Search Results (631)

This study examines the effect of innovation on climate resilience in developing countries, covering annual data from 2008 to 2022, with a focus on how this relationship varies across different levels of vulnerability. The primary purpose is to understand whether innovation contributes uniformly to climate resilience or if its impact differs depending on a country’s resilience status. Addressing this question is crucial for developing evidence-based and context-specific climate policies. To capture these heterogeneous effects, this study employs a panel quantile regression approach using data from developing countries. This method allows the estimation of the influence of innovation proxied by the Global Innovation Index (GII) and the climate resilience Index. The findings show that innovation has a consistently positive and statistically strong impact on climate resilience across all quantiles, with the strongest impact at the median. The results carry important policy implications. Firstly, developing countries should prioritize innovation-driven strategies to strengthen resilience across different climate risk profiles. Secondly, policies supporting renewable energy deployment should target countries with higher emissions to maximize their impact. Thirdly, fiscal tools, such as environmentally aligned tax policies, should be emphasized particularly in more vulnerable contexts. Finally, trade policies, population dynamics and integration of climate finance variables must be integrated into climate strategies to enhance long-term sustainability. Full article

Enhancing the level of public service delivery constitutes a core objective for governments worldwide in their efforts to optimize governance effectiveness. With the advancement of the digital revolution, government data has emerged as a critical factor of production, and its open utilization is increasingly regarded as a strategic resource for addressing public service challenges. This study employs panel data from 285 Chinese cities spanning the period 2010 to 2022. By leveraging the staggered rollout of data openness platforms by local governments as a quasi-natural experiment, it evaluates the impact mechanism of government data openness on public service delivery using a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The findings indicate that open government data significantly enhances regional public service delivery, an effect that operates primarily through data utilization and urban technological innovation capacity, both of which collectively empower public service improvements. Moderation analysis further reveals that fiscal transparency exerts a significant positive moderating effect within this pathway, thereby amplifying the influence of government data openness on public service provision levels. Full article

Agricultural economic resilience plays a pivotal role in the integrated development of agriculture and rural areas, and carries great significance for ensuring national food security and advancing sustainable agricultural development in the context of complex risks and challenges. Using panel data covering 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2011 to 2023, this paper empirically investigates the impact mechanism of fiscal support for agriculture on agricultural economic resilience. The results demonstrate that fiscal support for agriculture in the Yangtze River Delta exerts a significant positive effect on agricultural economic resilience, especially with a pronounced promoting influence on resistance capacity. Mechanism analysis indicates that fiscal support for agriculture indirectly affects agricultural economic resilience through channels including agricultural industrial agglomeration and the urban–rural income gap. Accordingly, to strengthen agricultural economic resilience, it is necessary to optimize the allocation and expenditure structure of fiscal funds, adopt differentiated strategies with dynamic and timely adjustments, allocate funds to boost agricultural industrial agglomeration, enhance investment in human capital to narrow the urban–rural income gap, and facilitate sustainable agricultural development. Full article

The economic viability of livestock manure as a green agricultural input is a key determinant of growers’ adoption decisions, yet evidence on its income effects across cropping types remains limited. This study uses field survey data from growers in Jiangsu Province, China, and employs a Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method to construct a counterfactual analysis framework. We assess the impact of manure application on farm income using two core indicators: income per mu (a Chinese unit of area, approximately 0.067 hectares) and total household agricultural income. The findings demonstrate that: (1) Livestock manure application significantly increases both average income and overall household agricultural income. Cooperative membership and access to technical training significantly promote the adoption of livestock manure. (2) The income effect exhibits significant heterogeneity across crop types: vegetable and fruit growers benefit most, followed by seedling growers, while grain growers gain relatively less. By systematically comparing three cropping types, this study extends the single-crop-focused literature and provides empirical evidence for designing targeted, crop-specific policies. These findings inform the differentiated fiscal incentives and cooperative-based extension strategies proposed in this paper to enhance manure utilization efficiency in sustainable agriculture. Full article

Background: Understanding how logistics structure affects fiscal performance and exposure to disruption is critical in import-dependent economies. This study examines the concentration of Ecuador’s import logistics system using customs revenue as an operational–fiscal proxy. Methods: The analysis uses 2023–2024 customs revenue data to evaluate modal and territorial concentration through the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI). Scenario-based stress tests are applied to assess sensitivity to redistribution and disruption shocks. Results: Results reveal a high dependence on maritime transport and a dominant customs district, with the Guayaquil–Maritime node accounting for most revenue. HHI values confirm strong concentration patterns. Scenario analysis shows that even moderate disruptions in dominant nodes generate disproportionate fiscal impacts, while limited modal diversification slightly reduces vulnerability. Conclusions: The findings indicate that logistics concentration constitutes a structural source of fiscal exposure. The study contributes by framing customs revenue as an integrated proxy linking logistics structure and vulnerability. However, results should be interpreted cautiously due to the short-term dataset, static analysis, and absence of behavioral responses. Full article

