A burgeoning literature in economics studies how people form beliefs about the causal structures linking economic variables, and what happens when those beliefs are mistaken. We survey this research and connect it to a rich literature in cognitive science. After providing an accessible introduction to causal Directed Acyclic Graphs, the dominant modeling approach, we review theory and evidence addressing three nested questions: how individuals reason within a fully parameterized causal structure, how they estimate its parameters, and how they learn such structures to begin with. We then discuss methodological challenges and review applications in microeconomics, macroeconomics, political economy, and business.
China's launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 reinvigorated debates on infrastructure-led development and reshaped core–periphery relations through large-scale port investments. A prominent case is the 99-year lease of Darwin Port in Australia's Northern Territory to the Chinese company Landbridge Group in 2015, which sparked both development hopes and geopolitical controversy. While subnational actors play a central role in mediating external investment – especially in port infrastructure – their agency in host countries remains underexplored in the literature on BRI and global production networks (GPNs). This study addresses this gap by combining the strategic coupling framework with agenda-setting theory to analyse how regional actors in Darwin attempted to align local assets with Landbridge's commercial strategy under BRI-linked investment. Based on empirical fieldwork, the study finds that while Darwin possessed distinctive, immobile assets and institutional ambition, the lease structure and broader geopolitical tensions constrained long-term developmental gains. Initial hopes to catalyse economic diversification, population growth and regional connectivity were overridden by multi-scalar power asymmetries and the securitisation of Chinese infrastructure capital. The result was not strategic but structural coupling – characterised by limited embeddedness, abandoned projects and reinforced dependency. The paper contributes to debates on infrastructure-led development by showing that strategic coupling is not guaranteed by asset endowments alone but is a contingent, negotiated process shaped by scalar coherence, institutional capacity and geopolitical alignment. In doing so, it adds nuance to GPN theory by foregrounding host-region agency and the geopolitical context in shaping development outcomes in peripheral settings.
Regional economics. Space in economics, Regional planning
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a powerful tool for economic research, enabling large-scale simulation and policy optimization. However, applying AI effectively requires simulation platforms for scalable training and evaluation-yet existing environments remain limited to simplified, narrowly scoped tasks, falling short of capturing complex economic challenges such as demographic shifts, multi-government coordination, and large-scale agent interactions. To address this gap, we introduce EconGym, a scalable and modular testbed that connects diverse economic tasks with AI algorithms. Grounded in rigorous economic modeling, EconGym implements 11 heterogeneous role types (e.g., households, firms, banks, governments), their interaction mechanisms, and agent models with well-defined observations, actions, and rewards. Users can flexibly compose economic roles with diverse agent algorithms to simulate rich multi-agent trajectories across 25+ economic tasks for AI-driven policy learning and analysis. Experiments show that EconGym supports diverse and cross-domain tasks-such as coordinating fiscal, pension, and monetary policies-and enables benchmarking across AI, economic methods, and hybrids. Results indicate that richer task composition and algorithm diversity expand the policy space, while AI agents guided by classical economic methods perform best in complex settings. EconGym also scales to 10k agents with high realism and efficiency.
Advancements in large language models (LLMs) have sparked a growing interest in measuring and understanding their behavior through experimental economics. However, there is still a lack of established guidelines for designing economic experiments for LLMs. Inspired by principles from experimental economics with insights from LLM research in artificial intelligence, we outline key considerations in the experimental design and implementation stage, and perform two sets of experiments to assess the impact of these considerations on LLMs' responses. Based on our findings, we discuss seven practical tactics for conducting experiments with LLMs. Our study enhances the design, replicability, and generalizability of LLM experiments, and broadens the scope of experimental economics in the digital age.
I discuss economic and social sources of inequality and elaborate on the role of social networks in inequality, economic immobility, and economic inefficiencies. The lens of social networks clarifies how the entanglement of people's information, opportunities, and behaviors with those of their friends and family leads to persistent differences across communities, resulting in inequality in education, employment, income, health, and wealth. The key role of homophily in separating groups within the network is highlighted. A network perspective's policy implications differ substantially from a narrower economic perspective that ignores social structure. I discuss the importance of ``policy cocktails'' that include aspects that are aimed at both the economic and social forces driving inequality.
