Abstract Sustainable tourism indicators (STIs) are an integral element of tourism planning and management. This study systematically reviews the research contributions on the development of STIs based on four criteria including: i) the relevance of the STIs to the sustainable development goals (SDGs); ii) governance; iii) stakeholders involved; and iv) the distinction between subjective and objective indicators. A search of Scopus indexed journals published up to April 2018, yielded 97 papers for examination. The findings demonstrate the lack of direct attention to the SDGs in those papers published after their launch in 2016. However, the majority of the SDGs and their targets have indirectly been covered in the reviewed papers. The results revealed that, among the sustainability themes of economic growth, social inclusion, environmental protection, and governance, the STIs studies tended to overlook the dimension of governance. The findings showed that residents are the most engaged stakeholder group, and tourists the least engaged as compared with government and businesses. The results also indicated that more attention is afforded to objective compared to subjective indicators. The findings also demonstrated that much of the focus is on European countries rather than the Global South which is the major focus of the SDGs.
This article defines the key parameters of ‘state entrepreneurialism’ as a governance form that combines planning centrality and market instruments, and interprets how these two seemingly contradictory tendencies are made coherent in the political economic structures of post-reform China. Through examining urban regeneration programmes (in particular ‘three olds regeneration’, sanjiu gaizao), the development of suburban new towns and the reconstruction of the countryside, the article details institutional configurations that make the Chinese case different from a neoliberal growth machine. The contradiction of these tendencies gives room to urban residents and migrants to develop their agencies and their own spaces, and creates informalities in Chinese urban transformation.
Abstract Today, particular attention is being globally paid towards clean and sustainable energy system. The rapid development in renewable energy technologies, growth of energy markets, and adopted financial strategies and policies have the key role in achieving this target. This paper provides a comprehensive feasibility analysis of a gird-isolated hybrid renewable energy system for electrification of agriculture and irrigation area in Dongola, Sudan. A systematic and integrative framework combined with techno-economic optimization analysis for adequate planning and design of hybrid renewable energy system is proposed. Different hybridization cases of a solar photovoltaic, wind turbine, diesel generator, battery storage, and converter technologies, together with a diesel generator-based energy system as base case are modeled, evaluated and compared considering the stochastic behavior of renewable energy resources with a main target to find the most feasible and reliable solution with least system cost and realistic environmental impacts. This followed by a sensitivity analysis to reveal the effects of uncertainty in system parameters on the designed system and its economic performance. The obtained results indicate that solar-wind-diesel-battery-converter hybrid system is of optimal performance and superiority over the studied cases to serve the load demand of the investigated area. The system not only gets the minimum values of the total net present cost (24.16 M$) and levelized cost of energy (0.387 $/kWh), but also effectively achieves a positive return on investment of 39.94% and around 95% reduction in both carbon emissions and fuel consumption compared to the base case. Meanwhile, the result of sensitivity analysis demonstrates the high dependability of system cost on the volatility of solar radiation and wind speed as well as the changes in the rate of interest with the prospect of ignoring the effect of variation of diesel fuel price in the future investment decision. Finally, the output of this study is projected to raising the potentiality awareness of renewable energy in Sudan and providing a valuable reference about the optimal planning and utilization of hybrid renewable energy system in energy sector.
This study examines the impact of TFP shock, world interest rate shock, domestic deposit rate shock, and fiscal policy shock on China's macroeconomic variables—such as capital credit scale and output growth rate—under the framework of endogenous and exogenous capital controls. Quantitative analysis reveals that an increase in the world interest rates has a negative impact on the domestic credit market, leading to a simultaneous decline in both household savings and capital inflows. Endogenous capital control can mitigate the adverse effect, playing a macroprudential role, whereas exogenous capital controls tend to amplify the negative shock. Expansionary fiscal policy through tax cutting proves effective in stimulating output growth rate. When facing economic downturns, priority should be given to implementing proactive fiscal measures, complemented by appropriate monetary easing with endogenous capital controls, to achieve output growth with less fluctuations.