This study examines female microenterprise entrepreneurship in the city of Juliaca, Peru, as a response to structural conditions of poverty, informality, and limited inclusion in public policies. The research aims to understand and interpret the dynamics of women-led entrepreneurship and its relationship with sustainable local socioeconomic development. A qualitative methodological approach based on an interpretive phenomenological design was adopted. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, direct observation, and document analysis with sixteen microentrepreneurs selected through purposive and snowball sampling. The findings reveal that intrinsic motivations (resilience, leadership, and self-fulfillment) and extrinsic motivations (economic independence, access to financing, and education) are key factors in the entrepreneurial process. In addition, entrepreneurial social capital, expressed through family, community, and institutional networks, plays a strategic role in the sustainability of businesses. The results also show that women entrepreneurs actively and significantly contribute to sustainable local socioeconomic development by strengthening local development ecosystems, generating employment, and promoting socially, fiscally, and ethically responsible practices. Despite their role as agents of change and transformation, women entrepreneurs continue to face structural barriers, highlighting the need for public policies with territorial and gender-sensitive approaches to strengthen their impact and sustainability. Full article

This study investigates the impact of public debt service costs on social expenditure in South Africa, focusing on three categories of social expenditure, namely, government education expenditure, government health expenditure and government social protection expenditure. It addresses the challenge of financing debt service costs while maintaining social expenditure. The study employed annual time series data from 1994 to 2024 and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique to examine the effect of public debt service costs on social expenditure. The results reveal that debt service exhibits a negative and statistically significant impact across all three categories of social expenditure under consideration in the long run and short run in South Africa. Moreover, the results reveal that public debt has a negative relationship with all three categories of social expenditure. The exchange rate and revenue were found to have a positive relationship with all three categories of social expenditure under consideration. Urban population was found to have a positive relationship with government education expenditure and social protection expenditure. These findings underscore the need to focus on reducing the fiscal pressure stemming from increasing debt service costs, while upholding social expenditure. It is recommended that policymakers focus on debt stabilisation and reduction, thereby easing the crowding-out of social expenditure. Full article

With the growing global emphasis on the transition to green energy, understanding the drivers of renewable energy investment (REI) has become a critical area of research. However, the role of social security contributions (SSCs) as a fiscal instrument influencing REI remains unexplored. This study examines whether SSCs stimulate renewable energy investment and assesses the extent to which innovation influences this relationship. Using newly compiled SSC data for 35 OECD countries over the period 1996–2022, the analysis applies the Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) framework to capture dynamic effects and cross-country dependence. The results show that both social security contributions and technological innovation promote REI. In addition, technological innovation strengthens the positive impact of social security contributions on clean energy investment, indicating that SSCs are effective in innovative OECD economies. The results suggest that policymakers in OECD countries should allocate a significant portion of SSC revenues to green energy initiatives and innovation. Furthermore, increasing investment in green energy research and development could strengthen the link between SSCs and innovation, thereby accelerating the clean energy transition. Full article

Promoting digital governance is a key direction for the Chinese government’s governance reform. Based on panel data from 280 prefecture-level and above cities spanning 2008–2023, this study treats the “National Pilot Policy for Information Benefiting the People” as a quasi-natural experiment. Employing a difference-in-differences model, it examines the impact of government digital governance on urban innovation and its underlying mechanisms. Findings indicate that digital governance significantly enhances urban innovation, with conclusions remaining robust after rigorous stability tests and endogeneity treatments. Mechanism tests reveal that digital governance enhances urban innovation by cultivating innovation entities, improving the innovation environment, and optimizing the allocation of innovation elements. Further analysis indicates that the impact of digital governance on urban innovation is influenced by city location and development level. In eastern regions, areas with lower government fiscal pressure, and regions with higher levels of informatization, government digital transformation is more effective in boosting urban innovation. In addition, digital governance has significantly promoted sustainable and strategic innovation in cities and can influence innovation in neighboring areas through spillover effects. These findings can provide valuable insights for promoting urban innovation. Full article

This study systematically examines the impact of radical urbanization on the quality of economic growth using city-level data from 290 major prefecture-level cities in China during 2003–2019. A comprehensive indicator system for economic growth quality is constructed using PCA, capturing multiple dimensions of efficiency, stability, and sustainability. Nighttime light data obtained from the NOAA is extracted and calibrated, and the ratio of urban built-up area to nighttime light intensity is employed to measure the degree of radical urbanization. Empirical results reveal a divergence between economic quantity and quality effects: while radical urbanization promotes economic expansion, it significantly inhibits the quality of economic growth. To address potential endogeneity concerns, the change in FDI relative to changes in built-up area is used to capture FDI flow direction, with its one-period lag serving as an instrumental variable. Mechanism analysis, based on an interaction-based identification framework, shows that radical urbanization suppresses growth quality primarily through two transmission channels: reduced fiscal output efficiency and declining land use efficiency. Further analysis indicates that radical urbanization crowds out science and education expenditures, weakening fiscal effectiveness and reinforcing the identified transmission mechanisms. These findings provide objective evidence for evaluating urbanization strategies and offer policy insights for promoting quality-oriented and sustainable urban development. Full article

