Bhartendu Pandey, Christa M. Brelsford, Karen C. Seto
Impending global urban population growth is expected to occur with considerable infrastructure expansion. However, our understanding of attendant infrastructure inequalities is limited, highlighting a critical knowledge gap in the sustainable development implications of urbanization. Using satellite data from 2000 to 2019, we examine country-level population-adjusted biases in infrastructure distribution within and between regions of varying urbanization levels and derive four key findings. First, we find long-run positive associations between infrastructure inequalities and both urbanization and economic development. Second, our estimates highlight increasing infrastructure inequalities across most of the countries examined. Third, we find greater future infrastructure inequality increases in the global south, where inequalities will rise more in countries with substantial urban primacy. Fourth, we find that infrastructure inequality may evolve differently than economic inequalities. Overall, advancing sustainable development vis-à-vis urbanization and economic development will require intentional infrastructure planning for spatial equity. This study examines infrastructure inequalities across countries and over time using satellite data. It highlights rising inequalities linked to urbanization and economic development, with greater future increases in countries from low and middle income countries.
Abstract The supply of electricity from renewable energy sources (RESs) represent one of the key measures to reduce environmental impacts on the basis of the new decarbonization target set by the European Union. However, the expected benefits do not refer only to the decrease in fossil fuel demand and the reduction of environmental impacts. Among the social impacts, employment increase represents one of the most important benefits, especially in a period of crisis economy. This paper aimed to investigate the potential of investments in the energy sector in Italy through the application of the Input-Output analysis. The assessment outcomes were tested investigating the PNIEC (Piano Nazionale Integrato per l’Energia e il Clima) provided by the Ministry of Economic Development in 2020. Specifically, the power systems that PNIEC planned to install until 2040 were analyzed, focusing on wind, photovoltaic, hydroelectric and geothermal infrastructures. The results showed that RESs investments can have a strong positive impact on the Italian economy both directly and indirectly. Sensitivity analyses highlighted that the import share of primary components of RESs strongly influences occupational performance, particularly for PV systems.
Abstract In many countries, urbanization is seen as an important policy tool to ensure sustained economic growth. While urbanization can lead to positive economic outcomes, unfettered migration into urban areas without appropriate infrastructure support such as information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and transportation infrastructure can lead to negative side effects such as congestion, formation of slums, and other diseconomies of scale. The latter can actually lower economic growth. This study examines the relationships between urbanization, transportation infrastructure, ICT infrastructure, and economic growth in the G-20 countries from 1961 to 2016. Using the panel vector error-correction model, the study shows that there is a myriad of temporal causal relationships between the four variables in both the short and long run. The key policy implication of these results is that long-run economic growth in the G-20 countries depends on the co-development of policies in creating a vibrant urban ecosystem that is enabled by intelligent transportation systems and underpinned by a sound ICT infrastructure plan.
D. Kalfas, Stavros Kalogiannidis, F. Chatzitheodoridis
et al.
Sustainable development has attracted the attention of social-economic, spatial well-being, and cultural continuity advocates across the world. However, the processes involved in land use as well as urban development have continued to affect the attainment of sustainable development. This study assessed the effects of urbanization and land use planning on achieving sustainable development goals. The data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 384 different government leaders in Greece. The study showed that the indicators of urbanization quality have a positive effect on sustainable development goals. It was revealed that there is a significant relationship between integrated land use strategies and sustainable development goals. The study showed that indicators of urbanization quality are very key to achieving different SDGs. This indicates that sustainable urbanization entails more than just converting agricultural land and forests without making any changes to them into cities, and it is equally one of the answers to the problem of the world’s population growth if it is done with vision and dedication. The study clearly shows that integrated land use strategies are important in achieving the SDGs. In this case, land use planning is mostly a local effort, though some nations employ guiding land use plans created at the regional or inter-municipal level. Furthermore, urbanization opportunities and land-use plans have a great influence on the achievement of sustainable development goals. Notably, the goal of sustainable urban development is to make urban areas “sustainable” as well as to build or reinforce the city’s sustainability-related economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects. It then goes on to discover how to spread that idea and why it is important to be focused, using various definitions. The fundamental idea of sustainable urban development is then realized by reviewing the ideas and principles of sustainable development. Finally, some general recommendations are made regarding urban planning, sustainable urban development, and the significance of establishing the necessary conditions for its realization. Urban sustainability and proper use of land require structural changes as well as significant, fundamental shifts at all societal levels.