Economic growth, development, planning, Economic history and conditions
Oleg V. Pavlov, Natalia V. Smirnova, Elena V. Smirnova
A literacy-targeted approach to economic instruction draws on insights from cognitive science. It highlights that students process complex economic information by constructing and modifying schemas that represent economic material. Following this approach, we developed a set of instructional activities centered around causal diagrams that promote a deeper understanding of economic topics beyond the traditional lecture-based methods. Our results show that structural debriefing activities can be used effectively to introduce students to the causal diagrams that explain key economic relationships in the national income model, government-purchases multiplier and tax multiplier.
The massive digital footprints generated by bike-sharing systems in megacities like Shanghai offer a novel perspective on the urban socio-economic fabric. This study investigates whether these daily mobility patterns can quantitatively map the city's underlying social stratification. To overcome the persistent challenge of acquiring fine-grained socio-economic data, we constructed a multi-layered analytical dataset. We annotated 2,000 raw bike trips with local economic attributes, derived from a novel data enrichment methodology that employs a Large Language Model (LLM), and integrated contextual features of the built environment. A Random Forest model was then utilized as an interpretable framework to determine the key factors governing the relationship between mobility behavior and local economic status. The analysis reveals a compelling and unambiguous finding: a neighborhood's economic level, proxied by housing prices, is the single most dominant predictor of its bike-sharing patterns, substantially outweighing other geographic or temporal factors. This economic determinism manifests in three distinct ways: (1) a spatial clustering of resources, a phenomenon we term the \textit{club effect}, which concentrates mobility infrastructure and usage in affluent areas; (2) a functional dichotomy between necessity-driven, utilitarian usage in lower-income zones and flexible, recreational usage in wealthier ones; and (3) a nuanced inverted U-shaped adoption curve that identifies the urban middle class as the system's primary user base.
This paper presents a novel quantitative approach for comparative economic studies, addressing limitations in current classification methods. Conventional approaches in comparative economics often rely on ad hoc and categorical classifications, leading to subjective judgments and disregarding the continuous nature of the spectrum of economic systems. These can result in subjectivity and significant information loss, particularly for countries with systems near categorical borders. To overcome these shortcomings, the present paper proposes distance-based indices for objective categorization, considering economic foundations and using hard data. Accordingly, the paper introduces institutional similarity indices--Capitalism Similarity Index (CapSI), Communism Similarity Index (ComSI), and Socialism Similarity Index (SocSI)-which reflect countries' positions along the economic system continuum. These indices adhere to mathematical rigor and are grounded in the mathematical fields of real analysis, metric spaces, and distance functions. By classifying 135 countries and creating GIS maps, the practical applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated. Results show a high explanatory power of the introduced indices, suggesting their beneficial usage in comparative economic studies. The paper advocates for their adoption due to their objectivity and ability to capture structural and institutional nuances without subjective judgments while also considering the continuous nature of the spectrum of economic systems.
Dimitrios Gounaridis, Ioannis Chorianopoulos, E. Symeonakis
et al.
This paper explores potential future land use/cover (LUC) dynamics in the Attica region, Greece, under three distinct economic performance scenarios. During the last decades, Attica underwent a significant and predominantly unregulated process of urban growth, due to a substantial increase in housing demand coupled with limited land use planning controls. However, the recent financial crisis affected urban growth trends considerably. This paper uses the observed LUC trends between 1991 and 2016 to sketch three divergent future scenarios of economic development. The observed LUC trends are then analysed using 27 dynamic, biophysical, socio-economic, terrain and proximity-based factors, to generate transition potential maps, implementing a Random Forests (RF) regression modelling approach. Scenarios are projected to 2040 by implementing a spatially explicit Cellular Automata (CA) model. The resulting maps are subjected to a multiple resolution sensitivity analysis to assess the effect of spatial resolution of the input data to the model outputs. Findings show that, under the current setting of an underdeveloped land use planning apparatus, a long-term scenario of high economic growth will increase built-up surfaces in the region by almost 24%, accompanied by a notable decrease in natural areas and cropland. Interestingly, in the case that the currently negative economic growth rates persist, artificial surfaces in the region are still expected to increase by approximately 7.5% by 2040.
