Innovation efficiency and spatial spillover in urban agglomerations: A case of the Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei,the Yangtze River Delta,and the Pearl River Delta

Based on panel data of innovation inputs and outputs in 53 cities of the three major Chinese urban agglomerations (UAs) spanning the 2001–2015 period, this study examines the influence of the spatial spillover effect among cities on innovation efficiency in UAs using the SFA method and a spatial econometric model. Three main conclusions can be draw from the empirical results. First, the innovation efficiency in the three UAs has increased over the research period, but there is enormous potential for improvement. Second, owing to the close socioeconomic linkages and the flow of innovation resources, there is a significantly positive spatial spillover effect between cities on innovation efficiency in the three UAs. In other words, innovation efficiency in a local city was positively influenced by the other cities in the UA. Particularly, the innovation efficiency in a local city is influenced by factors related to not only the city itself but also other cities in the UA. Third, as the geographical distance increases, the spillover effect on innovation efficiency shows nonlinear variations, indicating that the excessive expansion in UAs may not be attributed to innovation development.     

The innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer from the perspective of carbon emission reduction demand: A case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China

Reducing carbon emissions is the only way to solve the global climate problem, which obviously requires the joint efforts of all regions. From the perspective of carbon emission reduction demand, this research obtains the data of low-carbon patents and CO₂ emissions from 2000 to 2019, and then explores the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). We draw the following conclusions: (1) Low-carbon technology transfer has a positive impact on low-carbon technology innovation. However, a large number of low-carbon technology transfers are concentrated between developed regions in the YREB at present. (2) No matter from the perspective of total amount or efficiency, carbon emission reduction demand can play positive moderating role in the process of exerting the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer, indicating that the transfer of low-carbon technologies to regions with high demand is efficient. (3) The moderating effect of carbon emission reduction demand in different regions has regional heterogeneity. Carbon emissions per unit of GDP plays a greater role in moderating the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer in the eastern region, while CO₂ emissions plays a greater role in the central and western regions. Therefore, we propose to strengthen the transfer of low-carbon technologies between developed and less-developed regions, and adopt differentiation strategies according to the actual situation of each region. Our research has deepened the understanding of environmental economic geography on the innovation effect of low-carbon technology transfer, and has reference significance for global low-carbon technology cooperation.     

Regional impact and spillover effect of public infrastructure investment: An empirical study in the Yangtze River Delta,China

Since China's reform and opening up, public infrastructure investments have significantly improved. These investments drive China's long-term economic growth. Based on panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2006 to 2017, the simultaneous equation models (SEMs) are constructed to explore the regional impact and spillover effect of infrastructures with resolving endogenous problems. Public infrastructure investment remains to have a systemic effect on household income, urban population, and land prices in certain regions. In certain region, the estimated coefficients of public infrastructure investment are consistent with expectations and significant, which are 0.523, 0.142, and 0.781 with three-stage least squares method. And the endogenous variables also affect public infrastructure investment. But, the coefficient of the spatial term is −0.019, negative and not significant. The cross-regional spillover effect of public infrastructure investment is nonsignificant using the generalized spatial three-stage least squares method.     

Organising AIDS in the borderless world: A case study from the Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore Growth Triangle*

Abstract: Tropes of borderlessness are pervasive both in discourses concerning the spread of HIV/AIDS and the Growth Triangle, a transnational economic zone that ideally binds together the Indonesian island of Batam, the Malaysian province of Johor and Singapore. This paper considers how the emergence of HIV as a problem in the Growth Triangle, and on Batam in particular, has been framed as a problem to be addressed in context of the nation‐state rather than as a transnational problem that demands cooperation across borders. In conjunction with this, it focuses on further attempts to create boundaries around HIV, through the identification of risk groups, the localisation of prostitutes and the distribution of condoms. The paper focuses particular attention on the relationship between Batam and Singapore, and how non‐governmental organisations and governments have dealt with HIV/AIDS issues in both places. Furthermore, it problematises these activities by paying ethnographic attention to other forms of cultural and economic logics that often are odds with prevention models. This raises important questions concerning, most specifically, the problems of HIV prevention and cross‐border cooperation, and, more generally, the regulation and formation of new kinds of borders in a ‘borderless world’.     

