Medium Level Of Development Research Articles

Coupling Coordination Relationships Between Ecosystems and Economic Development in Qinghai and Tibet

The coordinated development of ecological protection and socioeconomics in the Tibetan Plateau is of great significance. This study examines the coupling coordination of urban ecosystems and economic development across 15 municipal administrative units in Qinghai Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region, the core areas of the Tibetan Plateau. The findings reveal that a larger proportion of the Qinghai and Tibet ecosystems are classified above the medium vulnerability level, primarily due to inherent natural geographic conditions. Additionally, the area of the two provinces and regions below the medium development level is larger, which is mainly influenced by indicators of economic strength and industrial structure. The degree of coupling coordination between the ecosystem and economic system in Qinghai and Tibet is predominantly driven by economic factors. Given the existing natural environmental conditions, the eastern regions of Qinghai and Tibet still possess certain development potential, while the economic development in the western areas is somewhat constrained by the natural environment. Based on this, further policy recommendations have been proposed to adjust and upgrade the industrial structure, aligning ecological protection with economic development in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. These recommendations aim to facilitate the formulation of strategies and policies for sustainable urban construction and social development in such high-ecological-value regions as the Tibetan Plateau.

A Multi-Scale Species Distribution Model for Migrating and Overwintering Western Monarch Butterflies: Climate Is the Best Predictor

Western Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate from inland breeding ranges to coastal overwintering grounds in California. Given that migratory individuals may make multi-scale habitat selection decisions, we considered a multi-scale species distribution model (SDM) using range-wide climatic and local landscape-level predictors of migratory and overwintering habitat and community-science presence data. The range-wide model output was included as a predictor in the local-scale model, generating multi-scale habitat suitability. The top range-wide predictor was the minimum temperature in December, contributing 83.7% to the model, and was positively associated with presence. At the local scale, the strongest predictors of presence were the range-wide output and percent coverage of low and medium levels of development, contributing > 95%, with 61–63% from the range-wide output, with local-scale suitability coinciding with the California coastal zones. Development’s positive association with overwintering monarch presence was counterintuitive. It is likely that our local-scale model is overfit to these development zones, but it is unclear whether this overfitting resulted from modeler choices, monarchs overwintering close to human development, biased detection near human development, or a combination of these factors. Therefore, alternative approaches to collecting local-scale attribute data are suggested while recognizing the primacy of climate in restricting overwinter sites.

Does the Effect of Different Governance Channels Depend on the Level of Development of African Countries?

The level of development of African States is consistent with the discussions surrounding the need for countries in the region to be fully immersed in practical philosophy. Decision-makers must adopt a coordinated strategy to stimulate the sustainable development of their economy; by incorporating various national plans aimed at encouraging well-being into national governance mechanisms. This paper studied the impact of governance on sustainable development. We use a dynamic panel estimation model, incorporating the PCA technique, to group the governance indicators of Kaufmann et al. [1] into three main composite indicators: economic, institutional and political governance. The Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimate shows that the development level of African countries is strongly influenced by established institutions. In the short- and long-term, various governance indicators (political, economic, and institutional) have a significant impact on human development and the ecological footprint of countries with high levels of development. On the other hand, they can only significantly stimulate development in countries with a medium level of development in the long term. Much more effort should be made in poorly developed countries to address the shortcomings that limit the implementation of laws and the fulfillment of the obligations of companies, the state, and citizens to ensure sustainable development.

The Financial Density and Improvement of Urban Technological Efficiency: An Estimation Based on the Stochastic Frontier Approach

Exploring the relationship between finance and economic growth is a key direction of financial economics. However, most of the literature starts from the aggregate perspective and uses the GDP or per capita GDP as the explained variable to study the role of finance. Such a perspective ignores the heterogeneity of financial activities with respect to geographical distribution and makes it difficult to distinguish the roles of factor input and efficiency improvement. Because of this, this article introduces a “density” perspective on new economic geography and the measurement of the efficiency of the transition of development economics into financial economics. This article uses the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method to measure the technical efficiency (TE) of 272 cities in China from 2005 to 2018 and then, based on “forward-looking” and “backward-looking” methods, measures the impact of financial density on urban technical efficiency. This study found that overall, before the financial crisis in 2008, the contribution of financial density to technical efficiency showed a downward trend, and in the regional and provincial dimensions, the distribution of financial density’s contribution to technical efficiency was generally in line with that of backward regions, with less regularity in developed regions. In the urban dimension, the contribution rate of financial density to resource-based cities with slow technological progress or advanced cities with rich financial resources is not very prominent and may even play a negative role; however, cities that are at a medium level of development, rich in population resources, have convenient transportation, and have a certain industrial foundation can greatly promote the improvement of technical efficiency. Therefore, it may be possible to optimize the marginal contribution of urban financial density to the technical efficiency of Chinese cities by encouraging the flow of financial resources and activities from cities with small marginal effects to those with large marginal effects.

