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The opening of equity markets to foreign investment by developing countries appears to generate an enormously large positive growth effect (see Bekaert, Harvey, and Lundblad (2005), Journal of Financial Economics 77, 3–55) in spite of a relatively small role of such markets for financing investment in most economies. We propose a spillover channel from equity market opening to lower costs of bank loans, which helps to explain this puzzle. From analyzing bank loan data associated with China's introduction of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors program, we find significant support for this channel. Furthermore, we show that a reduction in the risk premium in loans is an important mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraged by the ubiquitous belief entrepreneurship's value as a source of economic growth, for many governments developing entrepreneurial ecosystems has become elemental to their development strategies, representing a prominent trend in public entrepreneurship policy. However, the entrepreneurial ecosystems field is recent, undertheorized, and fragmented, limiting its capacity to explain the effects of entrepreneurial ecosystem policies. Advancing research is crucial for advising policy makers on how to formulate effective entrepreneurial ecosystem policies that are decisive for developing ecosystems. Lacking such solid and coherent theoretical foundations, entrepreneurial ecosystem policies risk being ineffective, while policy makers tend to simply replicate entrepreneurial ecosystem policies from other entrepreneurial ecosystems. We aim to address this issue by providing guidance on key parameters to inform the formulation of entrepreneurial ecosystem policies. The development of entrepreneurial ecosystems requires customizing a mix of policies adapted to the unique characteristics of each ecosystem, promoting the quality of entrepreneurship to ensure the allocation of resources to productive use, and addressing the complexity of entrepreneurial ecosystems with a holistic policy approach. Based on our findings, we present a conceptual framework and discuss three parameters for policy formulation: top-down versus bottom-up formulation, support to systemic versus framework conditions, and holistic versus siloed approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The access and utilization of global knowledge flows are becoming increasingly relevant for individuals, organizations, and countries in order to foster knowledge creation, innovativeness, productivity, and economic growth. The importance of global knowledge flows is undisputed and substantial research has been conducted to understand the different transmission channels. However, the underlying characteristics, determinants, and impacts of global knowledge flows are only partly comprehended and remain to be explored in more detail. The purpose of this special section is to bring together different perspectives on global knowledge flows in order to provide novel insights and expand our understanding of how to utilize them. After a brief review of the relevant literature, we discuss the six papers in this special section and conclude with overall theory and policy implications and highlight key avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, as China experiences economic expansion and its corporations become more global, it has notably become a central hub for cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the world stage. The Chinese government, in tandem, leverages these international M&A operations to drive industrial transformation and progress in technology. This research investigates the role of China's industrial policies in shaping cross-border M&A activities by examining recent instances. Findings indicate that relaxing financial barriers and applying specific industrial tactics bolster companies' abilities to secure funding, consequently energizing cross-border M&A initiatives. Several firms in these international mergers and acquisitions are intricately connected to political strategies, markedly affecting the formulation of industrial policies. This assertion is corroborated through the analysis of relevant statistical evidence. The study methodically collects and scrutinizes data to quantitatively depict the current landscape and influencing elements of cross-border M&A, thus providing concrete evidence for policy and business strategy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently proposing to build the world's biggest national park system, but the country's existing natural conservation is easily affected by population growth and economic pressures. The Huangshan National Park construction area holds great ecological significance and is one of 49 national parks to be established in China. It locates in the Yangtze River Delta region, where the conflict between people and land is intense. Based on this, this paper quantifies the species richness, ecosystem services, and landscape diversity values, counts the index of human activity intensity, calculates the protection advantage and irreplaceability values of each planning unit, and completes the boundary delineation of the Huangshan National Park construction area through the analysis of marginal benefits. Finally, this study delineates the boundary of Huangshan National Park with a 37% protection ratio, which is primarily located in the central and southern regions of the research area, covering an area of approximately 9498.41 km2. This study develops a scientific boundary delineation solution for the Huangshan National Park construction area, which provides a reference for the spatial management and control of Huangshan National Park and a theoretical foundation for the boundary delineation of Chinese potential national parks in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the transportation literature through questions with both the methods used and the econometric findings obtained by several analyses. In this context, CO2, GDP, freight transport (truck transport) and trade openness are considered as variables by performing multivariate regression, Johansen, Phillips-Ouliaris, Engle-Granger co-integration, FMOLS, DOLS, CCR and ARDL tests. According to results of econometric analysis truck transport, trade openness, economic growth caused environmental degradation and there is a stable long-run relationship among variables. All econometric models clearly confirm each other as empirically. The priority area in transportation is the reduction of emissions in road transportation, which has the largest share in greenhouse gas emissions. The steps to be taken at the global level in this field will accelerate the spread of hybrid and electric vehicles all over the world. The market share of electric vehicles is increasing day by day with the widespread use of electric vehicle technologies in recent years and many countries in the world turning to this new technology. With the interest in electric vehicles, it is observed that battery systems compatible with vehicles, engine systems, especially charging station systems have been developed, thus new market areas have emerged. Establishing the necessary infrastructure to achieve this transition is of great importance, and for this purpose, strategy development