Land supply and urbanization strategy in the Yangtze River Delta region,China

China's urbanization rate is increasing beyond sustainable levels because it has increased by approximately 1% every year in the last 30 years. As an important part of urban development, the selection of an urbanization strategy has been the focus of local governments. As such, local governments play an important role in urbanization processes by coordinating land supply and population growth. Using the 2009–2013 panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, this research tests the relationship between land supply and population growth to explore the urbanization strategy adopted by local governments. Simultaneous equation models for land supply and population growth are developed in this research. Empirical results identify land supply as the cause and population growth as the effect. Findings suggest that local governments in the YRD choose an aggressive strategy in urbanization which treats land as a tool for accelerating the urbanization.     

Extreme air pollution as a focusing event: A case study of the ‘Airpocalypse’ in Beijing,January 2013

Sudden events of crisis (‘focusing events’) trigger intense media reporting, which in turn can prompt political decision‐makers to respond with an adjustment of existing policies. As such, focusing events can potentially lead to long‐term policy change on a certain issue. This article explores the sudden and intense period of air pollution in Beijing in January 2013 as a focusing event. The episode, which international media referred to as ‘Airpocalypse’, triggered widespread discussion and policy adjustments that can be assumed to have accelerated the control of air pollution in China. The ‘Airpocalypse’ was not the first event of intense air pollution in Beijing, but the only one which seemingly caused lasting sociopolitical changes. The aim of this article is to explore the underlying situational factors that enabled the ‘Airpocalypse’ to be more relevant than other events of severe air pollution. This paper argues that a combination of historically high pollution, improved access to information, increasing government willingness to address the issue, and the ability of media to more openly discuss air pollution created a public pressure situation to which the government was prompted to respond in a stronger way than during previous events of heavy air pollution.     

Low‐carbon evaluation of rural neighborhood: A case study of Yanhe Village,Hubei Province,China

Climate change has become a global issue influencing human survival and development while low‐carbon is the inevitable choice. As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China has become an important force that influences the cooperation of climate change. China is a large agricultural country, and the rural carbon emissions have been gradually increasing. We consider rural neighborhood as an important space for the use of low‐carbon ideas to address climate change. There is no specific assessment system for a rural neighborhood. The studies of rural neighborhood low‐carbon mainly focus on the method of calculation carbon emissions. However, only quantifying rural carbon emissions is insufficient. In this paper, a low‐carbon evaluation indicator system has been proposed for rural neighborhood and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation has been applied to get the low‐carbon degree. Considering the influence and feedback inside the indicator system, Analytic Network Process was applied to get the weights. Furthermore, a case study was carried out for the using of the proposed method in an eco‐village of China. Our practice has proved that the system is easy to operate in rural neighborhood.     

Endogenous inclusive development of e-commerce in rural China: A case study

This paper advances understanding of the process and mechanism of endogenous inclusive development of information and communications technology (ICT) solutions. We present a case of a bottom of the pyramid (BoP) community in a rural area in China, which has achieved sustainable furniture e-commerce development independently. The case study demonstrates that e-commerce development in a disadvantaged area can start from a seed business model targeting a niche market with simple products, which will incur low costs and low skill requirements for entrepreneurs, and is thus able to scale up within local BoP community. In the second stage, BoP entrepreneurs must engage in intensive learning from the seed entrepreneur and other early movers to gain the required capabilities for operating the seed business model. In the last stage, BoP entrepreneurs need to focus on business model innovation and scoping, and form a local value chain and ecosystem for e-commerce development. Throughout the e-commerce development process, a seed entrepreneur plays specific critical roles at each stage. Practical implications for the BoP community to take advantage of ICT innovation to achieve sustainable development are given.     

