadequate. To fill this research gap, the authors, based on the application of machine learning technique, have selected valid variables, conduct analysis with different models using the panel data of 117 countries from 1995 to 2015. The results of different models show that governance efficiency has a significant and positive impact with stability and reliability on innovation. In addition, the authors divide the 117 countries into different regions in accordance with economic development and geographic proximity, found that governance efficiencies of different regions have a heterogeneous but positive impact on national innovative capacity. Finally, potential policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between accounting information quality and capital investment choice from the perspective of accounting information’s governance function. Measuring capital investment choice as the correlation of growth of operating income between company and industry, this paper investigates whether and to what extent companies focus on their core business. The results show that the higher the quality of publicly listed firms’ accounting information, the stronger that correlation, particularly when the corporate governance of the listed company is poor. The findings imply that accounting information quality can thus optimize the capital investment choice, which complements and strengthens the functioning of corporate governance. Hence, regulators should pay more attention to the market’s power to supervise the behavior of listed firms, improve the governance functions of accounting information and increase the efficiency of capital allocation.

Using China’s A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2011, this paper empirically tests how media governance affects firms’ levels of overinvestment and whether external supervision and informal institutional mechanisms reduce these levels. We find that media governance and overinvestment are significantly negatively related. When firms are located in a district with a stronger media governance environment their levels of overinvestment are lower, indicating that media governance significantly restricts overinvestment behavior. When internal corporate governance efficiency is low, the negative relationship between the media environment and overinvestment behavior is significantly enhanced, indicating that when internal governance or formal systems have reduced efficacy, an important complementary role is played by external supervision and the informal institutional environment. After considering endogeneity and different measures of overinvestment and other related variables, the conclusions remain unchanged.

This paper examines the relationship between accounting information quality and capital investment choice from the perspective of accounting information’s governance function. Measuring capital investment choice as the correlation of growth of operating income between company and industry, this paper investigates whether and to what extent companies focus on their core business. The results show that the higher the quality of publicly listed firms’ accounting information, the stronger that correlation, particularly when the corporate governance of the listed company is poor. The findings imply that accounting information quality can thus optimize the capital investment choice, which complements and strengthens the functioning of corporate governance. Hence, regulators should pay more attention to the market’s power to supervise the behavior of listed firms, improve the governance functions of accounting information and increase the efficiency of capital allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using China’s A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2011, this paper empirically tests how media governance affects firms’ levels of overinvestment and whether external supervision and informal institutional mechanisms reduce these levels. We find that media governance and overinvestment are significantly negatively related. When firms are located in a district with a stronger media governance environment their levels of overinvestment are lower, indicating that media governance significantly restricts overinvestment behavior. When internal corporate governance efficiency is low, the negative relationship between the media environment and overinvestment behavior is significantly enhanced, indicating that when internal governance or formal systems have reduced efficacy, an important complementary role is played by external supervision and the informal institutional environment. After considering endogeneity and different measures of overinvestment and other related variables, the conclusions remain unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The severe haze pollution brought about by China's extensive economic growth has attracted widespread attention from the academia and the international community. Based on the streaming data of the air quality index (AQI), PM2.5, and PM10 from 370 cities in China, this paper uses heatmaps to characterize the haze pollution governance of Chinese cities. Then, the meta-frontier efficiency, group frontier efficiency, and inefficiency under meta-frontier of the haze pollution governance of 101 key cities in China are measured using a directional distance function methodology. The sources of inefficiency of haze pollution governance are also analyzed. Although there have been improvements in AQI, PM2.5, and PM10 for most Chinese cities in recent years, the efficiency of haze pollution governance remains relatively low. In particular, the technology gap between the group frontiers and the meta-frontier of haze pollution governance of central China's cities is growing. Also, the inefficiencies of haze pollution governance mainly stem from the inefficient use and management of the resource inputs, rather than the technology gap. Unlabelled Image • Visualizing the haze pollution governance of Chinese cities based on the streaming data • Measurement of meta-frontier and group frontier efficiency of haze pollution governance • The technology gap between the group frontiers and meta-frontier of haze pollution governance • Analysis on the sources of inefficiency of haze pollution governance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]