The article's objective is to establish the status of state regulation of artificial intelligence in terms of civil law and economic and legal regulation. To this end, the following tasks are to be carried out: firstly, the nature of the legal consolidation of the use of artificial intelligence is to be determined; secondly, international legal standards of the use of artificial intelligence are to be outlined; and thirdly, the economic and legal tools used for organising the use of artificial intelligence are to be identified. The present study was conducted utilising a combination of general and special scientific cognition methods. The method of comparison was utilised to identify the model of state regulation of artificial intelligence in Ukraine. The analysis was employed to ascertain the quantitative and qualitative parameters that characterise the specifics of implementing certain measures at both the international and national levels, which relate to artificial intelligence. The findings of the study have demonstrated that there is no universally applicable approach to the definition and regulation of artificial intelligence. The formation of legal systems is contingent on political and legal priorities, resulting in the establishment of distinct models. These models encompass the protection of human rights, the promotion of innovation, and the augmentation of state control. The Ukrainian model of state regulation of artificial intelligence is still in the process of being formed. It takes a risk-based approach to legal consolidation while also considering ethical guidelines. It has been found that all international legislation on this matter provides for the establishment of control mechanisms that enable the explanation and verification of the decisions of artificial intelligence systems, thereby minimising the risk of unpredictable or discriminatory outcomes. Essentially, the key principle is human oversight, ensuring that people remain central to decision-making processes affecting society, even in cases involving automated or autonomous systems. Proper provision for the use of artificial intelligence involves intensifying the use of economic and legal instruments - a combination of government programmes, private investments, public-private partnerships, and international financial mechanisms that ensure the financial stability of scientific and technological projects and contribute to the commercialisation of results in the global digital space. Conclusion. The following is proposed: the adoption of a special law on artificial intelligence, combining innovative development with guarantees of security and human rights; the harmonisation of related areas of legislation, particularly laws on the protection of personal data (based on the GDPR), copyright in the digital environment, and the regulation of online platforms, in accordance with the requirements of the EU Digital Services Directive.
Abstract In the era of “AI plus healthcare”, personal health data has shifted from static records into dynamic and time-sequential data flow covering a full lifecycle. While it has become an important element of production in healthcare industry, it also faces new risks and challenges and the current legal framework of personal health data protection in China cannot satisfactorily address these challenges. The ambiguous rules on personal health data ownership and the ineffective individual empowerment model of data governance fail to respond to the dual needs for protection of personal health data and extraction of data value. In view of diversified and sometimes conflicting values and interests embodied in personal health data, it is therefore recommended that the agile governance model, characterized by dynamic adaptability and multistakeholders collaboration, be adopted. The bundle of rights over data should be allocated among data subjects, data processors and the government; a differentiated consent mechanism based on risk classification should be constructed; the principle of purpose limitation and minimum necessary should be reinterpreted in an expansive and generalized manner within the limits of reasonable expectation and risk control; and, anonymization measures and tort liability rules should be improved by clarifying obligations of stakeholders and balancing their rights and responsibilities. Through dynamic risk control by collaboration of multiple stakeholders, the agile governance model can reach the balance between sufficient protection and rational utilization of personal health data in data processing.
Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only), Economic growth, development, planning
V. Vavilina Alla, V. Komarova Tatiana, A. Firsova Anna
The relevance of studying the trends in the development of foreign trade operations of the BRICS countries is due to the ever-increasing role of the union in the global economy. The study presents the results of the analysis of the dynamics and structure of foreign trade operations of export and import of the BRICS countries for the period 2000-2022. In the entire volume of world trade of the BRICS countries, the most significant items of cross-border exchange of goods were identified in order to study the trend of the dynamics of the BRICS countries in international trade. The indicators of export and import of the most important food and raw materials, energy resources, which make up about 40% of the total turnover, were studied. The outpacing growth of exports compared to imports indicates a relatively better supply of raw materials, as well as a higher level of competitiveness of the BRICS countries compared to other economic unions and other states. The analysis of the growth structure of the volumes of foreign trade operations of the BRICS member countries showed the prevalence of high-tech goods with high added value in exports and a high raw material component of the BRICS imports. The results demonstrate trends in significant growth in the volumes of foreign trade operations and the overall positive dynamics of the growth of the BRICS share in world trade for a 20-year period, which indicates an increase in the political and economic power of the union countries. The findings allow us to predict the growth of the economic potential of the union, further increase in trade flows and an increase in the share in world trade, which will strengthen both political positions in the world and will contribute to the deepening of cooperation and macroeconomic coordination of the BRICS countries.
