Sustainability: a systems approach Clayton, A.M.H; Radcliffe, N.J. (Institute for Policy Analysis and Development, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (United Kingdom))
1996
Book
Tourism in Africa Christie, Iain; Fernandes, Eneida; Messerli, Hannah ...
2014.
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
This report is the first to examine tourism in Africa comprehensively and regionally and the first to recommend practical, evidence-based measures enabling the sectors economic and development power. ...This gives new impetus to the continents development progress by leveraging tourism in pursuit of lasting poverty alleviation and the creation of significantly more jobs and opportunities for all Africans.
As the most important emerging transportation technology, high-speed rail (HSR) can reshape regional economic development patterns and exert an important effect on the ecological environment. Using a ...panel data set of 275 Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above from 2003 to 2014, this study is the first to adopt a continuous spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the effect and its mechanism of HSR service intensity on CO2 emissions. A series of robustness tests are performed, including the placebo test and using the propensity score matching method combined with the SDID (PSM-SDID) model. We also conduct a heterogeneity analysis using a spatial difference-in-difference-in-differences (SDDD) model. The results show that an increase in HSR service intensity significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions, resulting from the effects of transportation substitution, market integration, industrial structure, and technological innovation. Meanwhile, such an increase inhibits CO2 emissions in neighboring cities with a spatial attenuation boundary of 1000 km. On average, for every addition of 100 HSR trains in a city, the total CO2 emissions can be reduced by 0.14%. Moreover, the CO2 emission reduction effect of HSR is more significant in eastern China, large cities, and resource-based cities. However, higher levels of HSR service intensity in large cities and resource-based cities are not conducive to reducing CO2 emissions in neighboring cities. These findings can help to accurately evaluate the social benefits of expanding HSR networks and provide an important decision-making reference for climate governance during the era of HSR.
•We explore the effect and its mechanism of high-speed rail (HSR) on CO2 emissions.•We use a continuous spatial difference-in-differences model and China's urban data.•An increase in HSR service intensity significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions.•HSR curbs neighboring CO2 emissions with an attenuation boundary of 1000 km.•Every addition of 100 HSR trains in a city can reduce total CO2 emissions by 0.14%.
The discourseon the impact of natural resource endowment and its effect on financial development has been an important research area in the last few decades. This study attempts to test the “resource ...curse” hypothesis in case of China for the period of 1987–2017. Unlike others, we introduce additional variables such as technological innovations, human capital, and trade openness into the finance demand function. We used an augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test with and without structural breaks and Carrion-i-Silvestre et al.’s (2009) generalized least squares based test to examine the stationary properties of the variables. Similarly, to examine the presence of the cointegration relationship between financial development and its determinants, the Maki cointegration with multiple structural breaks approach is applied. The empirical results support the presence of the resource curse; that is, natural resources negatively affect financial development in China. Nonetheless, technological innovations, trade openness, and human capital affect financial development positively. The interaction of human capital and technological innovations is also positively linked with financial development. Our empirical findings have robust policy implications, highlighting the need to promote technological innovations and human capital development for effective use and management of natural resources to promote the development of financial sector.
•It employs the Maki cointegration with multiple structural breaks approach to examine the presence of the cointegration relationship.•Natural resources negatively affect financial development in China.•Technological innovation, trade openness, and human capital affect financial development positively.
The provincial panel data from 2005 to 2018 in this paper classifies institutional variables into the degree of market resource allocation, market openness, and property rights diversification. It ...empirically analyzes the relationship between economic growth, natural resources, and institutions quality. The research results show that the “resource curse” proposition is valid at the provincial level in China. The low-quality market resource allocation system and property rights system curbed the potential advantages of natural resources to promote economic development and caused the “resource curse” effect. Similarly, the increase in market openness can ease the “resource curse” effect. Moreover, in the context of the spatial agglomeration of natural resources, there is a negative spatial correlation between economic growth, and the “resource curse” effect is more severe in areas where resources are more abundant. In addition, it is found that natural resource endowments will affect the quality of the system. Under the effect of the causal cycle mechanism, the lower the quality of the system, the more severe “resource curse” effect.
•Multi-dimensional selection institutional quality index.•The “resource curse” proposition is valid at the provincial level in China.•Negative correlation between natural resources and economic growth.•Low institutional quality leads to serious “resource curse".