International tourism is highly susceptible to external political, economic and environmental crisis events. This paper consists of two studies. Study 1 uses time-series monthly data and the TRAMO/SEATS model to detect and estimate the impact of a range of political, economic and environmental crisis events on the tourist flows from China to Japan and South Korea during the period of 2005–2017. Study 2 uses in-depth interviews to investigate the factors intensifying or alleviating the negative impacts of these crisis events on tourism as well as factors contributing to post-events tourism recovery and growth. Results identify the varying levels of impacts caused by event type and other causative factors for negative impacts. The paper discusses the influence of these factors to provide references to relevant stakeholders for strategic planning, policy making and recovery and growth scheme development.
This interview highlights the extensive research project African Water Cities by architectural studio NLÉ, which explores intersections of rapid urbanization and climate change in the African context. NLÉ proposes new strategies for addressing water, culture and heritage management in Africa as Sub-Saharan Africa experiences the second-fastest rates of urbanization and population growth in the world. The discussion also addresses whether and how these strategies fit within the scope of the UN SDGs.
Purpose – This paper aims to conceptualize and empirically illustrate the challenges that financial market regulation presents to politicians and the organization tasked with specifying regulations and supervising their implementation in the interest of users and consumers of financial instruments. It analyses the problem from the viewpoint of the governor's dilemma and the control/competence conflict, the linked problem of the rent-seeking of agents/intermediators and consumers of financial instruments. Political accountability problems are enhanced by the materiality of the technologies used, i.e. algo trading. Design/methodology/approach – The paper theoretically conceptualizes and empirically illustrates the argument. Findings – The paper finds that regulators of digitalized financial markets are faced with considerable problems and depend on private agents when regulating financial transactions. However, the new technological instruments also offer new possibilities for securing compliance. Research limitations/implications – Further research should focus more in-depth on the cooperation between public and private actors in the specification and implementation of regulatory details. It should further investigate the conditions which allow regulators to use RegTech in the surveillance of financial firms. Practical implications – Since financial market transactions are opaque for most users, the creation of more transparency is crucial to hold regulators accountable in their activity of surveillance of financial firms. New algorithm-based technologies may lend important support in doing so. Originality/value – By linking the different analytical perspectives, i.e. the governor's dilemma vis-à-vis the intermediator or agent and the possible rent-seeking of intermediators, under the condition of a highly developed technology of financial transactions as well as the market structure, the paper offers new insights into the limits as well as new opportunities of regulating financial markets allowing for political accountability of regulators and financial firms.
Regulation of industry, trade, and commerce. Occupational law, Economic growth, development, planning
This paper explores the application of automated planning to automated theorem proving, which is a branch of automated reasoning concerned with the development of algorithms and computer programs to construct mathematical proofs. In particular, we investigate the use of planning to construct elementary proofs in abstract algebra, which provides a rigorous and axiomatic framework for studying algebraic structures such as groups, rings, fields, and modules. We implement basic implications, equalities, and rules in both deterministic and non-deterministic domains to model commutative rings and deduce elementary results about them. The success of this initial implementation suggests that the well-established techniques seen in automated planning are applicable to the relatively newer field of automated theorem proving. Likewise, automated theorem proving provides a new, challenging domain for automated planning.
