Impact Of Regional Integration Research Articles

The impact of regional integration on PM2.5 concentrations—Quasi‐natural experimental evidence from city economic coordination committee

AbstractIt is of great significance to explore the causality between regional integration (RI) and PM2.5 pollution within urban agglomerations in the current pursuit of ecological civilization construction and high‐quality development. Using panel data of 285 prefecture‐level cities in China from 2003 to 2016, this study considers the expansion of the city economic coordination committee in Yangtze River Delta (YRDECC) as a quasi‐natural experiment of RI, and use a difference‐in difference method to explore the effect and inner mechanisms of RI on PM2.5 concentration. After a descriptive analysis of the spatial‐temporal variation trend of the PM2.5 concentration in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the empirical results show that RI helps to alleviate 4.8% of the PM2.5 concentration overall. For the original cities, the reduction effect on the PM2.5 concentration is 5.2%, for the new cities, however, RI exacerbates 2.1% of the local PM2.5 concentration. A series of robustness tests confirm the validity of the baseline results, and further indicate that the effect of RI remains significant in the long term and starts to increase from the third year. Furthermore, the reduction effect of RI on PM2.5 concentration is more pronounced in cities with larger scales, more developed economies, and higher degrees of marketization. The mechanism analysis shows that industrial transfer, population migration and technological innovation are significant channels of RI that affect PM2.5 concentrations. The conclusions of this paper provide a new path to alleviate PM2.5 pollution and achieve ecological conservation and high‐quality development in the city cluster area.

The spatial spillover effects of regional integration on carbon emissions

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region serves as the leading economic force of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China. It is crucial for the region to take a leadership role in regional integration to facilitate carbon emission reduction. This paper employs a spatial econometric model to examine the impact, spatial spillover effect, and mechanisms of regional integration on carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Delta, using data from 41 cities in the region from 2008 to 2019. The results indicate that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the level of regional integration and carbon emissions, with emissions initially increasing before decreasing. Additionally, the impact of regional integration on carbon emissions exhibits a positive spatial spillover effect and threshold characteristics, with carbon emissions inhibited and a positive spatial spillover observed once the threshold is exceeded. Moreover, regional integration reduces carbon emissions through the upgrading of industrial structures and the innovation of green technology. Implications for carbon emission reduction include: actively integrating into the Yangtze River Delta regional integration development; strengthening cross-regional carbon emission synergistic governance; and promoting carbon emission reduction through mechanisms such as promoting industrial upgrading and low-carbonization development, as well as incentivizing technological innovation.

The impact of regional integration on the economic resilience of cities—— Take the 108 cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an example

In the process of steady progress towards high-quality development, facing the complex changes in the internal and external environment, it is increasingly important to enhance the resilience of urban economy. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an example, this paper uses the panel data of regional integration in 108 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2005 to 2020 to explore the impact of urban economic resilience. The results show that regional integration has a significant role in promoting the resilience of urban economy, and mainly by optimizing the industrial structure and improving the ability of innovation, and the role of regional integration on the promotion of urban economic resilience is heterogeneity in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Impact of Regional integration on Trade and Economic Cooperation – a key study of Georgia and Azerbaijan

The South Caucasus is a unique small and densely populated region in the southern part of the Caucasus. It consists of three independent states - Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Georgia is actively engaged in the Peaceful Neighborhood Initiative in the South Caucasus and strives to deepen political and economic relations with the countries in the region based on sovereign interests. In these processes, strengthening mutually beneficial, trust-based cooperation with the Republic of Azerbaijan is of special interest to Georgia. After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the regaining of independence by Georgia and Azerbaijan, a completely new phase of diplomatic relations began between the two countries which grew into a strategic partnership. Territorial proximity and the establishment of diplomatic relations have prompted the dynamic development of trade and economic relations between the two countries, which increases the degree of urgency of the study. The presented paper focuses on the priority areas of trade and economic cooperation between Georgia and Azerbaijan. However, at the present stage economics and politics are so closely interrelated that it is impossible to draw a line between them. Therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of the paper, the first chapter focuses on the development of diplomatic relations between the two countries, while the following chapters study trade and economic cooperation between Georgia and Azerbaijan and analyze the development of bilateral cooperation in trade in services; in addition, the trade intensity index is calculated; the importance of investments from Azerbaijan in the Georgian economy is assessed; the transnational energy and transport projects proposed by the Georgian and Azerbaijani governments are discussed; and the growing role of Georgia as trade and transport hub in the Caucasus in both the offshore and onshore components of these projects is assessed. It is noted that trade and economic relations have growing dynamics and show readiness to further develop cooperation. In addition, some suggestions that will be helpful for Georgia to increase the scale of cooperation with Azerbaijan and assist deepening the involvement of the two countries in the world integration processes are proposed. We believe that the paper will enhance further research and discussion on trade and economic cooperation between Georgia and Azerbaijan and, most importantly, ensure support for this kind of cooperation.