and planning activities for the development of electric vehicle and charging infrastructure should be aimed to be carried out to reduce carbon emissions. It is seen that there is also a feedback effect between the trade openness and CO2 emissions. Trade openness also affects economic growth by encouraging industrialization. Economic growth will also lead to an increase in energy demand. Similarly, insufficient energy supply will hinder economic growth by affecting exports and imports, and as a result, energy consumption will decrease. In this way, the "Green Deal Action Plan" will be a roadmap that is compatible with the transformation policies taking place in the world economy, especially in the EU, that encourages green investments, contributes to the transformation of global value chains, and thus supports value-added production. Thus, the green deal action plan can achieve the stated objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fragile ecosystems that are affected by erosion from high pollution environmental loads pose a serious threat to human health and well-being. The evaluation of regional environmental loads has become a major issue for eco-environmental conservation and management. As a key region in central China, Hubei Province relies on ecosystems and the environment, which offer an important foundation for sustainable development and continuous improvements in social productivity. For this study, seven influencing factors were selected, and a correlation degree model was applied to assess Hubei Province's environmental loads during the period from 1995-2019. The results show that the overall environmental loads exhibit a fluctuating decreasing trend in response to economic growth and development actions. Moreover, as eco-environmental pollution problems have been addressed and improved over time, the ecosystem operating status has been gradually optimized. Finally, the paper concludes with a proposal of specific measures designed to mitigate Hubei Province's ecological loading from the perspectives of industrial structure, public awareness and technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among south Asian countries, Bhutan has the second lowest poverty incidence; but, there is a large difference in poverty incidence between urban and rural areas. While urban areas registered a very small poverty incidence, 12.0% of rural population were still below the national poverty line in 2017. Poverty is by and large a rural phenominon in Bhutan. Against this background, this study examines whether Bhutan's rural economic growth was pro-poor from 2007–2017 by using the Bhutan Living Standard Surveys. It also conducts an IV probit analysis to explore the determinants of poverty. Even in rural areas, growth is necessary for the reduction of poverty. Besides relying on trickle-down effects from hydropower projects and tourism, promotion of agriculture-based small scale industries is essential for the acceleration of rural economic growth, where further development of basic industrial and transportation infrastructure and socioeconomic facilities is imperative. The country also needs to promote and strengthen basic education since education is found to have played an important role in reducing poverty. Many rural households are vulnerable to poverty. To prevent vulnerable households from falling into poverty, more effective social safety net programs may be necessary based on regional differences in factors affecting living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I assess Stalin's ideas and concepts about nationalities, their 'manipulability' and their legacies. I do this by briefly reconstructing their theoretical and political roots in both Tsarist and socialist traditions. Special attention will be paid to the discovery of a positive correlation between economic development and the growth of nationalism among 'backward' peasant peoples, which went against the grain of previous socialist beliefs, and to the appearance of a theory according to which socialism would naturally produce a superior national-popular society. After discussing the evolution of these ideas and concepts, their practical applications, and the reaction they generated up to 1953, I will focus on the Soviet post-Stalinist theories and practices, and their results, also by taking into consideration the development in Soviet times and after 1991, of new, hybrid variants of Russian nationalism, as well as of Eurasian trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, economic growth is influenced by many domestic and foreign global issues, concerning the decrease of industrial output for the rise in economic inequality and the weakening of the overall condition in the countries. The role of economic growth is based on human capital and investment. Therefore, in this paper, the human capital and economic management system (HC‐EMS) has been proposed to enhance the country's quality based on the capital structure investment. HC explores the role of command and its significance in the production and creation aspects of human capital such that an area can grow creatively. HC‐EMS analysed critical monitoring systems for developing human resources and the high‐tech and creative economic sectors and presented suggestions for change. Besides, there is a need to prove the shortcomings and benefits of human resource development systems and statistical approaches for gathering and analysing information. The impact of financial services and financial transactions may vary; therefore, it is critically important for fostering economic growth. The experimental result suggests that the proposed HC‐EMS achieves the highest growth development ratio than other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City deals – place-based agreements between central and local state actors – are an increasingly common intervention for supporting economic performance in urban areas. This paper presents empirical evidence on the effectiveness of city deals by estimating the impact of the UK's City Deals scheme on rates of economic growth, productivity and job creation across England between 2010 and 2019. Because the City Deals were introduced in two waves, we estimate its effects using a differences-in-differences (DiD) with multiple time periods (MTPs) approach. Our DiD estimates indicate that, overall, the City Deals were associated with improvements in local economic performance, but that the first wave of city deals resulted in gains of around 2.5% to 3% that were not observed in the second wave. These results suggest that city deals are most effective when appropriate institutional structures are in place and highlight the value of MTP approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many regions or countries seek to transition to a low-carbon economy, but there is ambiguity about how carbon emissions change with economic growth. This paper captures characteristics of carbon emissions in China using the Tapio Method. To detect driving factors of carbon emissions in economic growth, we adopt the Log-Mean Divisia Index decomposition method. The results of the paper are as follows: (1) Economic growth in most regions of China has outpaced the growth rate of carbon emissions, showing the characteristics of decoupling. (2) Metropolitan cities have a greater impact on the