Rural land reforms and villagers' preferences for urban settlement: A case study of Shandong Province,China

Based on surveys conducted in Shandong Province, China, this paper examined the interests of rural residents to move to and settle in cities, as well as the factors that motivate or discourage their potential settlement changes. Results of the binary logistic regression analysis showed that villagers' urban settlement preference was related to sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, and occupation. Overall, the separation of the “three rights” (collective ownership, land contract right, and land use right) associated with rural land has strengthened the urban settlement preference of rural residents. Nevertheless, we did not find significant association between land transfer and the preference for urban settlement. For villagers who expressed interest in urban settlement, better job opportunities, education opportunities, and higher income are the leading “pull” factors that would attract them to cities. The attachment to rural life, high living costs, and high housing prices in cities were the top concerns for villagers who did not want to move. The study also found that villagers' desired urban destinations changed with the changing land parameters, indicating that the outcomes of China's rural land reforms may not be aligned well with the policy goals laid in the country's urbanization and rural development plans.     

Explosive border: Dwelling,fear and violence on the Thai–Burmese border along the Salween River

The Salween borderlands can be conceptualised as spaces of exception where contradictory outcomes of state actions lead to state violence. The Burmese and Thai states have maintained their sovereign power and responded to economic regionalisation through violent practices in particular spaces. The political conflicts between the Burmese junta and ethnic minorities in the Salween borderlands have become war zones. The Burmese government in association with the Thai state and transnational dam investors has imposed the Salween dam projects on the Salween borderlands and people in the form of a terrorising state. The border people have experienced fear, danger and military violence, which has become part of the violence in everyday life. This paper provides an ethnographic study focused on specific events involving an explosion and death in a particular place and time on the Salween borderland. It shows the suffering of the border people in relation to sovereign power.     

Foreign direct investment flows to Mexican states: A study of the automobile industry, 2004–2014

This study examines the subnational flow in foreign direct investment (FDI) to Mexican states, with a focus on the finished vehicle industry. Although prior studies have examined subnational FDI in Mexico, research on the automobile sector has been scant. Utilizing a framework associated with the theory of asset specificity, we examine the influence of human capital and labor conditions, infrastructure, subnational policies, and security. The study employs a data set on finished vehicle FDI across 31 states and the Federal district for the period of 2004–2014. We adopt a two‐part model. The first part, which includes all states and the Federal district, is estimated with pooled logistic and Firth logistic regressions. In the second part, we examine variation in levels of FDI among states selected for investment with pooled ordinary least squares with panel‐corrected and Driscoll Kraay standard errors. Labor conditions are significant for both state selection and levels of FDI, but education is influential only in the selection stage. In addition, states with trunk rail lines linked to the U.S. border are more likely to be selected and receive higher FDI. After controlling for these influences, murder and homicide rates, and state development have no significant effects.     

The formation of agricultural e‐commerce clusters: A case from China

Agricultural e‐commerce clusters are new phenomena that have emerged in rural China. In examining the case of Shuyang County in Jiangsu Province, this paper puts forward an integrated model revealing the formation mechanism of agricultural e‐commerce clusters. The paper shows that the formation of agricultural e‐commerce clusters involves four processes of technology introduction, technology diffusion, quality crisis, and industrial agglomeration based on elements such as industry bases, e‐commerce platforms, network facilities, logistics services, entrepreneurial talent, local government, and market demand. Rural social networks and imitation behaviors promote technology diffusion by reducing the cost of technology introduction, and industrial agglomeration is found in the economies showing a deepening of labor divisions and geographic agglomeration. Throughout the formation process, a quality crisis may occur due to a race to the bottom and the opportunistic behaviors of local farmers. This work suggests that regional e‐commerce development is a systematic project. Governments of developing countries should not only realize the positive impacts of e‐commerce for the development of the agricultural industry but also recognize the premise and logic of how e‐commerce can play a prominent role.     