How Regional Integration Affects Urban Green Development Efficiency: Evidence from Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River.

Unlocking the relationship between regional integration and urban green development efficiency (UGDE) is of great importance for boosting regional high-quality development and promoting sustainable urban development patterns. Although studies have analyzed the spatio-temporal evolution and influencing factors of regional integration and UGDE, the impact of regional integration on UGDE remains untested. In this paper, we construct a conceptual framework to analyze how regional integration can influence UGDE through promoting the factors mobility and optimizing the industrial layout. In addition, we further choose the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMRYR), a rapidly growing urban agglomeration in central China, as a case to investigate the spatial spillover effect of regional integration on UGDE from 2003 to 2017. We quantify the UGDE with a random forest model, then estimate the underlying determinants of the UGDE with a spatial Durbin model. Results indicated that (1) the regional integration level and the UGDE index of the UAMRYR and its three sub-urban agglomerations show an increasing trend; (2) for every 1% increase in the level of regional integration, the level of UGDE will increase by 0.8307%; (3) the impact of regional integration on UGDE has obvious regional heterogeneity; while playing a promoting effect in the Wuhan urban agglomeration and the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration, it shows an inhibitory effect in the Poyang Lake urban agglomeration. We conclude that regional integration in agglomeration areas can accelerate the factors flow and optimize the industrial layout for improving UGDE.

EU enlargements and U.S. FDI flows in the six core states

ABSTRACT This paper addresses an under-researched question of whether regional integration with lower-income countries results in displacement of foreign direct investment (FDI) from high-income countries. Difference-in-differences (DID) estimations are used to, respectively, analyse the effects of the 1986 enlargement and the 2004/2007 enlargement of European Union (EU) on U.S. FDI flows into the EU core states. The results reveal a negative impact of the 1986 enlargement on EP FDI and positive effects of the 2004/2007 enlargement on EP and vertical FDI. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the impact of regional integration depends on the relative strength of a few factors determined by the circumstance. High-income countries do not necessarily lose FDI following an integration with lower-income countries. While the integration tends to divert labour-cost sensitive EP FDI away from the high-income members, as long as the high-income members adaptively go through industrial restructuring and take full advantage of the expanded production networks in response to the newly integrated regional environment, they are likely to become more resilient and competitive in the regional and global markets and reap the benefits of integration.

The Impact of Regional Integration on Africa’s Manufacturing Exports

This paper analyses the impact of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) on intraregional manufactured exports in Africa. Using data from 1990 to 2015 for 45 African countries, a structural gravity model was estimated using the Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator that controlled for heteroscedasticity and allowed for bilateral zero trade values between trading partners. The study also accounted for multilateral resistance effects, endogeneity of RTAs, and the phased-in impacts of RTAs. On average, a regional trade agreement led to a 72% increase in manufacturing exports between members within 12 years of the ratification of the trade agreement.

Does Regional Integration Matter for Inclusive Growth? Evidence from the Multidimensional Regional Integration Index

This paper employs a multidimensional approach to gauge the degree of regional integration and analyze impact on growth, inequality, and poverty. It constructs a multidimensional regional integration index (MDRII) series that embodies six key facets of regional integration: (i) trade and investment, (ii) money and finance, (iii) regional value chains, (iv) infrastructure and connectivity, (v) movement of people, and (vi) institutional and social integration. The MDRII confirms that regional integration is most advanced in the European Union which scores high in all six dimensions; Asia comes second with the largest contribution from infrastructure and connectivity. Empirical analysis suggests significant and positive development impact of regional integration even when trade and financial openness is controlled. The regional value chain, movement of people, and institutional and social integration dimensions have been significant drivers of economic growth. Infrastructure and connectivity improve income distribution. Overall integration alongside the dimensions of trade and investment, money and finance, and institutional and social integration appear to significantly and robustly reduce poverty.

REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND POVERTY: A REVIEW OF THE TRANSMISSION CHANNELS AND THE EVIDENCE

AbstractWhile there is an extensive literature on the impact of regional trading agreements on trade and capital flows, as well as on the relationship between international trade, growth, and poverty there is comparatively little treatment of the possible linkages between regional integration and poverty. We analyze the channels through which regional integration could impact on poverty, and then review the existing evidence on the impact of regional integration on poverty. We focus on two key characteristics that make any regional integration process different from unilateral and multilateral liberalization: first, the asymmetric nature of the liberalization process; second, the scope or ambition of the regional liberalization being undertaken and the nature of the institutional arrangements that are put into place to manage the process of regional integration. We also distinguish between short, medium, and long run effects on poverty of regional integration processes. There is some direct evidence explicitly linking regional integration and poverty, but in good part the shedding of the light depends on an indirect literature on trade, FDI, migration, and inequality.

Regional Integration and Economic Growth: A Convergence Analysis for Pakistan

The hasty economic progress of emerging economies has opened markets for their international trade during the last 20 years. Therefore, the significance of the topic has simulated a large theoretical and empirical literature of trade and its impact on growth. However, we are interested to find out the impact of regional integration on economic growth to analyze the convergence and specifically the convergence of per capita GDP. This article presents the empirical evidence that countries with open, large and more developed neighboring countries grow faster and converge more than the closed, smaller less developed neighboring economies. In this study, we have examined the issue of convergence for Pakistan during 1980-2016 employing cointegration technique of convergence. It is recommended to policy makers to focus on those factors which are cumulating growth in the country rather to increase the commodity prices.

The Role of Pharmaceutical Security in Realization of the Right to Health

Objectives: The articles analysis the role of convergence and harmonization of pharmaceutical regulation, as a basic component, ensuring pharmaceutical security and guarantying the realization of the right to health. Method: To achieve the main aim of the study national laws and documents of international organizations have been analyzed to identify main steps of human security concept formation and the role of access to healthcare in its realization. According to existing socioeconomic trends, main threats and challenges of pharmaceutical sector were identified showing the role of harmonization and convergence processes in its protection and realization of the right to health. Findings: An analysis of the processes taking place in different regions of the world, demonstrated the positive impact of regional integration to improve the health management system and the formation of common rules, regulating the drug market. Integration processes take into account regional specificities, providing point impact on the existing threats and challenges in the pharmaceutical sector, which allows neutralize differences in the capabilities of States to ensure the quality control of medicinal products within the same region. Focus on the convergence and harmonization of the legal framework will improve the drug regulatory system on a global level and ensure the quality of products used by patients, it is necessary to strengthen and provide numerous benefits for both regulators and the pharmaceutical industry and have a positive impact on the protection of public health. Improvements: The study result identifies main areas of harmonization and convergence of pharmaceutical regulations, which can be applied during regulation formation of any regional integrative organizations.

European Institutional Integration and Income Inequality

Though much attention has been paid to the distributional effects of globalization, similar consequences have been largely neglected in the case of regional integration. This paper empirically examines the impact of regional integration on income inequality within 29 European countries over the 1960-2011 time period. The novel metric for European institutional integration allows for observing the evolution of inequality with respect to the EU’s institutional transition from a free trade bloc to a centralized, federal-like entity with market-preserving characteristics. The evidence from unbalanced panel fixed effects regressions suggest that regional integration is quadratically associated with the evolution of income inequality within EU-affiliated countries: while the initial stages of economic integration exacerbated inequality, the effect reverses at the later stages during the buildup of supranational institutions and programs promoting inter-regional convergence and equalization.

