Development prospects in Eastern Indonesia: Learning from Oelua's diverse economy

This paper explores the effects of different representations of informal economies in Third World settings. Both the neoclassical and political economy approaches have represented the informal economy as a transient entity, and the non‐capitalist practices it comprises as being remnant economic forms, or as already capitalist. Mainstream development discourse (that reflects the neoliberal paradigm) continues to ignore the value and potential of non‐capitalist practices and to represent them as inconsequential to development outcomes. Meanwhile contemporary livelihood studies across the social sciences have documented the continuing vibrancy of different and hybrid economic forms in the Asia Pacific. In this paper, I use a diverse‐economies approach to explore the complexities of the village economy of Oelua in Rote, in the so‐called lagging region of Eastern Indonesia. Drawing on anti‐essentialist Marxist theory in economic geography, I describe the multiple, locally specific and coexisting practices that comprise Oelua's diverse economy, which include distributions of surplus labour to promote social and economic well‐being. I argue that recognising informal village economies as an important development resource could begin a process of building diverse development trajectories in Eastern Indonesia, complementing mainstream development proposals to attract foreign direct investment, shore up development assistance and source out‐migration.     

重庆市农村剩余劳动力转移型态的实证分析

以调研资料为经验数据，对重庆市农村剩余劳动力转移型态进行了实证分析。通过研究认为：在制度变迁过程中，不同的制度安排有不同的劳动力转移型态。中国农村剩余劳动力转移型态与农地承包制度、社会保障制度和经济管理制度三组核心制度之间存在密切联系。在现有制度背景框架下，重庆农村剩余劳动力在转移途径上还主要停留在“兼业型”转移型态，在流动方式上还主要表现为通过亲朋好友带动和自身外出务工的盲目流动。但同时也看出，随着经济发展水平的提高、城乡统筹社会保障制度的建立和市场制度的完善，农村剩余劳动力转移型态在循序优化，土地对农民的保障功能在逐步削弱，政府和民间机构在农村剩余劳动力转移过程中的主导作用在明显增强。     

Power over,power to,power with: Shifting perceptions of power for local economic development in the Philippines

Power has long been recognised as crucial to the sustainability of community development interventions; however, the way in which space affects power relations within such interventions has remained relatively under‐theorised in the development literature. Many practitioners continue to regard power as located centrally and as embedded in particular institutions, networks, knowledge and resources. According to this logic, processes of empowerment involve the redistribution of these resources to marginalised groups through their participation in development interventions such as microfinance and sustainable livelihood initiatives. The danger inherent in such development approaches is that they can discourage the potential for participants to use their own agency by overemphasising an existing lack of resources locally and inadvertently feeding a sense of dependency on formal development interventions initiated by external agencies. This paper suggests that a post‐structural conceptualisation of power as dynamic, multiple and mediated at the local level offers a more productive starting point for thinking about approaches to empowerment. Drawing on data from an action research project designed to initiate community enterprises in a small rural municipality in the Philippines, I suggest how a post‐structural approach to power can be enacted by building on the existing local resources and practices of everyday life.     

Explaining urban governance in the midst of political transformation: The city of Macao

This paper takes a close look at the urban governance and political culture of Macao, the world largest casino city. Macao has experienced spectacular economic growth since gaming liberalisation in 2002 and China's Free Individual Travel scheme launched in 2003. However, the booming gaming sector has crowded out other sectors of Macao. It has not only made the city's economy mono‐structured and consequently extremely vulnerable to external shocks and fluctuations but also induced serious social divisions and political controversies within the local community. By tracing the root cause of the ongoing dilemma and crisis in the mode of governance, the dynamic relationships between formal and informal institutions, consensus politics and the social group culture are intensively discussed in a historical context. In fact, the sustainable development of the former Portuguese colony has largely been hindered by its residents' passive attitudes toward political communication, non‐transparent urban governance, the absence of a middle class and the dominance of pro‐establishment social groups.     

New Polynesian Triangle: Rethinking Polynesian migration and development in the Pacific

For many Polynesians migration is still framed within a particular spatial context, although on an enlarged scale – one that we have termed the New Polynesian Triangle. With its apexes in the North American continent to the east, Australia in the west and New Zealand in the south, this New Polynesian Triangle encompasses a particular field through which ongoing Polynesian migration and movement continues to occur. Movement within this New Polynesian Triangle is both multidimensional and multidirectional. While it is the movement of economic resources, particularly remittances, that has captured the interest of many agencies operating in the region, we argue that such economic flows are integrally linked with other flows – of goods, ideas, skills and culture – to form a single dynamic system of movement. Importantly, such flows are not uni‐directional (from ‘rich’ to ‘poor’ countries) as was assumed in times past. In developing ideas on the New Polynesian Triangle, we wish to move away from the dominant Western discourse of the Pacific Ocean as a barrier to development and movement and towards the reclamation of the ocean as a conduit and source of connection and movement for Pacific peoples.     