Economic growth, development, planning, Economics as a science
We employed the VicCA model to investigate the influence of step-edge potential on nucleation and pattern formation, aiming to gain deeper insights into island formation and growth. Our study explores fractal structures governed by general cellular automaton (CA) rules, as well as compact structures shaped by density-dependent attachment mechanisms. We demonstrate that modifications to the CA framework have a significant impact on surface patterning, emphasizing the critical role of adatom attachment rules and the substantial effect of potential well depth on the resulting surface morphology.
Abstract The implementation period of the “Sustainable Development Plan of Resource-based Cities in China (2013–2020)” is drawing to a close. Objective evaluation of the effect of the policy is of great theoretical and practical significance for China's resource-based cities in their quest to transform their economic development models and realize sustainable development. However, there are few literatures to analyze the resource curse phenomenon from the perspective of policy evaluation. In this paper, the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2018 are used to empirically analyze the impact of the plan on the green economic growth of resource-based cities by using the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method. The results show that after a series of robustness tests, the plan can significantly promote green economic growth in resource-based cities and effectively alleviate the “resource curse” phenomenon in these cities. In addition, this paper also explores the transmission mechanism of the plan to promote urban green economic growth. The study shows that the plan significantly improves the green economic efficiency of resource-based cities by increasing investment in scientific and technological innovation, promoting the development of the manufacturing industry, improving system quality and strengthening environmental regulations. Therefore, the development of resource-based cities of the future can better avoid the “resource curse” and achieve sustainable development if their rich resource advantages can be used to focus on scientific and technological innovation, increases in investment in the manufacturing industry and improvements in system quality and environmental regulation.
The demography of Bosnia and Herzegovina fits into the Southeast-European trends with sub-replacement fertility and high emigration rates. At the national level, natural decline started in 2007, while migration is influenced by the war and its aftermath, as well as several economic and political push factors (low wages, corruption, high unemployment, etc.), and also has a serious impact on birth and death rates. On the other hand, demographic trends in the Canton of Sarajevo differ from the national pattern. It reached sub-replacement fertility more than a decade later (2019), and migration still has a positive balance: besides significant emigration rates, immigration to the Canton, especially from the other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is higher. Since migration involves younger generations, it is also a factor behind the more favourable fertility rates, and can be evaluated as a consequence of better socio-economic development in the capital and its gravitational area.
In the Canton, there have been several factors that contributed to the decline of birth rates in the past decades. Changing functions of family and children in the society, increasing women's employment, educational level and career aspirations, growing individualism and rationality, the changing social climate in relation to children, higher personal standards, and other socio-psychological factors should be mentioned. Birth rates were also (positively) influenced by other factors. One of the most important points is that the Canton has certainly one of the best support policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina including financial support and allowances for newborn children, subsidies in preschool education, primary and secondary schools as well as scholarships for pupils and students. Positive economic trends such as new constructions of residential buildings, business, and shopping centres, as well as an even stronger concentration of attractive institutions and activities should be emphasised.
In 2021, the total fertility rate accounted for 1.38 in the Canton, while it has shown a great variation among the municipalities. The municipality with the lowest total fertility rate (Novi Grad) had the highest total number of live births in the Canton, while the municipality with the lowest total number of live births (Trnovo) was the only one with total fertility rate values above the replacement level. Due to its demographic, economic and political significance, the Canton of Sarajevo is a key area for population revitalisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, local measures have national significance, and can act as a model for the rest of the country in terms of population policy as well.