level of decoupling in neighboring provinces and municipalities. (3) The decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth is caused by declining energy intensity in China. (4) The energy mix and industrial structure have little impact on the growth rate of carbon emissions. In addition, some policy implications are summarized according to the findings of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid progress of urbanization in China, the real estate industry, characterized by a long industrial chain, has become a pillar industry for economic development. Therefore, we inspect the nexus between land finance, housing prices, and economic growth. For this purpose, we use the panel data of 277 cities at the prefecture level or above in China from 2011 to 2019, and empirically examine it by using the Panel Vector Auto Regression (PVAR) model. The results show that there is a causal relationship between housing prices and economic growth. Housing prices promote economic growth in the short term and inhibit it in the long term. Both economic growth and housing prices have a significant impact on land finance. The economic growth show a significantly positive impact, while housing prices promote land finance in the short term with a long-term trend from positive to negative. This is the first study that tries to probe the relationship between urban housing prices, land finance, and economic growth by considering 277 prefecture-level and above cities in China. To promote the stable development of the regional economy, local governments need to overcome their dependence on the housing market and land finance and promote the healthy development of the housing market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To encourage technological and industrial innovation, nations worldwide implement "re-industrialization" and "manufacturing return." This study investigates the relationship between GDP growth, expenditure on research and development, and medium- to high-tech as a percentage of manufactured exports on technological innovation in Pakistan. We evaluated long-run and short-run causal relationships using the ARDL, bound-F test, and ECM regression. The study found a positive relationship between GDP growth and technological innovation in the short and long run. In the short run, with a one-year lag, the analysis reveals a positive and statistically significant relationship between technological innovation, medium-high-tech exports, and GDP growth. In the long run, R&D is positive and significant, while economic growth and technological innovation are positive but not statistically significant. There is a 0.38 percent chance that exogenous shocks will eventually lead to equilibrium in the long run. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended to allocate resources to research and development, promoting collaborative initiatives, ensuring intellectual property rights, and developing a skilled workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Rehabilitation is a set of services designed to increase functioning and improve wellbeing across the life course. Despite being a core part of Universal Health Coverage, rehabilitation services often receive limited public expenditure, especially in lower income countries. This leads to limited service availability and high out of pocket payments for populations in need of care. The purpose of this research was to assess the association between macroeconomic conditions and rehabilitation expenditures across low-, middle-, and high-income countries and to understand its implications for overall rehabilitation expenditure trajectory across countries. Materials and methods: We utilized a panel data set from the World Health Organization's Global Health Expenditure Database comprising the total rehabilitation expenditure for 88 countries from 2016 to 2018. Basic macroeconomic and population data served as control variables. Multiple regression models were implemented to measure the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and rehabilitation expenditures. We used four different model specifications to check the robustness of our estimates: pooled data models (or naïve model) without control, pooled data models with controls (or expanded naïve model), fixed effect models with all controls, and lag models with all controls. Log-log specifications using fixed effects and lag-dependent variable models were deemed the most appropriate and controlled for time-invariant differences. Results: Our regression models indicate that, with a 1% increase in economic growth, rehabilitation expenditure would be associated with a 0.9% and 1.3% increase in expenditure. Given low baseline levels of existing rehabilitation expenditure, we anticipate that predicted increases in rehabilitation expenditure due to economic growth may be insufficient to meet the growing demand for rehabilitation services. Existing expenditures may also be vulnerable during periods of economic recession. Conclusion: This is the first known estimation of the association between rehabilitation expenditure and macroeconomic conditions. Our findings demonstrate that rehabilitation is sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuations and the path dependency of past expenditures. This would suggest the importance of increased financial prioritization of rehabilitation services and improved institutional strengthening to expand access to rehabilitation services for populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove that if the total factor productivity A of an aggregative economy is right at the barrier $ \sigma +\lambda $ σ + λ , with σ being the growth rate of labor force and λ the real interest rate, then the unique policy to optimally control the economy is the same as the one for optimally controlling weak economies, where $ A \lt \sigma +\lambda $ A < σ + λ. This result gives a complete answer for the interesting open question raised by Vu Thi Huong in her recent paper [Optimal economic growth problems with high values of total factor productivity. Appl Anal. 2022;101:1315–1329]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to examine the effects of the development in the higher education and financial sector on economic growth in the case of North Cyprus. Findings of time series data show that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between real income and its elements such as labor, capital, higher education, and financial growth. Results show that both capital and labor have a statistically significant effect on economic growth. Additionally, development in the financial sector is a significant contributor to economic growth, however, higher education shows evidence of greater contribution to economic growth in North Cyprus. It draws attention that the higher education sector has a greater impact on economic development than the financial sector. In this context, government authorities should support both the financial and higher education sectors in order to accelerate their contribution to economic development. Policymakers needed to concentrate more on the higher education sector in Northern Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Global South river basins, urbanization, population growth and demand for resources linked to economic growth pose multiple challenges, compounded