Construction of Silk Road Economic Belt and Industrial Selection of Minority Areas in Northwest China

Construction of Silk Road Economic Belt is a giant engine for the economic upgrading of China.Minority areas in Northwest China since then has become a forward position for the opening to the west,which is extremely significant for expanding the hinterland of Chinese economic development,activating economic development in inland and border areas,promoting the open economic development in central and west China,and also forming a new growth pole of Chinese economy.Optimization of industrial selection can promote economic development,constant economic growth of the northwest minority areas and the construction of Silk Road Economic Belt requires the optimization and adjustment of industrial selection,cultivation of competitive industries with market prospects,and formation of new economic growth points.Minority areas in northwest China have a vast territory and abundant resources that are all powerful support for the development of local competitive industries.     

Life Sciences and Human Capital: Jobless Growth on Specialised and Local Labour Markets?

Policy makers and scholars often regard the life science industry in general, and bio‐technology in particular, as an engine of future economic growth. The expectation is that growth in the industry will ultimately provide a major boost to national employment numbers. However, in this paper, I find that the Swedish life science industry (encompassing pharmaceutical, bio‐technology, and medical technology firms) accounts for only a small proportion of total employment in Sweden. Given the recent discussion on jobless growth (i.e., economic growth without employment growth), it is here argued that focusing on employment is not necessarily the best policy approach to assessing the impacts of the life science industry on the overall economy. This paper maps and analyses the scope, structure, and geography of the life science industry and its workforce in Sweden using a unique set of data covering approximately 1,200 firms and 53,000 employees. The industry's workforce has education and income levels significantly higher than national averages, and is heavily concentrated in larger metropolitan areas and major university cities. Despite employing relatively few people and being more or less dependent on the existence and success of a few major pharmaceutical firms, the industry may still have a significant impact on the national economy by engendering high levels of education, income, and export revenues, particularly in specific regions.     

The peri‐urbanisation of Shanghai: Planning,growth pattern and sustainable development

Abstract: With the increase of global integration, the peri‐urban area (PUA) of megacities in Asia has become a favourite destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper uses the PUA of Shanghai as a case study to investigate the impact of global forces on the urban expansion of the city, and the link between urban growth and sustainable development in this mega‐urban context. Shanghai has grown impressively during the past two decades in terms of economic and physical transformation. Much of this transformation has rested on the unbridled exploitation of land and other environmental resources in its peri‐urban area. This is characterised by the designation of development zones and the concentration of manufacturing FDI, resulting in dispersed growth and environmental degradation. The disruption of the physical environment, combined with the concentration of the urban poor in these areas (in particular ‘temporary migrants’), has turned the PUA into a potential crisis point threatening the social and economic development of the city.     

Institutions and local growth coalitions in China's urban land reform: The case of Hangzhou High‐Technology Zone

Abstract: China's urban land reform is a gradualist process of transforming a planned land allocation system to an open land market system, while the ownership of the land remains under the control of the state. This process defines the relationships between local government and emerging non‐public interest groups in the land development process. These issues can be most clearly seen in the State‐Approved Development Zones, where municipalities have been encouraged to promote economic development and test out land policy initiatives. Using the institutionalist and urban growth machine analytical approaches to land development processes, this study examines the operation of development processes and the role of local government and its relationship with other interest groups. By employing a case study research strategy, focused upon the Hangzhou High‐Technology Zone, the study uncovered a local government‐led growth coalition which featured participation by other interest groups and revealed the applicability and variations when applying two strands of theories to a socialist economy in transition. Besides the land reform policy implications drawn from the case study evidence, the study concludes that the presence of interest groups and the missing community organisations unique to China give new theoretical implications and that both theories work much better with the economic domain than with the political domain largely because of a lagged political reform.     

Community economies in Monsoon Asia: Keywords and key reflections

A diversity of place‐based community economic practices that enact ethical interdependence has long enabled livelihoods in Monsoon Asia. Managed either democratically or coercively, these culturally inflected practices have survived the rise of a cash economy, albeit in modified form, sometimes being co‐opted to state projects. In the modern development imaginary, these practices have been positioned as ‘traditional’, ‘rural’ and largely superseded. But if we read against the grain of modernisation, a largely hidden geography of community economic practices emerges. This paper introduces the project of documenting keywords of place‐based community economies in Monsoon Asia. It extends Raymond William’s cultural analysis of keywords into a non‐western context and situates this discursive approach within a material semiotic framing. The paper has been collaboratively written with co‐researchers across Southeast Asia and represents an experimental mode of scholarship that aims to advance a post‐development agenda.     

