A paradox of three decades of neoliberal economic reforms in Ghana: a tale of economic growth and uneven regional development

This article examines the historical conditions, causes, evolution and options for solving one of the topical problems of the spatial historical dynamics of China in the late XX - early XXI centuries. - uneven regional development. The purpose of this article is to review in Chinese the works of such Chinese scholars as Wang Ke, Wang Feng, Wang Yunhui, Gan Chunhui, Li Zhuni, Liang Longbin, Xia Wanjun, Fan Jianyong, Hu Dali, Hu Shudong, Tsai Fang, Zhou Zhe, Zhu Degui, Chen Rong, Chen Changshi, Shi Lin, Shen Zhongqiang on the history of the uneven regional development of the PRC and highlighting the leading approaches and practical recommendations for overcoming disproportionate trends in the regional historical and modern development of China based on the use of system analysis and a comparative historical method. The main factors that significantly affect the uneven regional development of China in the modern period of history include: uneven industrial development, income distribution by provinces, foreign investment, agriculture, human capital and labor mobility.

The flood of economic information from China in recent years has permitted reassessment of the "Chinese model of development" and the extent to which China's own development experience has conformed to it. The prevailing consensus of the 1970s concerning the substance of the model itself-typically characterized in terms of the Chinese leadership's objectives and priorities and its strategy for pursuing them-has stood up quite well. The same cannot be said about past appraisals of the extent to which China's economic reality has been reshaped to accord with the model's prescriptions. One of the most widely remarked elements of the Chinese model is the high priority assigned to regional objectives and, more specifically, to "balance" in the distribution of productive capacity and equity in the distribution of income and, hence, consumption. During the Maoist era (i.e., prior to 1979), the central government pursued regional objectives through such measures as interregional transfers of investment resources (effected via the planning system), subsidization of health and education expenditures in poor regions, and attempts to maintain a safety net of state relief (effected largely via control of grain surpluses). In short, there is little doubt that prior to 1979 the Chinese leadership placed an unusually high value on the spread of modern growth and the improvements in welfare associated with it and persistently acted to limit the emergence or widening of interregional disparities.' Although China's post-Mao leaders have shown greater concern with efficiency and with the potential trade-offs between efficiency and such goals as balance and equity, their continuation of many redistributive policies indicates that they have not abandoned regional objectives. But how successful has China been in achieving these objectives?

This book is motivated by a belief that theories of economic development can move beyond the generally known factors and mechanisms of such development. It establishes a behavioural theory of economic development illustrating that differences in human behaviour across cities and regions are a significant deep-rooted cause of uneven development. Fusing a range of concepts relating to culture, psychology, human agency, institutions, and power, it proposes that the uneven economic development and evolution of cities and regions within and across nations are strongly connected with the underlying forms of behaviour enacted by humans both individually and collectively. Integrating theoretical and empirical analysis, the book builds upon entrepreneurial and innovation theories of economic evolution to make sense of the cultural, psychological, and agentic components and elements of city and regional economic ecosystems that lead to long-term differentials in development. For social scientists with an interest in understanding the nature of uneven economic development, the book provides a novel theory of the role of human behaviour, psychocultural context, and institutions in the evolution and uneven development of cities and regions. This human behaviour is framed in the form of the ‘behavioural profile’ of cities and regions encompassing citizens in terms of their personalities, cultural histories, aspirations, and perceived opportunities, as well as their broader propensities to act in certain ways.

In recent years the phenomenon of uneven economic growth between different regions of the country has received increasing attention in the academic literature [16;17;20;27]. The conventional explanation of uneven growth centers on disparities between regions in such things as unionization, labor costs, local taxes, energy costs, climate, extent of local government regulation, the availability of technology, and access to markets. The purpose of the present paper is to suggest that uneven regional development is a manifestation of regional long waves of economic growth and decline, and that disparities between regions in such things as unionization, labor costs, and taxes are simply the result of different regions being at different phases of development in their respective long waves. The essence of the view to be presented in the following pages is that regions experience long periods of sustained rapid economic growth followed by relatively lengthy periods of slow economic growth or economic decline. The growth retardation stage of the long wave sets up the conditions for an eventual economic recovery and a return to a more rapid rate of growth. The first section of the paper will be devoted to presenting the theoretical underpinnings of regional long waves. Supporting empirical evidence will be provided in the second section.