Measuring Smart Land Use in Urban–Rural Regions of China: A Case Study of Pukou,Nanjing City

This article expands the study of smart growth from urban space to urban–rural regions based on land use. It analyses smart land use in urban–rural regions. The study sets up an integrated measure indicator system of smart land use in urban–rural regions, which consisted of three subsystems: land amount controls, land form compactness, and land use efficiency. As a case study, the system was used to measure the smart land use in the Pukou District of Nanjing City, an area with intensive urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta of China. The results show that smart land use in the investigated area is increasing year by year, but it remains to be further improved. The integrated measure indicator system of smart land use in urban–rural regions is effective for measuring the level and status of regional smart land use.     

基于GIS的三峡库区土地生态安全评价——以丰都县沿江地区为例

充分运用遥感数据、数字高程模型和各种调查数据,以栅格为分析单元,利用层次分析法和GIS相结合的方法,实现了对三峡库区丰都县沿江地区土地生态安全状况的分析和评价,以期为三峡库区绿色生态屏障建设提供一定的指导。结果表明,研究区重警、中警、预警、较安全、安全状态的比例分别为0.15%、5.36%、41.85%、46.07%和6.57%,土地生态安全状态以较安全状态和预警状态为主。生态屏障区土地生态安全状况主要为重警、中警状态,该区域是沿江地区生态环境最为脆弱的区域。研究区长江南岸土地生态状况较好,而长江北岸土地生态状况主要以预警为主,土地生态功能退化较严重。通过对土地生态安全等级状况的分析,明确了区域土地生态安全格局和形成原因,为构建区域生态安全格局提供了有益参考。     

Impact of road transportation development on habitat quality in economically developed areas: A case study of Jiangsu Province,China

The excessive expansion of road transportation often has an impact on the quality of regional habitats. This paper attempts to assess the impact of road transportation on regional habitat quality in economically developed areas. A kernel density analysis was used to characterise the road transportation development in Jiangsu Province from 2000 to 2015. An Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) habitat quality model was applied to assess changes in habitat quality. Furthermore, a fixed-effect regression model was utilised to examine the impact of road transportation development in Jiangsu Province on habitat quality. The analysis indicates that the average kernel density of road transportation in the province increased from 0.109 to 0.551 km/km² while the habitat quality decreased from 0.51 to 0.48. The development of road transportation in Jiangsu Province has had a serious negative impact on the quality of the habitat. For every 1-ha increase in land area for road use, the habitat quality index will decrease by 0.066; for every 1 km/km² increase in road transportation kernel density, the habitat quality index will decline by 0.121.     

Dynamics of the Russia–China Forest Products Trade

Relying primarily on English language scholarship, this paper seeks to highlight the dynamics of China's economic integration beyond its borders as Chinese economic actors extend their search for commodities—in this case into the Russian Federation for timber products. The paper considers the shifts in the political economy of Russian forestry exports from a predominantly domestic and Japan‐focused trade during the 1947–1991 Cold War era to a north–south trajectory increasingly emphasizing trade with China from 1993 to 2010. Chinese and Russian bilateral trade data, acting as a barometer of national forestry‐related policies, highlight the economic convergence and benefits brought to both the Russian and Chinese timber sectors over the past two decades. Far from being an environmentally deterministic process—one based on the physical geographic characteristics on the ground in both of these states—this binational commodity trade shows that the geography of the Russia–China forest product trade is highly dynamic, temporally variable, and intimately intertwined with national political and economic considerations.     

Managing the hinterland beyond: Two ideal‐type strategies of economic development for small island territories

Abstract: Rarely does one come across critical analysis which looks at islands as the strategic and candid promoters of a role as political and economic usufructuaries over external resources. This paper is premised on the proposition that a small territory is especially obliged to use extra‐territorial resources as its hinterland for economic success. Such resources extend over a whole range of goods and services and include access to investment, welfare, security, stable currency, international relations, specialised labour power, transfers, markets and higher education. The MIRAB syndrome is one way of articulating this condition. This paper proposes a second cluster of features that are, or can be, deployed by small territories in a manner somewhat different from MIRAB; this second cluster has a more proactive policy orientation and a disposition towards carving out procedural and jurisdictional powers. It is thus proposed to consider a small territory's engagement with the external hinterland as a position on a sliding scale, a strategic mix of options located between two distinct development trajectories, of which MIRAB is one and the PROFIT model the other.     