“Weakness” as “Strength” in the Scottish Life Sciences: The Institutional Grounding of Knowledge‐based Commodity Chains in a Less‐favoured Region

Despite all the talk of knowledge‐driven, knowledge‐based, and learning economies, it is not always clear or self‐evident whether all countries, let alone regions, will share the spoils of emerging technological trends and changes. In particular, less‐favoured regions (LFRs) like Scotland face a number of difficulties as a consequence of this emerging knowledge‐based economy (KBE) and the strategies necessary to overcome their existing uneven position in order to adapt to new global economic imperatives. More specifically, the KBE agenda invokes strategies that do not adequately address the existing uneven development of LFRs in relation to “growth” regions that have the institutional infrastructure and arrangements necessary to attract and embed new forms of employment, new knowledge capacities, and new industrial sectors. However, this article will explore the institutional grounding of the life sciences sector in Scotland in order to consider how particular institutional arrangements that may appear disadvantageous can also lead to new, potentially advantageous arrangements that can help LFRs to avoid continuing economic stagnation or decline.     

Transnational Corporations,Global Production Networks,and Urban and Regional Development: A Geographer's Perspective on Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy

This paper offers an economic‐geographical interpretation of the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in urban and regional development that is grounded in Dunning and Lundan's (2008 ) Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy. I argue that TNCs and their activity are indisputably one of the keys to understanding urban and regional development in today's globalizing world economy. To support this perspective, I will deploy the recently developed analytical framework of global production networks (GPNs) to unpack the complex and mutually dependent relationships between TNCs and urban and regional development. The paper first provides a critique of several recent influential theories of urban and regional growth and identifies the omitted components in such important actors as TNCs. It then offers an analysis of TNCs as key agents of urban and regional development on the basis of ideas on TNC strategies, networks, and regional institutions expressed in Multinational Enterprises. Finally, I draw upon a relational view of TNCs in GPNs to illustrate how urban and regional development is increasingly a “globalizing” phenomenon. Situated in recent work in economic geography, I elaborate on the concept of strategic coupling as an interfacing mechanism bringing together TNCs and development at the urban and regional scales.     

Something New or More of the Same in the Bidding Wars for Big Business?

The economic downturn that began in 2007–2008 was blamed by some commentators on neoliberalism and pro‐business policies. So we might expect U.S. state and local governments to have responded with policy changes affecting their neoliberal economic development strategies. Based on this assumption, this paper is a theoretically informed examination of recent high‐profile bidding wars in Wisconsin. The highest profile example was in 2009 when General Motors chose a plant in Michigan over Wisconsin and Tennessee for a new small car line. Wisconsin's Commerce Secretary characterized Michigan's $1.2 billion incentive offer as “absolutely crazy” (compared with his state's $409 million offer!). My main research question is how have Wisconsin state and local governments adjusted their neoliberal economic development efforts in these bidding wars given the recent economic downturn and weak economy? This paper uses the largest incentive offers in Wisconsin during the tenure of the current and previous state governors within the context of ten themes drawn from the literature to problematize the neoliberal policy of bidding for big business. It concludes by considering the implications for economic development policies.     

Short-and Long-Term Effects of the Construction Industry on the Economy Growth

The construction industry could be developed as a pillar industry of the national economy,since it has a strong pulling role in economic growth.However,little definite empirical evidence supports this argument.Using co-integration and Granger causality tests and error-correction model with taking Sichuan for an example,this article studies both short-term and long-term effects of the construction industry on the economy growth.Empirical tests show that in the long term the economy maintained equilibrium relations with the construction industry.A growth in the construction industry will lead to the economic growth;however the pulling role of the construction industry on the economy is limited.A growth in the construction industry will not predict economic growth in the short run.Thus,for Sichuan case the government is unable to stimulate the economy by focusing on development of the construction industry in the short run.Instead,in order to promote long-term development of the national economy it could implement stable and healthy development policies for the construction industry.     

More than a ‘blip’: The changed character of South‐East Asia’s engagement with the global economy in the post‐1997 period

Abstract: Through reviewing South‐East Asia’s recent economic engagement with the global economy, this paper points to profound recent transformations in the scope and character of the region’s development. Foreign direct investment was the key driver of regional growth in the pre‐1997 period, yet currently, the region faces a more difficult and multifaceted economic arena from which to attract such funds. Foreign direct investment is more selective, both geographically and by sector, than was the case in that earlier period. This paper explains the confluence of economics, business practices and politics that are giving rise to these outcomes, and concludes from this that development trajectories in South‐East Asia will become more diverse between the countries of the region, with implications for how we understand regional economic performance.     