History (General) and history of Europe, Economic history and conditions
Abstract The rapid expansion of urban construction land will lead to decoupling from the trend of economic development and population growth. A previous study have shown that there is a long-term bidirectional causal relationship between urban land expansion and economic and population growth. To further explore this relationship, we used remote sensing and statistical data combined with center-of-gravity shift index, coordination degree model, Theil index, and Tapio elastic decoupling index. The main results were as follows: (1) The urban construction land expansion in Liaoning Province has obvious geographical location characteristics, and it can be classified in three types: only along the traffic lines expansion, only along the coastline, along the rivers and traffic lines concurrently. (2) The per capita construction land area (PCCLA) is growing rapidly, and by 2015, 13 cities (all except Benxi) of the province exceeded the national standard for PCCLA (120 m2). Three of these cities (Yingkou, Dalian, and Huludao) exceeded the standard by more than 100%. The uncoordinated areas of land and population urbanization spread from coastal areas to central and western areas and finally to the entire province. (3) The correlation between urban construction land expansion and economic growth has changed from weak positive to strong negative decoupling. After 2010, the decoupling index for all cities became negative. In Huludao, Chaoyang, Panjin, Dalian, Shenyang, and Jinzhou, the construction land expansion was more than 3%, coupled with a 1% decrease in non-agricultural GDP. For other cities, the construction land expansion was less than 3% for a 1% decrease in non-agricultural GDP. These results demonstrate that the rapid growth of construction land was related to a negative economic growth. The findings also suggest that under the current pattern of economic growth, it may be difficult to control the expansion of construction land. New construction land should be reasonably planned and managed, and the dependence of economic growth on construction land and speed of population urbanization is a new challenge that should be reexamined by the local government.
Anne Jimenez-Fernandez, Maria Elena Aramendia-Muneta, Miriam Alzate
Circular fashion is a new concept shift towards a more sustainable fashion industry. Consumers' awareness of the fashion industry's environmental and social damage is increasing, along with the transformation of their purchasing habits. Circular economy appears to be a solution to these issues. Nonetheless, users' awareness of the principles of circular economy might benefit their application in real life. This research studies the relationships between awareness and attitudes towards the principles of circular economy as well as the mediators, which are namely, benefits and enablers. The main purpose of this study is to test a hypothesised model through structural equation modeling with Partial Least Squares. The results show that the principles have a positive relationship to the attitudes, benefits, and enablers of circular economy. Additionally, the effect of gender on consumers' attitudes towards sustainable fashion is worth analysing since it seems to play a significant role.
Environmental effects of industries and plants, Economic growth, development, planning
A nonlinear regression framework is proposed for time series and panel data for the situation where certain explanatory variables are available at a higher temporal resolution than the dependent variable. The main idea is to use the moments of the empirical distribution of these variables to construct regressors with the correct resolution. As the moments are likely to display nonlinear marginal and interaction effects, an artificial neural network regression function is proposed. The corresponding model operates within the traditional stochastic nonlinear least squares framework. In particular, a numerical Hessian is employed to calculate confidence intervals. The practical usefulness is demonstrated by analyzing the influence of daily temperatures in 260 European NUTS2 regions on the yearly growth of gross value added in these regions in the time period 2000 to 2021. In the particular example, the model allows for an appropriate assessment of regional economic impacts resulting from (future) changes in the regional temperature distribution (mean AND variance).
Economic theory, empirical studies and public policy have underlined the importance of the relationship between human capital accumulation and economic growth. Several developing countries have included human capital development as an integral part of their national development plans and have devoted huge financial resources as a cornerstone to promote economic growth. The purpose of this study is to examine the long-run effects of human capital accumulation on the economic growth of a developing economy using evidence from Ethiopia. The study employed the human capital theory of economic growth and the augmented Solow-Swan model as a theoretical framework, and the ARDL bounds co-integration and error correction mechanism for parameter estimation. Time-series data, covering the period 1980/81 to 2019/20, were employed to examine the long-run relationship between economic growth and its dynamic regressors of human capital indicators. The secondary and tertiary educational attainments of the labour force and life expectancy at birth have a significant positive effect on economic growth of Ethiopia, whereas primary education attainment and adult mortality rate have an insignificant negative effect. On the other hand, physical capital accumulation has positively contributed the country’s economic growth, but trade openness and external debt adversely affect it. Thus, it is suggested that the policymakers should strengthen the country’s institutional capacity while increasing the number of healthy members of the labour force that should also be equipped with quality-based educational attainments.