Modeling nonlinear urban transformation, natural resource dependence, energy consumption, and environmental sustainability

Despite resonant advancements in promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed by the sustainability think tank, the United Nations, anthropogenic emissions remain a persistent impediment to the realization of climate change mitigation. This study investigates the heterogeneous impacts of nonlinear urban transformation, natural resource dependence, and energy consumption on environmental burden across China's provincial development levels in the presence of industrial investments and international economic activities. We employ advanced econometric strategies based on various samples of 31 Chinese provinces from 2005 through 2018 to yield novel empirical results. Firstly, natural resource dependence and energy consumption increase the environmental burden with declining degrees of influence from the highest level of development (HLD) through the low level of development (LLD) in both aggregated and disaggregated panels. Secondly, in aggregated panels, an inverse U-shaped link between urban transformation and environmental burden only prevails for the national dataset and east zone (i.e., HLD). Urban transformation unveils an environmental burden mitigation impact in the HLD region for disaggregated panels. While it manifests an environmental burden promotion impact in the LLD provinces, mixed effects of urban transformation are observed across the medium level of development (MLD). Among other critical variables, industrial investments aggravated the environmental burden with the most intensive impact in HLD and the least intensive in the LLD region. Furthermore, foreign investments and international trade reduce the environmental burden for HLD, whereas it boosts the same for LLD and MLD. Besides, economic performance induces mixed influence across various levels of development. Finally, the provincial findings for high, medium, and low development levels demonstrated consistency with the theory of environmental transition, ecological modernization theory, and compact city theory. We suggest that energy and natural resource conservation and planned urban transformation with sustainable energy pathways could accomplish the SDGs, especially SDG-13 and SDG-7.

A novel EKC perspective: do agricultural production, energy transition, and urban agglomeration achieve ecological sustainability?

We aim to analyze the existence of a novel agricultural production-augmented environmental Kuznets curve (EKC-AP) theory for energy transition, urban agglomeration, and financial depth. To conduct this research, we use a global panel of selected 54 countries belonging to low, medium, and high levels of economic development from 1971 to 2017. Since our data are distributed into three development levels, it is highly likely to face cross-sectional dependence across the countries within and between the development levels, which may provide biased empirical results. To outpace such possibility, we employ advanced econometric strategies, which are robust to cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity issues. We found that agricultural production, energy transition, urban agglomeration, financial depth, and ecological degradation experience a long-term cointegrating equilibrium association. We also confirm that exists an EKC-AP linkage of agricultural production with ecological degradation in highly developed economies, while those at the low and medium levels of development reveal a positive exponential and monotonic impact, respectively, of agricultural production on ecological degradation. The energy transition is found to promote ecological sustainability in developed countries through technique impact, while it deteriorates the ecological quality in countries at the medium development level. Moreover, urban agglomeration adversely impacts the ecological quality in the economies at low and medium development levels, whereas it improves the ecological sustainability in developed economies. Besides, financial depth proves harmful to ecological sustainability, with less subtle effects in developed economies. Based on our findings, for countries at low and medium levels of development, we propose advancing farming techniques using ecologically friendly technologies, promoting green energy transition, expanding the share of the services sector, and providing green financial systems to support green investment projects to achieve the Sustainable Development agenda of the United Nations.