Infrastructure financialization is an important economic phenomenon in urbanization and urban financialization. The existing studies are mainly focused on qualitative and theoretical analysis around the world. To quantitatively evaluate the impact of infrastructure financialization on uneven regional development, this study firstly measures the characteristics of uneven regional development in China, then we use the Tobit model to analyze the impact of infrastructure financialization based on panel data from 2006 to 2019. The results find that infrastructure financialization plays a significant role in uneven regional development in China. Low infrastructure financialization constrains the economic growth and urbanization of underdeveloped regions. This study not only contributes to the knowledge body of global financialization theory, but also provides a scientific basis for the optimization of infrastructure development both in China and the Global South.

This article explores four aspects of the underdeveloped conceptualization of the role of international migration in uneven regional development and polarization in cities. First, it emphasizes the way in which human mobility transfers not only human capital but also knowledge and material capital, and that these are interrelated. Second, it considers how changes in the nature of mobility have implications for uneven regional development. Third, it develops the concept of enfolded mobilities, as a way of understanding how individual migrations are directly enfolded with those of other individuals, either through associated or contingent movements, or through consequential migration at later stages in the life course. Finally, it discusses how governance impinges on and mediates the key relationships between mobility and uneven regional development.

This paper aims to understand China’s uneven regional development in recent years on the basis of on political economics theories. We summarizes two theories from the political economics on uneven regional development—framework of production and framework of exchange—and unifies them by theories of labor value and capital circulation. It means to show that uneven regional development will be explained with value production, value realization and capital accumulation, and their interactions as well. This framework can not only explain regional disparities in a static sense, but also presents dynamically developments of regional disparities—first rising and then falling. Empirical research finds China’s regional disparities result mainly from the value production gap. During the period of analysis, China went through a capital accumulation biased towards less developed regions, jointly shaped by market logic and government behavior. It made the effect of reducing regional disparities stronger than the “polarization effect” around 2007, producing a narrowing of disparities across regional development.

This study enriched the discourse on improving governance practices in Ghana’s Senior High Schools (SHSs) by promoting transparency, accountability, and efficiency in school management. It examined the state of Corporate Governance (CG) within SHSs, identified key challenges, and proposed strategic interventions. A qualitative research design was adopted, involving a review of policy documents, academic literature, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from four senior SHSs across the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Northern Regions. Participants included headmasters, assistant headmasters, and officials from the Ghana Education Service and the Public Services Commission. Purposeful sampling guided case selection. The findings revealed significant deficiencies such as outdated CG regulations, ambiguous board oversight roles, weak disclosure practices, and limited stakeholder engagement. Recommended interventions included strengthening regulatory frameworks, promoting participatory governance, and implementing capacity-building initiatives. These measures aimed to enhance governance efficiency, financial transparency, and institutional accountability. The study contributed to the broader conversation on governance reform in Ghana’s education sector and underscored the importance of sound governance in achieving sustainable school management and institutional excellence.