Abstract The intensification of globalization has led to an increase in the attention paid to resource security, which, as one of the most important material bases for human survival and development, constitutes the key factor affecting overall resource security. Taking 104 cities in China as research objects, we built a spatial econometric model of land resource assets, economic growth, and economic fluctuation based on the calculated value and economic efficiency of various land resource assets. Our results show that each 1% increase in the abundance of land resource assets results in an increase in urban per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.0089% and a decrease in the fluctuation of the value of urban per capita GDP of 0.1163%, indicating that improving the abundance of land resource assets drives local economic growth while smoothing economic fluctuation to ensure the stability of economic growth. An examination of their effects over time revealed that land resource assets promoted economic growth during 2009 and 2010 and restrained economic fluctuations during 2011 and 2012. Land resource assets were also shown to be capable of promoting economic growth in large cities and to have a weak promotional effect on economic fluctuations in large cities and the opposite effect in small cities. Several policy implications can be derived from this work, including (1) the limited nature of land resources means that local governments should actively prepare land resource balance sheets prior to land allocation and city planning, and (2) governments should work to actively break through the restrictions of land resource assets on economic fluctuations while giving full play to the role of land resource assets in promoting economic growth.
There is a huge problem and time-consuming computation to optimize the IMRT treatment plan. Extracting the optimized plan from the predicted 3D3 so-called optimizing the KBP is also involved in this challenge. Some algorithms and methods have been presented for clustering and down-sampling the voxels to make the problem smaller, in recent years. In the current research, a novel down-sampling method is presented for optimizing the knowledge-based planning more efficiently. The concept of SVSIDB and corresponding down-sampling algorithm are proposed under title of SMP-2. The algorithm has been run on the data of 30 patients from the Open-KBP dataset. For each patient, there are 19 sets of dose prediction data in this dataset. Therefore, a total of 570 KBP-optimizing problems have been solved by applying the QuadLin model in the CVX framework. Resulted plans are evaluated and compared regarding two main fields which are the quality of the treatment plan as well as the computation efficiency. Solve time is the evaluation criteria for the latter field i.e. computation efficiency. The results of the current study indicated a remarkable improvement in the computation efficiency. Accordingly, the proposed method, SMP-2, reduced the average solving time by 46% in comparison to the full-data QuadLin model. The results also show an up to 53% reduction in solve time along with up to 22% improvement in clinical criteria compared to the previous research. Evaluation of the research results indicated that the SVSIDB has not only reduced the solve time but also improved the quality of the treatment plans. This is a remarkable achievement of the proposed model compared to the previous research and confirmed the significant effectiveness of the SVSIDB method which has the potential of even more improvement of the computation efficiency.
The movement of labor in the Southeast Asia and particularly Thailand, which is home to more than half of all ASEAN migrant workers, is an issue of growing interest and increasing importance. As Thailand is now confronted with the new challenge of the so-called “middle-income trap”, the Thai government has recently implemented the long-run economic development plan called “Thailand 4.0”, focusing on high productivity and innovative creation from skilled foreign workers. To put Thailand 4.0 in action, the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), which is an example of region-based development, serves as a pilot project. However, while demand for high-skilled workers from developed countries increases, the majority of immigrants in Thailand is considered to comprise low-skilled workers from neighboring countries within ASEAN. This article, therefore, examines the impact of international labor migration on regional economic growth in Thailand from 2003 to 2015 through an econometric estimation of the production function by considering the economic consequences of immigration through production and productivity separately for skill-classified migrant workers. The findings empirically indicate that immigrants, and particularly high-skilled ones, have a statistically significant and positive impact on the growth of the regional economy as well as labor productivity in Thailand, thereby suggesting more attention should be paid to the role of regional area-based development policies as well as the ability of the host country to absorb high-skilled migrant workers.
Abstract Renewable electricity is a pillar of the sustainability transition being pursued through climate and energy policy strategies, and the European Green Deal represents a potential investment plan for this new phase of development. Economic growth can be influenced by the expansion of renewable electricity consumption, but the nature of their relationship is ambiguous and depends on various economic and policy factors. This paper investigates the long-run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and economic growth in selected countries over the period 1971-2015 using econometric panel data techniques that specifically address cross-country heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. Our findings suggest that, on average, there is a significant positive long-term relationship between renewable electricity consumption and economic growth, although Granger causality is not detected. Regarding causality, we do find per capita economic growth to be a causal factor for total electricity consumption and fossil-fuel based electricity consumption..