Regional Growth Dynamics in the Service Sector: The Determinants of Employment Change in UK Regions, 1971–2005

There is a need to better understand the dynamics relating to the evolving economic structure of regions, in particular factors concerning deindustrialisation and the growth of services. In order to unpick the dynamics relating to contemporary regional evolution, this paper examines regional employment in the UK's services sectors from 1971 to 2005. The analysis utilises the statistical technique of multi‐factor partitioning to examine the evolutionary dynamics of employment change in the UK service sector. Overall, differing growth trajectories in services employment across regions appear to be the result of the different underlying industrial structures observed within the regions themselves. The findings indicate that the industrial structure of a region has a significant influence on employment change in services, with related variety being of greater consequence than specialisation. This suggests that diversity, or urbanisation, effects have a greater influence than specialisation effects on “lighter” industries than “heavier” industries. Spatio‐temporal variations within the development of services are evident in the analysis, and there is evidence of convergence across the regions for all sub‐sectors examined. It concludes that in an increasingly services‐dominated economy, diversity and related variety have some weight in explaining regional development paths.     

Poverty and livelihoods after full‐time farming: A South‐East Asian view

Abstract: Drawing on Harold Brookfield's seminal interventions on intensification and disintensification in tropical agriculture, the paper argues that a de‐linking of poverty and livelihoods in rural areas from farming and agricultural resources is occurring in rural South‐East Asia. This is often driven as much by changes in lifestyles and life views than by economic and environmental imperatives. The paper proposes that farming is in the process of losing its resonance and significance for the rural poor. Emerging patterns of change in the South‐East Asian countryside are used to construct a generalised framework of agrarian transition where the current trend towards pluriactivity is likely to be replaced by a mixed landscape of agrarian entrepreneurs, neopeasants and remnant smallholders. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of this trajectory for understanding poverty and pro‐poor interventions in the countryside.     

Small‐scale cattle raising in East Java,Indonesia: A pathway out of poverty?

Despite its small area and intensively cropped landscape, East Java accounts for 30% of Indonesia's cattle population. About two million households draw on family labour to raise cattle in backyard sheds and small enclosures, largely for cash income. In this paper, we examine the opportunity for such small‐scale producers to benefit from Indonesia's economic transformation, given the rising urban demand for beef. The paper reports on a study in two contrasting sites in East Java – irrigated lowlands and rainfed uplands – to explore the constraints facing small‐scale cattle producers in these environments, the means by which they have adapted to these constraints (especially by going beyond the farm household to access feed supplies) and possible means to enhance their production systems and incomes. The findings suggest that such cattle production systems can provide a viable source of livelihood, even for resource‐poor households; hence, appropriately adapted cattle improvement programmes are a sensible component of a pro‐poor development strategy.     

Urban Governance in Africa Today: Reframing,Experiences, and Lessons

Progress in analysing the instrumental view of governance as an engine for growth, poverty reduction, and inclusive development has been held back by the difficulty in framing governance. This essay seeks to address this problem by 1) reframing urban governance 2) evaluating its aims, processes, and outcomes, and 3) explaining those outcomes on the basis of which some lessons are teased out. Using examples from Africa and an institutional political economy approach (based on institutional economics, Marxist political economics, Georgist political economics, and Polanyian political economy), I show that, overall, while urban economies are growing; both urban poverty and inequality levels have risen substantially. Urban governance has paved the way for new forms of urban development that only benefit the few. Not only are there differences in how urban services and resources are experienced, accessed, and controlled but the varieties are also socially differentiated. I argue that the underlying reasons for this disjuncture between “urban governance” in theory and “actually existing urban governance” are 1) difficulties in implementing urban governance theory consistently in practice, 2) problems arising because urban governance theory has been implemented in practice, 3) tensions that would entangle most policies which do not address historical and structural economic issues, 4) restrictive assumptions, and 5) incoherence among the different dimensions of urban governance. To resolve these contradictions, I put the case for major structural and institutional change involving: 1) the re‐ordering of the roles of the state, market, and society as institutions of change; 2) re‐working the relationships that bind together land, labour, capital, and the state, and 3) re‐organising the channels for keeping the attainment of the ends of urban governance in check.     

张家界市武陵源区贫困村空间分布规律研究

为加速张家界市脱贫攻坚进程及其他旅游地区旅游扶贫提供重要依据。以该区2016 年初贫困村数据为基础,运用GIS 空间分析方法中的叠加分析、缓冲分析和密度分析3 种方法,通过探索张家界市武陵源区贫困村空间分布规律,对该区31 个贫困村空间分布规律进行研究。结果表明：景区和乡（镇）政府辐射作用明显,贫困村的数量呈现出随着景区和乡（镇）政府距离的递减而向外递增的态势;贫困村呈现沿进入景区主要交通干线分布,但主要交通干线对扶贫的作用微弱;贫困村在经济薄弱的地方呈现集聚特征,而在经济较好的地区集聚特征不明显。因此加强景区的带动和辐射作用是核心,提升基础设施建设是关键,强化政府机构扶贫职能是保障,为新形势下其他地区旅游精准扶贫提供重要的理论参考。