Edwards, Guy, and J. Timmons Roberts. 2015. A Fragmented Continent: Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Edwards, Guy, and J. Timmons Roberts. 2015. <i>A Fragmented Continent: Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change</i>. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

The Impact of Regional Integration on Intra-Arab Trade in Agrifood Commodities: A Panel Data Approach

This paper assesses the impact of Arab integration arrangements on intra-Arab Agrifood trade. The main results indicate that Arab regional integration efforts have been ineffective in promoting Agrifood trade flows among the Arab countries. The results also show that actual intra-Arab Agrifood trade is consistently lower than the predicted values by the gravity model. Furthermore, Arab sub-regional trade agreements have had a modest impact on intra-Arab Agrifood trade. Taken together, these findings suggest that i) there is untapped trade potential in agricultural and food commodities among the Arab countries and thus they could potentially attain deeper levels of Agrifood trade integration, and ii) despite the significant progress that has been made over the past two decades in lowering tariff barriers, Agrifood trade among Arab countries has remained below its potential which in turn points out to the existence of non-tariff barriers that restrain the trade effects of Arab economic integration.

Regional integration and national social policies

How does regionalization affect national social policies? Although there is an extensive literature on the effects of globalization on social protection, the literature on the impact of regional integration is much less developed. I argue that the distinctive nature of regionalization processes calls for rigorous empirical testing of the domestic policy effects of regional integration. To this end, using an innovative dataset that measures the degree to which countries are integrated into regional economic and political organizations, this article uses statistical analysis to consider the influence of regional integration on government social spending. The results are surprising: regionalization has a significant and positive relationship with government social spending, controlling for other factors, even when the European Union countries are excluded from the analysis. In fact, in the EU countries increasing regionalization is associated with lower social spending levels. These results suggest that regional economic and political integration does not necessarily lead to a “race to the bottom” of social spending. Instead, regionalization appears to accommodate wide divergence in national social policy commitments.

Co‐authorship patterns in East Asia in the light of regional scientific collaboration

PurposeVarious forms of regional cooperation in East Asia have greatly increased in the past two decades. Scientific collaboration is beneficial for both scientifically lagging countries (SLCs) and scientifically advanced countries (SACs) with respect to their S&amp;T capacity and thus economic prosperity. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of intra‐regional scientific collaboration in East Asia from 1985 to 2008 with the 10+3 (ASEAN ten plus China, Japan and South Korea) framework.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses co‐authored articles embodied by Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI‐Expanded) to indicate cross‐border scientific collaboration.FindingsData show that heterogeneity in the publication output across East Asian countries is decreasing. Intra‐ASEAN, intra‐ Northeast Asia, as well as ASEAN and Northeast Asia scientific collaboration greatly improved since 1997.Originality/valueThis paper discusses factors influencing international scientific collaboration and focuses on explaining the impact of regional integration. Finally, it offers further suggestions on East Asian integration from the perspective of scientific collaboration.

The Impact of Regional Integration on Insider and Outsider FDI

We develop hypotheses for the implications of regional economic integration on foreign direct investment (FDI) from insider and outsider countries contingent on member nations’ country-specific characteristics. We find that following regional integration (1) on average there is an increase in inward FDI, and (2) structural determinants such as the host country’s market size, cultural and geographic distances, and institutional efficiency have a significantly different impact than when the host nation was outside the integrated area. Common economic area membership is associated with greater FDI flows, with the larger members gaining more; furthermore, insider FDI is less sensitive to labor cost, whereas the host country’s institutional efficiency is an even more positive determinant of insider FDI.

The impact of regional integration on economic growth: empirical evidence from COMESA, EAC and SADC trade blocs

The impact of regional integration on economic growth: empirical evidence from COMESA, EAC and SADC trade blocs

REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN MANUFACTURES BETWEEN THAILAND AND OTHER APEC COUNTRIES

This article investigates the impact of regional integration on intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and other APEC countries. The study uses pooled cross-sectional and time-series data spanning the period 1980–1999 at a 3-digit Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) level. After accounting for trade imbalance and following Thailand's entry into APEC, intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and countries in Oceania and America decreased, while trade with other Asian countries grew marginally. Results indicate that, in the post APEC era, trade openness stimulated increased intra-industry trade levels with countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia, but decreased trade with countries in America.

Europe and Latin America in the World Economy

The economic relationship between Europe and Latin America, B. Friscia the impact of regional integration on European-Latin American economic relations, Susan Kaufman Purcell and Francoise Simon Germany and Latin America, W. Grabendorff Spain and Latin America, E. Schumacher Eastern Europe and Latin America, E. Mujal-Leon the tri-lateral relationship - Latin America, Europe and the United States, R. Roett.