by the crises of climate change. For Global South countries, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are opportunities to combine integrated strategies tackling their environmental sustainability and socioeconomic development issues. This article uses the Mekong River Commission and the development of hydropower by Lao PDR case to investigate the ability of River Basin Organizations to coordinate with Member States for consistent regional and national application of transboundary water cooperation best practices while answering both scales' sustainable development agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to introduce two new notions, Θ -(Ξ ,h)-contraction and rational (α , η) - ψ -interpolative contraction, in the setting of F -metric space and to establish corresponding fixed point theorems. To reinforce understanding and highlight the novelty of our findings, we provide a non-trivial example that not only supports the obtained results but also illuminates the established theory. Finally, we apply our main result to discuss the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a fractional differential equation describing an economic growth model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore the decoupling relationship and its drivers between industrial economic increase and energy-related CO2 emissions (ICE). Firstly, the decoupling relationship was evaluated by Tapio index. Then, based on the DEA meta-frontier theory framework which taking into account the regional and industrial heterogeneity and index decomposition method, the driving factors of decoupling process were explored mainly from the view of technology and efficiency. The results show that during 2000e2019, weak decoupling was the primary state. Investment scale expansion was the largest reason hindering decoupling process of industrial increase from ICE. Both energy saving and production technology achieved significant progress, which facilitated the decoupling process. Simultaneously, the energy technology gap and production technology gap among regions have been narrowed, and played a role in promoting decoupling process. On the contrary, both scale economy efficiency and pure technical efficiency have inhibiting effects on decoupling process. The former indicates that the scale economy of China's industry was not conducive to improve energy efficiency and production efficiency, while the latter indicates that resource misallocation problem may exist in both energy market and product market. [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]

Sustainable development is the subject of many economic analyses, but so far no attempt has been made to identify the main mechanism of interdependence between sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development in the second decade of the 21st century. The particular role of energy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is due to the fact that the production, supply and use of energy underpin economic growth. The article fills this research gap and spawns both a better understanding of the essence of sustainable development as well as practical conclusions. The aim is to assess sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development in EU member states and to determine the correlation between the two in the EU. Substantive and formal methods were used to select diagnostic variables, including: the parametric method, the standardized sums method, and correlation analysis. The analysis period covers the years 2014–2021. The conducted research demonstrated a significant variation in the level of sustainable energy development and sustainable economic development among EU countries. [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]

This paper has two purposes. The first is to argue that aggregate investment may be subject to the following paradox. A rise in investment decided by firms to correct overutilization of their production capacity may generate less capacity than demand — and hence cause a paradoxical rise in overutilization. This will in turn lead to even more investment, and so on — the result being the self-sustained rises in output that characterize economic expansions. The second purpose of the paper is to put forward one reason why the above paradox of investment will lose strength as expansions progress, and may eventually disappear leading to their end. That reason may be summarized as follows. As net investment increases along expansions, the effect of investment on production capacity rises relative to its effect on demand — and, as a result, the rise in utilization slows down. Moreover, as net investment eventually grows to a high level, the effect of investment on capacity may become bigger than its effect on demand. If this happens, utilization will stop rising and start falling, and thus the same may happen with investment and output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries devote a lot of time and effort to develop economically, but they nevertheless struggle to attain that growth consistently. Research into economic growth should have provided some guidance as to which actions these countries should adopt, but multiple studies using different methods and datasets generally have led to an array of outcomes that contradict one another. However, Granger causality analysis can provide better insight into the relationship between some key variables and economic growth to give these countries more direction. Granger causality results establish a stronger connection between variables, even though they do not depict true causation. We therefore use a Vector Auto Regression method with Generalized Method of Moments estimation and then Grangercausality to discover how commonly used variables in the literature individually impact economic growth and in what way for a selection of OECD and non-OECD countries. We choose government expenditure, foreign direct investment (FDI), education (as a proxy for human capital), population growth, urbanization, and trade openness as our variables of interest. We also utilize updated datasets from the World Development Indicators (WDI) ranging from the years 2000-2016, based on the availability of the data. We find that FDI and population growth do Granger-cause economic development for OECD countries but that government expenditures, education, urbanization, and trade openness do not show such Granger causality. However economic growth Granger-causes government expenditures, FDI, and education for these OECD countries. For the non-OECD countries, we find that FDI, population growth, and trade openness Granger-cause growth but Granger causality does not occur from government expenditure, education, and urbanization to economic development. Yet similar to the OECD countries, economic growth does Granger-cause FDI and trade openness for the non-OECD countries as well. The overall results indicate that all countries should encourage the expansion of foreign direct investment to grow their economy, which then in turn can lead to additional investment as well as more resources available for the country as a whole. We also suggest further studies should focus on the economic development of individual countries rather than regions, particularly in terms of how technology can drive growth and impact these other variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant scholarly discourse on ecological governance within China predominantly underscores the salient role of the central state. This is unsurprising given the statist policy trajectory transitioned from an emphasis on swift economic growth to focusing on emerging ecological challenges in the last decade. However, this article deviates from this prevailing emphasis, pivoting instead to the tangible practices and realities of ecological governance at the grassroots level. Through an ethnographic investigation, this article delves into the nuances of ecological governance within the Tibetan regions of Qinghai Province, China, emphasising the interplay between local communities, environmental non‐governmental organisations and the local state. The article introduces the concept of 'pluralistic ecological governance', advocating for the integration of diverse governance structures, institutional frameworks and stakeholder involvements. This approach encompasses a thorough consideration of diverse knowledge systems, motivations of community participation and local‐state relations, vital for addressing the complex nature of ecological issues. The study contends that 'pluralistic ecological governance' not only encompasses different stakeholders but also critically examines various forms of knowledge and motivations, along with the diverse interests these stakeholders contribute to both the discourse and practice of ecological conservation on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bhutan has attracted international attention by pioneering the Gross National Happiness index, gaining a reputation for promoting holistic societal well-being instead of the more typical focus on economic growth. Yet a decade and a half since becoming a democracy, Bhutan is experiencing growing pains. A dearth of job opportunities has prompted more young people to emigrate. And minority rights are still not secure, particularly those of Nepali-speakers, after many were declared noncitizens in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the link between value chain importance and economic growth for the EU24 regions between 2008 and 2018. It finds that relying more on GVCs worsened regional growth during the financial crisis, but led to higher growth in the long run. The results contribute to the literature on regional resilience and the public debate on the impact of shocks and the desirability of GVCs. Furthermore, by separately analyzing the importance of global and regional value chains it contributes to the discussion on the effect of regionalization and provides insights on how the re-configuring of value chains may affect regional growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geodiversity and geosystem services are confronting global threats. However, the majority of conservation strategies tend to overlook the geological component within ecosystems. The existing literature centres on biodiversity, ecosystem services and their economic valuation. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review to identify the gap in the assessment of geological diversity, pinpointing areas where scientific contributions are needed to safeguard geological resources. Our findings reveal a concentration of studies assessing geodiversity in European and Asian countries. While the majority of the reviewed papers emphasizes the recreational features and associated values of geological resources, promoting geotourism and recognizing its potential for economic growth, there is a significant oversight concerning the impact of tourism on geological resources. Existing assessments predominantly focus on visitors' perceptions and preferences, sidelining the inhabitants' perspective and their crucial roles in the conservation of geodiversity. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Geodiversity for science and society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a product of combining digital technology and traditional finance, digital inclusive finance plays a vital role in economic growth. This paper deeply analyzes the impact of digital inclusive finance on economic growth and the specific transmission path. This research selects the municipal panel data of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei from 2011 to 2020 and empirically studies the impact of digital inclusive finance on economic growth. From the perspectives of industrial structure transformation speed, industrial structure upgrading, and industrial structure rationalization, this study analyzes the role of industrial structure in the impact of digital inclusive finance on economic growth and tests the heterogeneity of the impact of digital inclusive finance on economic growth. The results show that digital inclusive finance has a significant role in promoting economic growth. The depth of use of digital inclusive finance has the most significant impact, followed by the breadth of coverage, and the degree of digitization is the smallest. The industrial structure transformation speed and the industrial structure rationalization play a significant intermediary role in the economic growth effect of digital inclusive finance, and the industrial structure upgrading has no significant impact on the economic growth effect of digital inclusive finance; the promotion effect of digital inclusive finance on economic growth is bigger in the economically developed group, the higher digital inclusive finance group and the technologically developed group, and the promotion effect is smaller in the economically underdeveloped group, the lower digital inclusive finance group and the technologically underdeveloped group. The results provide a strong reference for policy formulation to promote the development of digital inclusive finance and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' Human Development Index remains a widely used and accepted measure of human development. Although it has been revised over the years to address various critiques, a remaining concern is the way the three dimensions are aggregated into the single index. A deterioration in one dimension can be compensated for by an improvement in another. Since compensability is inextricably linked with trade-offs and intensity of preferences, a non-compensatory (i.e., Condorcet) approach to aggregation is employed in this paper. Although non-compensatory approaches have been employed previously, this paper adds to the literature by undertaking an application of the Condorcet approach to the entire HDI. This approach, which does not use intensities of preferences, ensures that the degree of compensability connected with the aggregation model is at the minimum possible level. To achieve this, country level rankings are then compared to those for the 2020 Human Development Index which aggregates dimensions using a geometric mean. The findings demonstrated substantial changes in rank-order between the HDI and Condorcet approach. This outcome provides empirical evidence which demonstrates that the non-compensatory Condorcet approach can mitigate issues of compensation present within the geometric aggregation technique currently employed by the HDI. These findings have potential implications in aiding the identification and employment of potential policy priorities—specifically, the