Ummya Salma, Md. Fazlul Huq Khan, Md. Masum Billah
This study aims to examine the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), personal remittances received, and official development assistance (ODA) in the economic growth of Bangladesh. The study utilizes time series data on Bangladesh from 1976 to 2021. Additionally, this research contributes to the existing literature by introducing the Foreign Capital Depthless Index (FCDI) and exploring its impact on Bangladesh's economic growth. The results of the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) suggest that the economic growth of Bangladesh depends on FDI, remittances, and aid in the long run. However, these variables do not exhibit a causal relationship with GDP in the short run. The relationship between FCDI and economic growth is positive in the long run. Nevertheless, the presence of these three variables has a more significant impact on the economic growth of Bangladesh
The village fund allocation is a policy strategy of the government of Indonesia for development in rural areas. Each village has funds sourced from the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget. The uniqueness of this strategy is the community’s involvement in determining the allocation expenditure of funds. Therefore, the program is carried out in line with the needs of the community. Rural areas generally rely on agriculture, which has lower productivity than other sectors, so they need support to achieve inclusive growth. This study analyzes whether the village fund allocation is a pro-poor, pro-equality, and pro-job policy. It uses secondary data from the Ministry of Finance, Statistics Indonesia, and the National Development Planning Agency from the period of 2015–2019 for 33 provinces of Indonesia. The data were analyzed using panel regression with three models: income inequality, poverty levels, and unemployment rates. Other variables supporting inclusive growth, including economic growth, infrastructure, and the expansion of public services, were examined. The results showed that government expenditure through village fund allocation encourages inclusive growth as a policy that is pro-poor and pro-job but not pro-equality. Economic growth, on the other hand, reduces income inequality but increases poverty. Economic infrastructure increases income inequality, while increasing access to public services reduces poverty levels and increases unemployment.
We analyze the link between standardization and economic growth by systematically reviewing leading economics journals, leading economic growth researchers' articles, and economic growth-related books. We make the following observations: 1) No article has analyzed the link between standardization and economic growth in top5 economics journals between 1996 and 2018. 2) A representative sample of the leading researchers of economic growth has allocated little attention to the link between standardization and economic growth. 3) Typically, economic growth textbooks do not contain "standards" or "standardization" in their word indexes. These findings suggest that the economic growth theory has neglected the role of standardization.
Similarity analysis of microalgae growth is crucial for understanding microalgae cultivation, such analysis has not been considered before in previous studies. This letter considers the natural features of the microalgae growth phenomenon that are different from the inanimate process. Accordingly, the similarity of light transfer within microalgae suspensions was comprehensively studied. The characteristic number of microalgae growth and the temporal scaling function were considered to represent the growth relate characteristics. Subsequently, a group of dimensionless numbers were derived to characterize the time-dependent similarity of light within microalgae suspensions. For growth similarity, the newly introduced characteristic number of microalgae growth and the temporal scaling function of extinction, absorption and scattering were considered identical. The similarity relations of the time-dependent optical constants of microalgae were also provided for similar growth. The similarity analysis of the microalgae growth will be useful in designing and guiding experiments on microalgae cultivation.
This article situates itself in the context of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which launched the ‘Global War on Terror’—coming shortly after the debacle of the Taliban’s triumphant return to power in Afghanistan. The article contends that both terrorism and the war on terrorism have upset the delicate balance between democracy and security, and placed democracy at risk. This article begins by examining the evolution of the nature and scope of terrorism over the past 20 years. It explores critically the vexed nexus and complex relationships between democracy, security and terrorism. Then it delineates the three-fold threat posed to democracy by terrorism and counter-terrorism. It elaborates how these three threats might be not simply countered but indeed transformed through a genuinely democratic response. It seeks to establish that justice, rule of law and the pursuit of human and planetary security are the non-negotiable cornerstones needed today to rescue democracy from these corrosive effects of terrorism and the war on terrorism. The article ends by outlining some key policy recommendations for leaders of global governance that would be essential to rebalance the delicate relationship between democracy, security and terrorism and ensure our collective and planetary wellbeing at this crucial moment of reckoning.
International relations, Economic growth, development, planning