Technological and Economic Development of Economy

Can digital financial inclusion promote the nighttime economy? - New evidence from Chinese counties’ nighttime lighting data and threshold model

Lei Chen — 2024-11-06

In the post-pandemic era, the relative weakness of the economy is reflected not only in the macro data but also in the nighttime economy. Based on the threshold model and unbalanced panel data of 1772 county-level administrative units in China from 2014 to 2020, this paper deeply explores the relationship between digital inclusive finance and night economy and draws the following conclusions. (1) When digital financial inclusion exceeds certain thresholds, its beneficial influence on promoting the nighttime economy increases from 8.13% to 26.59% and 87.71%. (2) Digital financial inclusion promotes the nighttime economy by increasing employment in the secondary industry and promoting technological innovation. However, digital financial inclusion hinders the nighttime economy by reducing entrepreneurial activity in the accommodation and catering sectors. (3) Coverage breadth first inhibits, then promotes, and inhibits the nighttime economy in different intervals; the effect of usage depth and digital level on the nighttime economy in intervals shows an increasing trend. (4) In the Yangtze River Economic Belt region, digital financial inclusion initially inhibits the nighttime economy but turns into promotion as it develops; after the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy in 2017, digital financial inclusion can more positively and significantly promote the nighttime economy.

High-quality marine economic development in China from the perspective of green total factor productivity growth: dynamic changes and improvement strategies

Peide Liu — 2024-11-06

High-quality marine economic development (HMED) is regarded as a new development pattern of the marine economy in China. This paper aims to examine the dynamic changes and improvement strategies of HMED from the perspective of the green total factor productivity (GTFP) growth. First, the GTFP growth of the marine economy in China’s coastal regions for the period 2007–2020 is calculated using the bootstrapped Malmquist index. Second, the dynamic changes and spatial impacts of the GTFP growth are characterized using kernel density estimation (KDE). Moreover, a novel analytical framework to study the improvement strategies of the GTFP is developed. Within this framework, the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method is used to explore the paths to achieve HMED. The findings show that: (i) the GTFP growth for coastal regions shows significant fluctuations, suggesting that a stable pattern of marine economic development has yet to be established; (ii) the regional distribution of GTFP growth varies significantly, with provinces with fast GTFP growth gathering resources from neighboring provinces, resulting in a siphon effect; (iii) for coastal provinces that lack certain development conditions, the combined effect of other advantageous factors can be used to achieve HMED. Finally, this study presents policy recommendations for achieving HMED, which can provide insights into the design of China’s future marine economic policies.

First published online 10 September 2024

Sustainable urbanization and green total factor productivity: evidence from China’s new-type urbanization plan

Zhijiu Yang — 2024-11-06

Sustainable urbanization is significant in developing countries. This paper studies whether Chinese-type sustainable urbanization, that is new-type urbanization, promotes green total factor productivity (GTFP). We find that the new-type urbanization implementation in China, on average, significantly promotes GTFP by 3.2%. The positive effect of new-type urbanization on GTFP is correlated with promoting innovation, especially green innovation, and improving allocation efficiency. We do not find clear evidence for industrial upgrading, including industrial advancement and rationalization. This is because industrial upgrading is a gradual process and cannot be achieved shortly. Instead, we find that pilot cities might screen the entry of new firms and keep polluting firms out comparatively. The heterogeneous results indicate that the promotion effects on GTFP are more salient in regions with strong environmental regulation and adequate factor endowments. We have some practical implications for sustainable development in developing countries.

First published online 17 September 2024

Well-being effects of the digital platform economy: the case of temporary and self-employment

Maite Blázquez — 2024-11-06

The surge in non-traditional employment, including self-employment and temporary jobs, driven by the digital platform economy (commonly known as the gig economy), has thrust this form of work into the centre of social and political discussions. Among the European Union countries, Spain stands out with the highest volume of digital platform work. To explore the well-being effects of various gig economy employment arrangements, this study utilizes microdata from the Spanish Living Conditions Survey for 2018 and Google Trends data related to platforms like Deliveroo, Airbnb, Just Eat, Uber, and Freelance as a proxy for digital platform economy demand. Employing an econometric approach based on instrumental variables, the study reveals that the most detrimental well-being effects are observed among self-employed workers. Specifically, in terms of self-reported health, self-employed individuals (own-account workers) exhibit 125.8% lower average health levels compared to permanent workers. These findings suggest that the heightened job insecurity and precariousness associated with self-employment outweigh the potential benefits arising from greater flexibility and autonomy in this type of work.

first published online 17 September 2024

Towards a comprehensive evaluation of decentralization: a multidimensional insight of OECD countries

Marzanna Poniatowicz — 2024-11-06

The present paper introduces a novel methodology for analyzing decentralization across three dimensions: political, administrative, and fiscal. Considering the challenges in determining the degree of decentralization, we have constructed synthetic measures for assessing political (MPD), administrative (MAD), and fiscal (MFD) decentralization employing the TOPSIS method (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution). The use of this method allowed the creation of a linear rank of OECD countries. Furthermore, on the basis of constructed synthetic measures and utilizing the k-means clustering method, we also constructed a non-linear grouping of those countries. This approach enabled us to achieve the final objective of our research, the revelation of varied interrelationships among the different dimensions of decentralization in selected OECD countries. The combined application of the TOPSIS and the k-means methods enhances the methodology for analyzing decentralization by offering a multidimensional perspective. Given the potential repercussions of negative outcomes, such as overt or covert centralization, the findings of our study could turn out to be of significant relevance.