Persistent economic competition is often justified as a mechanism of innovation, efficiency, and welfare maximization. Yet empirical evidence across disciplines reveals that competition systematically generates fragility, inequality, and ecological degradation, emergent outcomes not of isolated failures but of underlying systemic dynamics. This work reconceptualizes economic ecosystems as real complex adaptive systems, structurally isomorphic with biological and social ecosystems. Integrating complexity science, evolutionary biology, ecology, and economic and business theory, we classify economic interactions according to their systemic effects and propose a theoretical model of ecosystemic equilibrium based on the predominance of beneficial versus non-beneficial relationships. Recognizing economies as ecologically embedded and structurally interdependent systems provides a novel framework for analyzing systemic resilience, reframing competition as a non-beneficial mechanism.
The historical culture of the city is the unique soul of the city. Facing the situation of "one side of a thousand cities" and the commercial and cultural blocks with serious homogenization in various cities, people began to re-emphasize and think about the protection of historical and cultural blocks. For the protection and development of historical and cultural blocks, it can not only promote the development of the urban tourism economy, but also benefit greatly the urban cultural atmosphere and urban regeneration, which makes urban residents feel more involved and belonging, and participate in urban cultural activities together. Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, China, has always attached importance to urban development through cultural planning empowerment. The planning department several times, sub-plots on the Daowai Chinese Baroque Historic District for scientific overall planning led to the protection and promotion of regional historical and cultural heritage, to create a unique historical and cultural space, promoting the development of urban tourism economy, while enhancing the city's cultural heritage and cultural soft power, creating a successful model for land planning for urban development. China Baroque Historical Street with rich and unique cultural resources, is a successful case to answer how cultural planning empower historic district and urban regeneration.
Introduction. Thus, the era of a fluid society, an elusive world, transitory m odernity, online communities, and methodological turns necessitates the n eed to find new paradigms for company transformation that account for techn ical, social, structural, value, cognitive, cultural, and psychological aspec ts to expand the space of opportunities. The subject of this article is the role of effective communication and the mechanism by which meanings emerge in the collective mind of a complex commercial sociotechnical system. Materials and methods. The research methodology involves theoretical analysis, synthesis, and combination of scientific concepts to address research issues. The research materials consisted of scientific articles from peer-reviewed periodical publications, including the Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Law, as well as The Annals of Regional Science. Results. The author synthesizes the provisions of traditionally studied fields of knowledge in isolation, including the theory of communication, collective intelligence, corporate culture management, and the theory of motivation in the context of the digital transformation of companies. Analysis of these concepts together provides a deeper understanding of the knowledge acquisition processes necessary to increase the effectiveness of digital transformation. The principles of effective communication management are formulated, contributing to the identification and successful formalization of implicit knowledge. The applied nature of the research is to deepen the understanding of the mechanism behind the emergence of innovative ideas and propose measures to minimize the risks associated with managing the communication system within the organization. Conclusion. The article may be helpful for researchers whose research interests include innovative trends in management, the development of entrepreneurial activity, and the effectiveness of digitalization in enterprises. The results of the work can also be helpful for practical managers who develop and implement strategies for the innovative development of enterprises.
The paradigm shift in the resource-based model of economic development, changes in the technological and energy platforms, imply the expansion of research, including the formation of a new direction for the development of regions, namely: the potential use of hydrogen energy and renewable energy sources. The goal of the article is to analyze methodological approaches to the development of hydrogen energy, practical aspects and strategic directions of its development in the Russian economic space, the potential and limitations of regional industries. The methodological basis of the research included: territorial-geographical, resourcebased, process-based, systemic, innovative, and informational approaches. As a result of the study, the conditions and problems of developing hydrogen energy in the regions of Russia were identified. The obtained results can be used by the bodies of state power of the subjects of the Russian Federation in adjusting strategies for socio-economic development, for further development of this issue in the theory of spatial economics.