As a production factor, data plays an increasingly important role in sustainable development. Using panel data from 31 Chinese provinces (2011–2023) and employing fixed-effects, panel threshold, and spatial Durbin models, this study examines the impact of data element agglomeration on inclusive green development. The results reveal four main findings. First, data element agglomeration significantly improves inclusive green development, though this positive effect stems primarily from economic growth and social inclusion rather than direct environmental gains. Second, industrial structure upgrading and green technology innovation function as underlying mechanisms, but exhibit suppression effects—their indirect contributions are negative, reflecting short-term adjustment costs and institutional frictions. Third, fiscal support intensity exhibits a nonlinear moderating effect with diminishing returns. Fourth, the effect is more pronounced in coastal provinces, regions with stringent environmental regulation, and the pre-2020 period, and generates significant spatial spillovers to neighboring regions. These findings highlight the conditional nature of data-driven green development and offer insights for designing context-sensitive data policies. Full article

Promoting rural industrial integration (RII) is crucial for achieving rural revitalization and agricultural modernization. To empirically evaluate the impact of China’s Rural Industrial Integration Demonstration Park (RIIDP) policy, this study treated the RIIDP policy as a natural experiment, and implemented a staggered difference-in-differences model (DID) to examine the policy’s effects on agricultural modernization and farmers’ income. The empirical findings demonstrate statistically significant positive impacts of the policy on farmers’ income, yielding an average annual increase of 2.1% (equivalent to 234 CNY) per capita and the income-increasing effect has sustained dynamic characteristics. The mechanism analysis reveals that the policy promotes the upgrading of agricultural industries and the improvement of production methods, realizing agricultural modernization and sustainable income growth. Heterogeneity analysis uncovers nuanced spatial and socioeconomic variations in policy effectiveness. The income-increasing effects prove particularly pronounced in counties characterized by lower educational level and greater fiscal capacity. Regional analysis further identifies stronger treatment effects in western and northeastern regions compared to eastern and central regions, suggesting diminishing marginal returns in more developed areas. This study provides empirical evidence on the efficacy of a major rural policy, which is conducive to achieving sustainable rural economic development. The findings provide practical guidance for agricultural transition economies seeking to advance agricultural modernization and increase farmers’ income. Full article

As the Philippines aims to electrify its vehicle fleet by 2030, it seeks to be a leading example for other government agencies adopting electric and hybrid electric vehicles. This study addresses the challenge of optimizing budget allocation to support this transition under fiscal constraints. A hybrid decision-making approach is employed, integrating the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and linear programming (LP) to guide procurement strategy. AHP is used to establish a hierarchy of decision criteria, and LP is used to translate these into the most favorable outcome constrained by budget limitations. This framework supports rational and criteria-driven decision-making for public fleet planning. The resulting model enables the Philippines to maximize the impact of electrification while adhering to financial and operational constraints. The findings contribute to policy-oriented planning models that align sustainability goals with real-world budgetary conditions. Full article

Economic goals and non-economic goals often conflict in practice. Taking China as an example, this paper examines the impact of Administrative Approval Center (AAC) establishment on urban green innovation. A multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) method is applied to city-level panel data (2000–2022) in China to estimate the effect of AAC establishment on urban green innovation. The research results indicate that the establishment of AAC reduces urban green innovation due to the increased fiscal burden on local governments. This negative impact is particularly evident in the eastern and central regions, cities with stronger environmental regulations, or low-administrative-level cities. The conclusions of this paper have reference significance for other developing countries. To achieve sustainable development, central governments should enhance fiscal support and safeguards, local governments should implement differentiated environmental regulations, and digital technologies should be leveraged to reduce physical infrastructure costs and alleviate fiscal pressures. Full article

As improving power sector energy efficiency is crucial for China’s sustainable low-carbon transition, this study investigates the impact and spatial spillover effects of carbon market pilot policies. Utilizing panel data from 30 Chinese provinces spanning 2009 to 2022, we employ a super-efficiency Slack-Based Measure (SBM) model alongside a Spatial Difference-in-Differences (SDID) approach to assess policy outcomes. Empirical findings reveal that while the pilot policy significantly improves local power energy efficiency by an average of 10.68%, it exerts a negative spatial spillover on neighboring regions (rho = −0.3802). This disparity occurs because asymmetric resource agglomeration causes the policy-driven “polarization effect” to dominate the “trickle-down effect”. Furthermore, mechanism analyses demonstrate that increasing the clean energy share—primarily driven by technological substitution, fiscal subsidies, and policy guidance—serves as the main transmission channel. However, strict short-term compliance costs induce a “strategic innovation” response, which promotes green utility model patents but crowds out substantive green inventions. Ultimately, this study highlights the necessity of establishing cross-regional carbon market alliances and technology diffusion mechanisms to mitigate regional disparities and foster collaborative carbon reduction, and promote long-term sustainability. Full article