Modernity promised control over nature through science, material abundance through technology and effective government through rational, social organization. Instead of leading to this promised land ...it has brought us to the brink of environmental and cultural disaster. Why has there been this gap between modernity's aspirations and its achievements? Development Betrayed offers a powerful answer to this question. Development with its unshakeable commitment to the idea of progress, is rooted in modernism and has been betrayed by each of its major tenets. Attempts to control nature have led to the brink of environmental catastrophe. Western technologies have proved inappropriate for the needs of the South, and governments are unable to respond effectively to the crises that have resulted. Offering a thorough and lively critiques of the ideas behind development, Richard Norgaard also offers an alternative co-evolutionary paradigm, in which development is portrayed as a co-evolution between cultural and ecological systems. Rather than a future with all peoples merging to one best way of knowing and doing things, he envisions a future of a patchwork quilt of cultures with real possibilities for harmony.
When Poland and Ukraine introduced their political, social and economic system reforms at the beginning of the 1990s, both economies were at a similar level of economic development (GDP $9,500 per ...capita). However, in 2018, Ukrainian GDP per capita had remained at the same levels since 1991, while in Poland, it had increased significantly, to more than $27,000 per capita. This book assesses the reasons for the growing gap between the level of economic development in Ukraine and Poland. It examines the course of events and evaluates the effectiveness of the system transformations, both in the context of the economy, as a whole, and in individual regions (Polish ‘voivodeships’ (provinces) and Ukrainian ‘oblasts’). It also analyzes the consequences of the 2008–2009 Ukrainian-Russian gas conflict and 2013–2014 Euromaidan events for the Ukrainian economy. Additionally, the authors offer an insight into the migration movements, which have recently been observed in Poland and Ukraine. This is the first comprehensive, comparative analysis concerning the spatial diversification of economic development in these two countries, and the authors highlight the ways in which these reforms have proved effective in Poland and hardly effective in Ukraine. This analysis helps to identify the basic interrelations between the core macroeconomic variables at the regional level and the impact of political events from both a national and regional perspective. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy makers interested in the economic and political changes in these two countries, in a comparative setting and on national and regional levels, as well as those working on issues of EU integration.
There are studies on renewable energy, natural resources abundance, and their impact on the environment especially in BRICS countries. However, none of the studies has considered human capital in the ...nexus, knowing fully well that ecological distortions mainly emanates from human activities. Therefore, this study explores the linkage between natural resource, renewable energy, human capital, and ecological footprint (EF) in BRICS using a battery of advance econometric techniques. The findings from the study, across all models, affirm that economic growth and natural resource increase the EF, renewable energy decreases it, while human capital is not yet at a desirable level as to mitigate environmental deterioration. The country-specific results are in harmony in terms of the deteriorating impact of economic growth, and the abating role of renewable energy on the environment. Further findings suggest a feedback causality between human capital, urbanization, and EF. Policies that can enhance renewable energy consumption, human capital development, natural resource sustainability, and curb urban anomaly are discussed.
•The study explores the linkage between natural resource, renewable energy, human capital, and ecological footprint in BRICS.•Economic growth and natural resource increase the ecological footprint.•Human capital is not yet at a desirable level as to mitigate environmental deterioration.•A feedback causality between human capital, urbanization, and ecological footprint.•Renewable energy decreases the ecological footprint.
Drawing on balanced panel data of 30 Chinese provinces in 1987–2017, this paper examines the impact of carbon emissions on economic growth through the panel smooth transition regression model. ...Estimation is conducted based on the whole sample as well as the northern region and southern region subsamples. Empirical results reveal that: i) noticeable non-linear relationships do exist among carbon emissions, financial development, openness, innovation, and economic growth; and ii) carbon emissions attenuate the promoting effects of financial development and innovation on economic growth, which is also confirmed by using energy consumption as the transition variable; and iii) subsample estimations further discover that the impact of carbon emissions on economic growth is significantly different between the two regions, with the northern region having a lower carbon emissions threshold but quicker transition speed.
•Carbon emissions will inhibit the positive effects of financial development, and innovation on economic growth.•A PSTR model is employed to study the effect of carbon emissions on China's economic growth.•There is a significant non-linear relationship among economic growth, carbon emissions, and other economic variables.•The effects of carbon emissions on economic growth vary significantly from region to region.
Energy poverty in rural Bangladesh Barnes, Douglas F.; Khandker, Shahidur R.; Samad, Hussain A.
Energy policy,
02/2011, Letnik:
39, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Energy poverty is a well-established concept among energy and development specialists. International development organizations frequently cite energy-poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to ...reduce income poverty. Several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting. This paper uses a demand-based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income. At or below this threshold point, households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor. This approach was applied using cross-sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural Bangladesh. The findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in Bangladesh are energy poor, versus 45 percent that are income poor. The findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty.
►We estimate energy poverty for rural Bangladesh adopting a demand-based approach. ►Findings suggest that energy poverty does not necessarily follow the same pattern as income poverty. ►Access to modern energy and efficient use of traditional energy help alleviate energy poverty. ►Energy poverty indicator can help track the effectiveness of a wide range of energy policies.
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