notion that policy should emphasise the development of a country as opposed to economic growth alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional economic growth models treat production/consumption as abstractions linked only by money flows, disregarding their connection to the physical world. Nevertheless, the existing literature suggests that energy flows can influence production and links useful exergy prices with economic growth. Useful exergy is energy measured at the stage where it produces an end-use (and is a measurement of energy quality). Not all approaches in the literature use this metric and they often consider energy as a primary input (despite it being an intermediate input). We explore the relationship between energy flows and economic growth for the US through a framework where useful exergy, the output of an "extended energy sector" (where all effects of increasing primary-to-final-to-useful exergy efficiency are located), is an intermediate input for a "non-energy sector". Together, they encompass the entire economy. We conclude that the share of investment in the extended energy sector grew with the overall economic growth throughout 1960–2020, while the labour share decreased. The non-energy sector contributed the largest share of consumption, exports, imports and labour. In recent years, the energy sector has overtaken it in terms of investment. Our two-sector model has important implications for current climate policy, namely regarding the Integrated Assessment Models on which it is based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of new firms is an important incentive for the economic growth of a country, since it generates employment, it encourages the competition, and promotes innovation. In this work, we investigate the survival of Spanish firms which were created since 2001 and closed down between 2004 and 2012. The information was gathered from Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC), a survey with a focus the technological innovation in Spanish firms. In particular, a Cox regression model with time-dependent covariates was used in order to identify and quantify the determinants of the risk of exit for the firm. The selection bias due to the interval sampling for the firms was corrected by using methods for doubly truncated lifetimes. Interestingly, it is seen how the correction for the selection bias changes both the size and the statistical significance of the effects provided by standard Cox regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive closed‐form solutions of two‐sector renewable natural resource‐based economic growth model using the partial Hamiltonian approach. The partial Hamiltonian approach provides the first integrals of the model under consideration. These first integrals are used to derive two different closed‐form solutions when the elasticity of output is equal to the inverse of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. We also compute the closed‐form solution for the first integral obtained with a constraint on the parameter. We then analyze the balanced growth path and show that all the closed‐form solutions converge to the same constant growth rate. The closed‐form solution constructed with the aid of the partial Hamiltonian approach is cost‐effective and straightforward to deduce optimal growth path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the role of infrastructure in the nexus between financial development and economic growth in 20 SSA countries. Our study is among the few to have observed an asymmetric connection between financial development and growth, while also measuring the interactive role of infrastructure on growth in SSA, which is considered the most vulnerable region in the world. While employing the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation technique on the data (spanning 1985 - 2018) obtained through secondary sources, our empirical findings suggest a non-linear linkage between financial development and economic growth, such that the positive impact outweighs the negative one in both the shortrun and the long-run. The non-linear estimate, however, provides that financial development has a mixed impact on economic growth as it indicates a positive effect to a certain level after which it hurts growth. Moreover, a negative long-run coefficient is observed on infrastructure, wherein it reduces the growth rate of the SSA economy by an average of 0.27%. On the final note, the interaction effect of infrastructure and financial development reveal a positive linkage with economic growth, wherein infrastructure enhances the longrun positive effect of financial development on the growth of the SSA countries by 0.23%. These results have important policy implications on the economies of the West African countries considered, as the study reveals inefficiency of infrastructure investment in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether and how economic slowdowns lead to military conflict. Although a weak economy (as reflected, for example, by high inflation and unemployment rates) has often been regarded as a cause of interstate conflict, this study proposes that worse economy, that is, a negative trend of growth rates, tends to make political leaders face domestic challenge from dissatisfied public and look for diversionary targets. In addition, it hypothesizes that economically troubled states will target their junior trade partners, which are less likely to retaliate harshly. The results, based on an analysis of directed dyads from 1950 to 2010, show that a state is more likely to initiate military conflict when economic growth slows. When the initiator is an autocracy and the target is a democracy, this aggression is likely directed toward a vulnerable trade partner. However, a potential initiator's political unrest does not increase the tendency to target a junior economic partner. These findings suggest that an autocracy's slowing economy can threaten a politically dissimilar and economically dependent state, and that political and economic unrest have different effects on diversionary conflict as these factors interact with the domestic and international environments. Given our globalized economy and the current erosion of democracy worldwide, we could experience more frequent conflicts between economically troubled autocracies and their junior trade partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesizing various studies that follow technology beyond innovation and use, this article aims to continue widening the scope of history of technology toward this perspective. It argues that we must follow technology through time and—in addition to its use—its maintenance and repair, while also addressing its so-called afterlife, encompassing topics such as reuse, reconfiguration and/or restoration, decline or deliberate ruination, abandonment, and removal and/or remains. Recent studies of these issues underscore that the temporality of technology does not end with the end of its use, suggesting instead multilayered temporalities. History of technology is thus challenged to rethink some of its established and largely unquestioned approaches, such as the "innovation timeline", the model of "technology diffusion and substitution", and "lifecycle" metaphors borrowed from twentieth-century theories of economic