The Spatial Pattern and Spillover Effect of the Eco-Efficiency of Regional Tourism from the Perspective of Green Development: An Empirical Study in China

Scientifically analyzing the spatial pattern and spillover effect of the eco-efficiency of regional tourism embodies the green development theory. In addition, it is also of important significance for realizing the sustainable development of regional tourism and promoting regional ecological civilization. This study incorporates energy consumption and CO2 emissions of tourism into the efficiency evaluation index system. On this basis, the slacks-based measure–data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) with undesirable output, the spatial autocorrelation (SAC) model and the spatial Durbin model (SDM) are used to study the spatial pattern and spillover effect of the eco-efficiency of provincial tourism in China from 2008 to 2017. Results show that the following: (1) The average eco-efficiency of national tourism is 0.534, which is at the medium development level as a whole. Among the decomposed efficiencies of eco-efficiency, the scale efficiency drives the optimal development of eco-efficiency in tourism. (2) The eco-efficiency of tourism shows a spatial differentiation pattern on the regional scale as follows: it is the highest in the central region, moderate in the western region, and lowest in the eastern region. (3) The degree of clustering of the eco-efficiency of tourism first increases and then decreases. The SAC-based cluster pattern is dominated by a low-low (LL) cluster, followed successively by a high-high (HH) cluster and a low-high (LH) outlier, while a high-low (HL) outlier is the least significant (4). Among the influencing factors, the technical level shows spatial spillover effects on both the eco-efficiency and pure technical efficiency of tourism; the economic development level and traffic accessibility mainly have spatial spillover effects on the pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of tourism; the industrial structure and environmental regulation separately have a spatial spillover effect only on the pure technical efficiency and the scale efficiency of tourism.

Development Level of Pedagogical Students' Inductive Thinking in the 21th Century

The international literature on the examination of inductive reasoning is rather rich. Approaching it from the direction of soft skills can be considered still novel. The main objectives were to draw a picture of the development level of first-grade teacher students’ inductive thinking, to analyse the time used for the solution of tasks and task items and finally to explore the interconnection between solution time and the performance achieved in the inductive test. According to the results of 204 students attending teacher training at J. Selye University in Slovakia, the abstract and analogue reasoning of these students is of medium development level, while their diagrammatic thinking is weaker. There is a connection between the time used for the items and the test results, both the task types and the students can be classified according to time consumption. The 10% having reached the best results are women, have parents with a degree, live in cities and took their secondary school leaving exams at secondary grammar schools Hungary. Female and correspondence students spent more time on solving the tasks than male and full-time students.

Comparative Static Analysis on the Agricultural Mechanization Development Levels in China’s Provincial Areas

The foundation of the national economy is agriculture, agricultural modernization is the symbol of national modernization and agricultural mechanization is an important symbol of agricultural modernization. In this paper, the authors conducted an analysis of the agricultural mechanization levels of 31 provincial areas in China. In order to assess the agricultural mechanization levels of the provincial areas in China as accurately as possible, the authors adopted indicators in the year 2005, the year 2010 and the year 2015, and used the comparative static analysis method to observe the dynamic changes in the data over the three years. Eight items, including total agricultural mechanization power/grain output (10 million watts/10 k tons), number of large and medium-sized tractors/grain output (pcs/10 k tons), tractor plowing area/grain output (k hectares/10 k tons), total input of agricultural mechanization business operation/grain output (million yuan/10 k tons), total income of agricultural mechanization business operation/grain output (million yuan/10 k tons), and fuel consumption for agricultural production/grain output (hundred tons/10 k tons), were used as assessment indicators. With the gray weighted cluster assessment instrument, 31 provincial areas of China were classified into five gray categories at high development level, relatively high development level, medium development level, medium to low development level and low development level. An objective, scientific and comprehensive assessment of the cluster results was conducted in an effort to better provide references for the authorities to draft relevant policies and measures.

Особливості розвитку програмування та контролю у дітей з порушеннями писемного мовлення.

Younger school age is characterized by the rapid development of arbitrary forms of activity, the formation of higher mental functions (L. Vygotsky, M. Matveeva, etc.). In addition, at this age, the social situation of development, namely the beginning of schooling, makes increased demands on the level of formation of arbitrary regulation of activities. In such conditions, even a slight lack of regulation and control affects the possibility of successful adaptation of the child to the learning situation. The formation of writing skills is a long and complex process both in the structure of the act of writing and the formation of skills and psychophysiological mechanisms that underlie it. In neuropsychology, according to the principle of systemic structure of higher mental functions, writing, or more broadly - written speech, is considered as a complex functional system, which includes many components that rely on the work of different parts of the brain. Lack of arbitrary regulation of processes (planning and control functions). Problems with maintaining arbitrary attention, problems of task orientation, inclusion in the task, impulsiveness of decisions and inertia, problems of switching from one task to another are well known to teachers. In writing, children have difficulties such as regulatory dysgraphia. Namely, errors such as program simplification and pathological inertia are typical. Lack of orientation in the task, distribution of attention and control lead to errors in writing - scientists with speech disorders make the following mistakes: perseverance of letters, perseveration of letter elements (this error is most common in children with insufficient efferent or kinetic organization of movements); omission of elements of letters, letters and syllables; "Sticking" (contamination) of words; anticipation (prediction) of letters ("running in the sky"); errors of language analysis (for example, merged spelling of words instead of separate, lack of selection of the beginning of the sentence), spelling errors (the presence of spelling always complicates the spelling program). The study revealed a low and medium level of development of programming and control in writing.