Regional Impacts of Foreign Trade in China, 1984–1989

An issue of heated debate in China is whether the current economic reforms would lead to greater regional inequalities. In this paper one aspect of the reforms, the open-door policy, is put into focus. Specifically, the analysis investigates how the effect of foreign trade on economic development differs across regions, and whether these regional variations have changed from 1984 to 1989. Based upon the expansion method, models that resolve both the spatial and temporal variations of a relationship are constructed and estimated. The results indicate that foreign trade benefits core provinces and major industrial regions more than other parts of China, but that these differences have diminished in 1989. These findings may be interpreted as evidence of some diffusion of growth from more developed to less developed regions. On the other hand, regional linkages and the mechanisms of diffusion are not well understood and they deserve more attention and research.     

Development on the periphery: A case study of the sub‐national island jurisdiction of Pitcairn Island

This research reports on empirical findings of remote Pitcairn Island, the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific. It uses a qualitative methodology to discuss the island's potential for tourism development while recognising the issues and challenges faced by many small island developing states. However, as a sub‐national island jurisdiction Pitcairn presents a number of issues unique to its temporal socio‐political development and its centre periphery relationship with the metropole. The concept ‘decolonising without disengaging’ is posited to argue sub‐national island jurisdictions are places/spaces of innovative, creative and differentiated development processes that offer interesting departures from the conventional realms of sustainable discourse and island development. This concept is posited as a strategy of empowerment whereby autonomy without sovereignty does not necessarily hinder the development of tourism industries.     

Contribution of cultivar,fertilizer and weather to yield variation of winter wheat over three decades: A case study in the North China Plain

Long-term field measured yield data provides good opportunity to assess the impacts of climate and management on crop production. This study used the yield results from a long-term field experiment (1979–2012) at Luancheng Experimental Station in the central part of the North China Plain (NCP) to analyze the seasonal yield variation of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under the condition of sufficient water supply. The yield change of winter wheat over the last 33 growing seasons was divided into three time periods: the 1980s, the 1990s, and the years of 2001–2012. The grain yield of winter wheat during the 1980s was relative stable. During the 1990s, the annual yield of this crop was continuously increased by 193 kg/ha/year (P < 0.01). While for the past 12 years, yield of winter wheat was maintained at relative higher level, but with larger seasonal yield variation than that back in 1980s. CERES-Wheat model was calibrated and was used to verify the effects of management practices on grain yield. Seven scenarios were simulated with and without improvements in management. The simulated results show that the yield of winter wheat was decreased by 5.3% during 1990s and by 9.2% during the recent 12 seasons, compared with that during 1980s, under the scenario that the yield of winter wheat was solely affected by weather. Seasonal yield variation caused by weather factors was around −39% to 20%, indicating the great effects of weather on yearly yield variation. Yield improvement by cultivars was around 24.7% during 1990s and 52.0% during the recent 12 seasons compared with that during 1980s. The yield improvement by the increase in soil fertility and chemical fertilizer input was 7.4% and 6.8% during the two periods, respectively. The initial higher soil fertility and chemical fertilizer input might be the reasons that the responses of crop production to the further increase in chemical fertilizer were small during the simulation period. Correlation analysis of the grain yield from the field measured data with weather factors showed that sunshine hours and diurnal temperature difference (DTR) were positively, and relative humidity was negatively related to grain yield of winter wheat. The climatic change trends in this area showed that the DTR and sunshine hours were declining. This type of climatic change trend might further negatively affect winter wheat production in the future.