growth and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycentric urban regions have been advocated for, and justified as enhancing both economic growth and overall competitiveness while also creating more equitable and balanced metropolitan regions. We examine the role of regional polycentricity in effectuating certain desirable outcomes, specifically enhancing economic productivity and minimizing spatial disparities simultaneously in German urban regions (Großstadtregionen) as a case study. Using econometric analysis of both functional and morphological polycentricity measures, our results indicate that polycentric development can effectively reduce regional disparities in urban regions, but not simultaneously promote economic productivity. These findings confirm previous studies that progress toward one goal hampers progress toward another. Further investigation at a finer scale suggests that the borrowed size effect is essentially a "win-loss" game between peripheries and urban core(s) within the same urban region. Peripheries benefit from the spillovers generated by nearby urban core(s), thereby narrowing regional economic gaps and leading to more equitable regions. However, the gains of the peripheries are canceled out by the losses of the urban cores, and polycentric development has an insignificant overall effect on regional economic productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the dynamic linkages among government expenditure, informality, and economic growth in 15 Eastern and Southern African countries over a 25‐year period during 1991–2015. The analysis exploits panel vector autoregressive models to construct the time path of one variable following an orthogonal shock to another variable using impulse response functions. The analysis is complemented by panel quantile regressions to investigate the potential role of informality in the expenditure–economic growth nexus. The findings are threefold. First, both government consumption and investment expenditure have positive and significant effects on real per capita GDP. Second, informality has a direct negative impact on real per capita GDP. Third, the informal sector dampens the impact of government expenditure on real per capita GDP. These results are robust to the inclusion of selected control variables and are unchanged across GDP quantiles. The study's findings suggest that government policies aimed at reducing informality can have direct impacts on economic growth and indirect impacts through improvements in the effectiveness of government expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Morlet Wavelet approach and other time‐frequency decomposition techniques, this study investigates the dynamic relationship between energy prices, economic growth, and ecological footprint in Malaysia from 1975 to 2021. Our analysis reveals several key findings. Firstly, despite the absence of oil price volatility, the size of Malaysia's ecological footprint varies significantly over the study period. Secondly, energy prices contribute significantly to the ecological footprint. Thirdly, the association between energy prices and ecological footprint is stronger during periods of economic growth. Lastly, energy prices contribute to economic growth and inflation in the short run, but after factoring in the ecological footprint, the association extends into the long run. These findings suggest that Malaysia's economic growth is driven not only by energy prices but also by its ecological footprint. Moreover, the size of Malaysia's ecological footprint is driven by factors at the microeconomic level rather than energy prices alone. Therefore, the impact of energy prices on the macroeconomy, especially when considering the impact on the environment, is non‐linear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis on the economic relationship between trade openness and economic growth and to identify current developments, potential research area and future directions. The emphasis is on the identification of annual growth of publications, country-wise distribution, publication pattern, intellectual structure and cluster analysis of scientific production in this field. Design/methodology/approach: This study used evaluative techniques, text mining approach and performance analysis to identify possible patterns and correlation and to measure the impact of authors/citations/scientific production. Further, this study used the bibliometric mapping to represent the structural features of scientific production. This study emphasized on identification of the research hotspots based on occurrence of indexed keywords, productive researchers and journals during 2000–2022. Further, cluster analysis is performed using VOS viewer to analyze the current dynamics and future direction of the association between trade openness and economic growth (Eck and Waltman, 2011). Also, co-citation analysis is used in this study to identify the relations among authors or journals or documents using citation data, whereas the bibliographic coupling/mapping is intended to analyze the citing documents. Similarly, co-word analysis is used to study the article keywords that are mainly used to assess the conceptual structure of a concerning subject. Findings: Economic growth is a function of trade openness, and it is important to analyze the relationship between trade openness and economic growth. Trade openness tends to become more liberalized over time, to contribute more to economic growth. Empirical evidence suggested that there exists a strong association between trade openness and economic growth. Further, keyword timeline analysis illustrated that the linkage between trade openness and economic growth is current area of interest among researchers. As per bibliometric analysis, China, Pakistan and Malaysia are the three most prolific countries in the terms of published articles on this theme. However, the most influential publications based on h-index and citation on trade openness–economic growth relationship is produced by Turkey. Based on cluster analysis, this study suggests that researchers are currently working on trade openness–economic growth relationship with other variables such as FDI, financial development, labor force, environment degradation and carbon emission, while in future, researchers could work on variables such as technology and sustainable development. Research limitations/implications: There are some limitations of this study. The first limitation is the authors have used Scopus database, leaving the possibility for future research to use Web of Science, Google Scholar or other similar sources. The second limitation is that the authors have used search terms "trade openness "and "economic growth," although research could be performed using synonyms or even relevant terms in other languages. Practical implications: Cluster analysis suggested that researchers are currently working on trade openness–economic growth relationship with other variables such as FDI, financial development, labor force, environment degradation and carbon emission, while in future, researchers could work on variables such as technology and sustainable development. Therefore, this study identified the potential research area in this research domain. Originality/value: To confirm the originality of this