Abstract
In guaranteeing the credibility of Pluang, it is affiliated with PT PG Berjangka, which has been officially registered and supervised by Badan Pengawas Perdagangan Berjangka Komoditi) di bawah Kementerian Perdagangan under the Ministry of Trade (BAPPEBTI). However, business operations need to be seen from their conformity with sharia rules. The aim of this research is to analyze the working system of the pluang application according to the review of the mui fatwa number 77/DSN-MUI/V/2010 concerning non-cash buying and selling of gold. This research is qualitative research using a library research method. The analysis technique used is content analysis. The conclusion from the results of this research is that in terms of the gold installment feature in Pluang, the installment principle is permitted due to compliance with procedures in accordance with DSN-MUI Fatwa No. 77/DSN-MUI/V/2010 concerning Non-Cash Buying and Selling of Gold. Judging from the limitations and conditions in the fatwa, there is no additional selling price even if there is an extension of time where there is concern that there will be usury, the gold purchased becomes collateral and cannot be used as the object of another contract.
Keywords: Gold Investment, Pluang Application, Fatwa
Abstrak
Dalam menjamin kredibilitas Pluang berafiliasi dengan PT PG Berjangka, yang telah resmi terdaftar dan diawasi oleh Badan Pengawas Perdagangan Berjangka Komoditi) di bawah Kementerian Perdagangan (BAPPEBTI). Namun pada operasional bisnisnya perlu dilihat dari kesesuaiannya dengan aturan syariah. Tujuan penelitian ini yaitu untuk menganalisis sistem kerja aplikasi pluang sesuai tinjauan fatwa mui nomor 77/DSN-MUI/V/2010 tentang jual beli emas secara tidak tunai. penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan menggunakan metode pendekatan kepustakaan (library research). Adapun teknik analisis yang digunakan yaitu analisis isi (content analisys). Kesimpulan dari hasil penelitian ini adalah dalam hal fitur cicilan emas di Pluang, prinsip cicilan boleh dikarenakan taat prosedur sesuai dengan Fatwa DSN-MUI No. 77/DSN-MUI/V/2010 tentang Jual Beli Emas Secara Tidak Tunai. Ditinjau dari Batasan dan Ketentuan didalam fatwa tersebut berupa tidak ada tambahan harga jual meski ada perpanjangan waktu yang mana dikhawatirkan akan terdapat riba, emas yang dibeli menjadi jaminan dan tidak boleh dijadikan objek akad lain.
Kata kunci: Investasi Emas, Aplikasi Pluang, Fatwa
Nicole Immorlica, Brendan Lucier, Aleksandrs Slivkins
Traditionally, AI has been modeled within economics as a technology that impacts payoffs by reducing costs or refining information for human agents. Our position is that, in light of recent advances in generative AI, it is increasingly useful to model AI itself as an economic agent. In our framework, each user is augmented with an AI agent and can consult the AI prior to taking actions in a game. The AI agent and the user have potentially different information and preferences over the communication, which can result in equilibria that are qualitatively different than in settings without AI.
An axiomatic approach to macroeconomics based on the mathematical structure of thermodynamics is presented. It deduces relations between aggregate properties of an economy, concerning quantities and flows of goods and money, prices and the value of money, without any recourse to microeconomic foundations about the preferences and actions of individual economic agents. The approach has three important payoffs. 1) it provides a new and solid foundation for aspects of standard macroeconomic theory such as the existence of market prices, the value of money, the meaning of inflation, the symmetry and negative-definiteness of the macro-Slutsky matrix, and the Le Chatelier-Samuelson principle, without relying on implausibly strong rationality assumptions over individual microeconomic agents. 2) the approach generates new results, including implications for money flow and trade when two or more economies are put in contact, in terms of new concepts such as economic entropy, economic temperature, goods' values and money capacity. Some of these are related to standard economic concepts (eg marginal utility of money, market prices). Yet our approach derives them at a purely macroeconomic level and gives them a meaning independent of usual restrictions. Others of the concepts, such as economic entropy and temperature, have no direct counterparts in standard economics, but they have important economic interpretations and implications, as aggregate utility and the inverse marginal aggregate utility of money, respectively. 3) this analysis promises to open up new frontiers in macroeconomics by building a bridge to ideas from non-equilibrium thermodynamics. More broadly, we hope that the economic analogue of entropy (governing the possible transitions between states of economic systems) may prove to be as fruitful for the social sciences as entropy has been in the natural sciences.