First published online 10 July 2024

Existential risk from transformative AI: an economic perspective

Jakub Growiec — 2024-11-06

The prospective arrival of transformative artificial intelligence (TAI) will be a filter for the human civilization – a threshold beyond which it will either strongly accelerate its growth, or vanish. Historical evidence on technological progress in AI capabilities and economic incentives to pursue it suggest that TAI will most likely be developed in just one to four decades. In contrast, theoretical problems of AI alignment, needed to be solved in order for TAI to be “friendly” towards humans rather than cause our extinction, appear difficult and impossible to solve by mechanically increasing the amount of compute. This means that transformative AI poses an imminent existential risk to the humankind which ought to be urgently addressed. Starting from this premise, this paper provides new economic perspectives on discussions surrounding the issue: whether addressing existential risks is cost effective and fair towards the contemporary poor, whether it constitutes “Pascal’s mugging”, how to quantify risks that have never materialized in the past, how discounting affects our assessment of existential risk, and how to include the prospects of upcoming singularity in economic forecasts. The paper also suggests possible policy actions, such as ramping up public funding on research on existential risks and AI safety, and improving regulation of the AI sector, preferably within a global policy framework.

First published online 10 July 2024

The effect of remittances on poverty and economic growth in Jordan: evidence from augmented autoregressive distributed lag model

AbdelKarim AlBataineh — 2024-11-06

This study investigates the effects of remittances on poverty and economic growth in Jordan from 1970 to 2022. The study makes use of the augmented autoregressive distributed lag (AARDL) cointegration method to investigate the relationships between remittances, poverty, and economic growth. The study also incorporates control variables including foreign direct investment, inflation, interest rates, government expenditures, and the composite trade index to take into consideration their potential impact on the outcomes. The findings support remittances’ role as an economic development accelerator by demonstrating their strong positive impact on Jordan’s economic growth. Remittances have a detrimental impact on poverty as well, suggesting a potential role for them in efforts to eradicate it. The research also confirms the anticipated impacts of the control variables, indicating that while inflation, interest rates, and the composite trade index have favourable effects on poverty, government expenditures and foreign direct investment have negative consequences. The policymakers and stakeholders in Jordan will need to consider the implications of these findings carefully. Policymakers can create measures to draw in and successfully channel remittance flows by recognising the beneficial effects of remittances on economic growth and poverty alleviation. The findings also highlight how important it is to encourage foreign direct investment, control inflation and interest rates, and facilitate trade diversification in order to boost economic growth and lower poverty.

First published online 28 August 2024

Sustainable food supply chain screening and relationship analysis with unknown criteria weight information

Huchang Liao — 2024-11-06

Sustainable food supply chain management (SFSC) can control food loss and waste by reducing resource consumption and environmental pollution, thereby ensuring sustainable food consumption and production patterns. Scholars have investigated specific aspects or links in SFSC but rarely studied the sustainability evaluation and selection of a whole supply chain to provide management suggestions under uncertain decision-making environments. This paper presents a comprehensive multiple criteria decision-making method called the SMAA-ORESTE method for SFSC selection. To reduce experts’ efforts, the holistic acceptability index in the SMAA-2 method is used to screen inferior SFSCs from a large number of alternatives. Then, the ORESTE method is combined with the SMAA method to evaluate SFSCs under uncertain information. The ORESTE method can specifically analyze the relationship between alternatives, and the SMAA method can analyze alternatives with unknown criteria weights by Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed method ensures the robustness and credibility of obtained ranking results. An illustrative example validates the applicability and robustness of the proposed method in selecting SFSCs with unknown criteria weights.

Exploration of multiple enhancing pathways of digital economy development of city clusters using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Xuhui Cong — 2024-11-19

As a crucial catalyst for worldwide economic expansion, the digital economy (DE) has garnered widespread attention and has been regarded as crucial for the promotion of economic growth and innovation. The development of the DE brings both significant opportunities and challenges to city clusters. It enhances urban competitiveness, improves residents’ quality of life, and strengthens urban governance, which is of great significance for the development of city clusters. In this context, although previous studies comprehensively analyzed the advancement of the DE of certain cities and revealed their strategies, challenges, and successful experiences in the development of their DE, research on the determinants and enhancing pathways of the digital economy development of city clusters (DEDCC) is scant. As the core node of DE development, city clusters, as well as their potential and influence, cannot be ignored. Therefore, this study investigates the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration in China, constructs a theoretical analysis framework for the DEDCC, and utilizes fsQCA (Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis) to examine the complex causal processes of the DEDCC. The fsQCA method is utilized from a configurational perspective to explore the complex driving mechanisms of DEDCC. The objective is to investigate the pathways for enhancing DEDCC and provide insights for the DE development of other city clusters. Results reveal the following: (1) the reciprocal collaboration between market factors and fundamental factors should be examined to accelerate the high-quality DEDCC. (2) technological innovation (TI) capacity is a crucial determinant of the high-quality DEDCC. (3) the coordinated development of the market, the foundation, and TI should be prioritized to achieve the high-quality DEDCC.