Uneven regional development and internal labor migration in Fiji

This paper investigates the driving forces that have brought about recent changes in China's regional development. I review the dramatic shifts in development philosophy during the post-Mao period, and discuss the role of Western neoclassical theories in influencing state regional policy and their relevance in predicting patterns of regional development in China. In contrast to the Maoist period, Chinese development philosophy since the late 1970s has emphasized efficiency rather than equity, and open-door rather than self-reliance. The regional policy that ensued has favored the eastern region and selected coastal provinces and cities. Despite this spatially biased regional policy, the literature has observed a decline in regional inequality in China. The empirical analysis in this paper resolves this paradox by investigating changes in uneven development at multiple scales of resolution. Specifically, inter-provincial inequality declined because a new growth corridor emerged along the southern and southeastern coast as a result of large state and foreign investments and state preferential policies, while the old economic core in the north and northeast experienced much slower growth. State policy is critical in bringing about regional selectivity in economic growth. That the strong spatial restructuring found in Guangdong is not found in other provinces underlines the differential impacts of regional policy and illustrates the importance of foreign investment and the state's specific political-economic concerns in south China. These findings suggest that neoclassical theories based on market economies are not capable of predicting or explaining regional development in China, and that contemporary regional development theories should give greater attention to the role of the state. Future studies need to scrutinize the relevance of the literature on the geography of production and investigate the ways that capitalist firms may impact the economic landscape of China's open zones.

The growth and sustainability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for the economic development of any nation. The government of Ghana, in recognition of this, established the Ghana Enterprises Agency to promote the growth and development of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). This study aimed to identify the core attributes and areas of specialization of Small and Medium Textile Enterprises (SMTEs) in Ghana to provide the necessary support, identify employment opportunities, and mobilize the needed revenue for development. A descriptive research design was used for the study, with a sample size of 273 out of 300 questionnaires distributed to small and medium textile manufacturers in Greater Accra, Ashanti, Northern, and Western regions. The study employed multi-stage sampling techniques involving convenient, purposive, and stratified sampling procedures. The findings revealed that Greater Accra and the Ashanti region have the highest population of SMTEs in Ghana. The average annual earning of SMTEs in Ghana was around Gh¢18,000, which suggests more room for improvement. The study recommends that the government must provide valuable resources, particularly financial and strategic support, for the development of the private sector, particularly SMEs. The study also identified that the textile industry has significant potential for job creation and revenue generation, particularly in the face of rising youth unemployment rates in Ghana. Therefore, the government should promote investment in the textile sector, particularly for SMTEs, through policies that prioritize infrastructural development, access to finance, and targeted training programs. Overall, this study highlights the importance of supporting SMEs, particularly in the textile industry, as a vital means of promoting economic growth and development in Ghana.

Fiscal systems and uneven regional development in China, 1978–1991

Disastrous hydropower, uneven regional development, and decolonization in India's Eastern Himalayan borderlands

Uneven regional development fomented by city-centric growth agendas generates significant challenges for regional peripheries. Placing regional margins and other plural geographies at the centre, in this article we apply a normative framework based on justice theory to uncover the dominance of urban viewpoints in urban regional development policy. Departing from Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional justice theory, we provide a deconstruction of city-centrism by illustrating how regional disparities in two regions in Sweden are not only reproduced by economic maldistribution but also by political misrepresentation and cultural misrecognition. By doing so, we illustrate the fruitfulness of applying a normative justice framework to create a broader understanding of factors that contribute to the political production of uneven regional development and need to be addressed if a transformative and progressive change is to occur.

We analyze a two-sector model of a trading creative regional economy (TCRE) of the sort studied by Florida. Our analysis focuses on two cases. The first (second) case concerns the impact of faster neutral (non-neutral) productivity growth in the tradable sector on the employment of creative people in each of a TCRE’s two sectors. In both cases, the sign of the percent change in the steady state use of creative capital in the non-tradable sector is ambiguous. This indicates whether or not faster productivity growth in the tradable sector results in the departure of creative people from this sector to the non-tradable sector is independent of whether this faster productivity growth is neutral or non-neutral. In addition, because the effects of faster productivity growth in the tradable sector are not necessarily innocuous, a potential role exists for activist policy designed to countermand the possibly negative effects of faster productivity growth on either the tradable or the non-tradable sector. This finding of possible “uneven development” is consistent with Florida’s view that TCREs can give rise to externalities such as uneven regional development.