study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to combine bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis on trade openness–economic growth relationship. This study makes a comparison with phenomena/processes/events in contemporary economic and social reality in the field of trade openness and economic growth relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments engage in infrastructural developments across the globe, and the level of success often colligates with institutional quality levels. However, despite the presence of governance, the lack of well‐developed infrastructure has bedevilled sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries for decades. Therefore, this study investigates the governance‐led infrastructural development hypothesis for the SSA region from an institutional quality perspective towards addressing the infrastructural deficit challenges of the region. A combination of advanced panel econometric techniques was applied to data collected from the African Development Bank, World Bank World Development Indicator, and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to investigate the governance‐led infrastructural development hypothesis in SSA while controlling for financial development, economic growth, and industrialization in the region. The findings show that the interaction of institutional quality measures and governance indicators significantly and positively induces infrastructure in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). Additionally, while economic growth and financial development yield no expected significant influence on infrastructural developments, industrialization plays a crucial role, as its spillover effects are not confined to boosting economic growth alone but also to infrastructural transformations. Thus, the provision of policy frameworks by authorities to strengthen institutions and promote good governance is vital for articulating and facilitating infrastructural development plans for SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shift‐share analysis has been extensively used to investigate the different drivers of changes in socioeconomic variables in both spatial and non‐spatial contexts. This paper presents a comprehensive shift‐share formulation that, by considering all the possible interactions between the geographical and sectoral variables that interplay in a non‐spatial context, accounts for the intrinsic conditions of the regions that could affect the regional changes when spatial influences are not detected. The proposed technique is illustrated by analyzing the growth of industrial gross value added in the Spanish provinces between 2015 and 2019. Our results show the relevance of the intrinsic effects: the advantages (disadvantages) of the industrial sector within each province and the regional dynamism are important factors to explain the industrial changes in the Spanish regions. These findings provide evidence for the use of the comprehensive shift‐share as a tool that contribute to the regional analysis by identifying the characteristics of vulnerable regions that require further attention to avoid or lessen the effects of low economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the impact of macroprudential policy on economic growth. The results show that the implementation of macroprudential policies contributes to fostering economic growth, especially in the period following the onset of the global financial crisis. In particular, we show that tightening loan loss provisions, loan-to-value, lending restriction, liquidity requirements and systemically important financial institutions measures all lead to higher economic growth. However, we also find that, while tightening macroprudential policy is generally beneficial for the economy, excessive tightening policy can exert a negative growth impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries seek economic growth by means of more energy use from energy imports. Because such imports entail risk as they are controlled by energy exporters, this research establishes a model for energy resilience estimation in order to understand energy risk. The samples in this study are 27 member countries of the European Union (EU), and we divide them into 8 Baltic Sea region (BSR) countries and 19 non-Baltic Sea region (NBSR) countries. The findings are as follows. (i) During the data period, BSR and NBSR exhibit the phenomenon of energy vulnerability. (ii) BSR presents stronger energy resilience than NBSR. (iii) Denmark and Sweden in BSR and Ireland and Luxembourg in NBSR have the best energy resilience. (iv) Strong energy resilience needs high marginal product of energy, high output efficiency, and low energy dependency growth rate for support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently at a critical stage in transitioning from a large petrochemical country to a powerful one. To clarify the relationship between the development of the petrochemical industry and local ecological economy and explore the scientific development path for the industry, this paper analyzes the influence of petrochemical industry agglomeration on local ecological efficiency. By using panel data from 30 provincial units between 2012 and 2021, the study also investigates the mediating effect of green technology innovation on this relationship. Results show that the agglomeration of China's petrochemical industry positively affects local ecological efficiency. However, given some issues such as separation of production and innovation activities within the industry, a negative correlation exists between the agglomeration level of the petrochemical industry in China and the level of green technology innovation. Consequently, the agglomeration of China's petrochemical industry cannot enhance ecological efficiency through the mediating effect of green technology innovation level. The substantial resource consumption by green technology innovation has not translated into effective ecological economic benefits, which has increased the burden on ecological functions and resulted in a negative effect on ecological efficiency. The research conclusions and proposed measures hold significant implications for the scientific planning of the development of China's petrochemical industry, as well as for promoting regional economic growth and ecological construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the changing role of the local government's environmental management in Guangzhou, China, through a historical content analysis of archival data. Environmental governance in Guangzhou has followed a government-led, top-down model. The content analysis showed that over the past four decades, the role of Guangzhou's municipal environmental governance has been characterized by transformation -- from passive responses to accelerating and securing economic growth, and finally to active interventions that balance economic growth and ecological protection. The changing role of the Guangzhou government in environmental governance is driven by varied urban political priorities at different historical stages. This article argues that the urban political economy and the national government's commitment to pragmatic, sustainable development shaped the local government's response to environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]