This paper studies the evolution of economic activities using a continuous time-space aggregation-diffusion model, which encompasses competing effects of agglomeration and congestion. To bring the model to the real data, a novel discretization technique over time and space is introduced. This technique effectively disentangles spatial effects into pure topography, agglomeration, repulsion, and diffusion forces, which is crucial for developing robust econometric methods in spatial economics. Our empirical analysis of personal income across Italian municipalities from 2008 to 2019 validates the model's primary predictions and demonstrates superior performance compared to the most common spatial econometric models in the literature.
This paper investigates the extent to which China's economic growth and development influence poverty levels, focusing on the dichotomy between absolute and relative poverty. Leveraging data from sources like the World Bank, Statista, and Macrotrends, and employing economic frameworks such as the Lewis Model, Poverty Headcount Ratio, and Gini Coefficient, the study examines China's transformation from combating absolute poverty to addressing relative poverty. The findings highlight that robust economic growth from 2011 to 2022, driven by urban development and rural infrastructure investments, successfully eradicated absolute poverty and elevated rural incomes. However, this progress also exacerbated income inequality, as evidenced by a rising Gini Coefficient, complicating efforts to alleviate relative poverty. Through multidimensional analyses encompassing regional disparities, migration patterns, educational access, and societal factors, the paper underscores the dual impact of economic development on poverty alleviation. It concludes by advocating for policies that balance economic growth with equitable resource distribution to tackle persistent relative poverty and foster sustainable development.
Urban areas are places associated with the transformation of ideas into practices, social initiatives, and spatial economics. The study aims to assess the triad interaction between education, science, and business as a multiplier on the socio-economic development in the region. The study built a conceptual model of socio-economic space in the context of innovative urban development: the unity of education, science, and business. The statistical analysis allowed the author to substantiate the peculiarities of the local triad. The study revealed correlations in the influence of education, science, and business on changes in the regional system. The paper suggests that the triad of education, science, and business rests on territorial specifics. This feature is the determining factor of innovative development in the field of resort towns. The presented research uses the quantitatively measured influence of the triad as a multiplier by combining values of the unity of education, science, and business. The study found that the mentioned indicator reflects the wellbeing and quality of the labor resources in the region. On the one hand, the multiplicative influence of the triad is a guarantee of an increase in the wellbeing level within the borders of the region. On the other hand, it requires adaptation of the innovative development of resort towns to the current growth of the workforce and a decrease in innovative advantages on a local scale. The findings provide policymakers with significant indicators on the way to stabilizing the regional economy and effective decision-making. The study of the interaction between education, science, and business in the context of socioeconomic development can become a crucial tool for formulating policies aimed at stabilizing the region's economy and improving the quality of life of its residents, particularly in resort cities. The obtained results can provide guidelines for the development of innovation support programs and the planning of investment strategies, taking into account the specifics of territorial conditions.
A spatial performance evaluation system was built to identify the effectiveness and problems of the small township mergered systematically and accurately. Based on the evaluation criteria of efficiency, equity and bottom line, KPI method is used to establish a four-level (goal - field - element - index) spatial performance evaluation framework for withdrawal and merger at regional and individual scales respectively. Two sets of index systems for regional small town groups and small town individuals respectively which are interconnected are established in the four fields of “system-policy”, “space-land”, “society-economy”, and “security-guarantee”. It provides a new idea and a practical technical model for the ex ante forecast, ex post evaluation and adjustment feedback about the formulation and implementation of small towns related policies.
With the rapid development of urbanization and the rapid progress of economy and society, high-intensity development and utilization activities have brought frequent disturbances to natural ecosystems, seriously weakened the supply capacity of ecosystem services such as climate regulation, hydrology regulation, soil conservation and biodiversity maintenance, and thus posed no small threat to regional ecological security and sustainable development. Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle plays an important role in promoting the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and consolidating the ecological barrier in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. However, the advancement of industrialization and urbanization has also led to the shrinkage of natural ecological space and degradation of ecosystem service functions in this region to a certain extent. Therefore, it is particularly urgent to conduct in-depth research on ecosystem services. Therefore, this paper takes the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle as the research object, and uses the equivalent factor method to calculate the ecosystem service value of different land types and different service types in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. The results showed as follows: 1) Cultivated land and forest land were the main land types in Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration. 2) From the perspective of ecosystem service value contribution of different land types, the ranking order is: forest land > cultivated land > water area > grassland > unused land. 3) From the perspective of the value of ecosystem services at each level, the regulation services > support services > production services > cultural services.