Social-economic Development of the United Territorial Communities and Development of a Strategy for Sustainable Development (сase of Ukraine)

The unification of territorial communities allows forming an effective and convenient system of management of the territory in which they live. However, the unification of territorial communities in Ukraine is uneven, which raises the question of why this is happening. The purpose of the study is to analyze the level of social-economic development of united territorial communities in Ukraine and the choice of sustainable development strategies (adaptation, innovation, anti-crisis) for UTCs of different levels, identify problems of social-economic development and outline areas to address them. Research methods: generalization and scientific abstraction; system-structural and comparative analysis; economic and mathematical modeling; clustering. It has been established that the unification of different territories in Ukraine took place unevenly (with different levels of social-economic development). The study found that the unification of different territories in Ukraine took place unevenly due to different levels of their socio-economic development. It has been established that throughout Ukraine, communities with a low and high level of development predominate and to a lesser extent with a medium level of development. According to the results of the analysis, territorial communities were grouped into 3 regional clusters: cluster 1 – UTCs and territories with a high level of social-economic development (Kyiv and 9 regions); cluster 2 – UTCs and territories with an average level of social-economic development (6 regions); cluster 3 – UTCs and territories with a low level of social-economic development (10 regions). It has been proved that the social-economic development of UTCs is ensured by the improvement of financial, innovative, and investment activities of enterprises operating in communities. It has been proposed to apply an adaptation strategy of sustainable development for the territories of cluster 1; for cluster 2 - innovative strategy of sustainable development; for cluster 3 - anti-crisis strategy of sustainable development. Continuation of research in terms of determining the impact of enterprises on the socio-economic development of UTCs is promising not only in scientific terms but also to address the applied problems of developing a strategy for sustainable development at the level of individual UTCs in Ukraine. The studied methodology for the unification of territorial communities can be used to predict the further formation of UTCs in Ukraine and can be applied for territorial and administrative reforms in countries with uneven regional development.

Regional Differences of Manufacturing Green Development Efficiency Considering Undesirable Outputs in the Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on Super-SBM and WSR System Methodology

To explore the evolution mechanism of manufacturing green development efficiency is of great significance to realize green transformation of manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. This paper fully considers the resource inputs and undesirable outputs in the production process and applies WSR methodology to construct the index system of influencing factors. Based on the panel data of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1998 to 2017, the super-SBM model is used to calculate the manufacturing green development efficiency. Then, the regional differences of manufacturing green development efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are deeply analyzed. Finally, Tobit model is applied to analyze the influencing factors of the manufacturing green development efficiency. And it turns out, during the statistics period, manufacturing green development efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is “U” shaped distribution, the mean value of each province over the years is 0.812, which is at the medium development level; the manufacturing green development efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is on the rise, and the low scale efficiency is the main reason that restricts the manufacturing green development efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. All the influencing factors have different effects on the manufacturing green development efficiency in different regions. Therefore, this paper puts forward corresponding policy suggestions from the three dimensions of Wuli, Shili and Renli.

Pharmaceuticals in Southeast Asia: reality and future prospects

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the pharmaceutical industry, one of the most actively developing sectors of the world economy, in the region of "new development" — Southeast Asia. It was found that at the present in the countries located in the region under consideration, there is a gradual shift away from the purely production stages of drug manufacturing in favour of an intersectoral pharmaceutical complex. There is a functional diversification of the pharmaceutical industry with deepening corporate specialization. However, a pronounced specialization in the production of a particular type of product is characteristic only for countries with high and medium levels of development of the pharmaceutical industry — Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. There is a gradual transformation of the territorial structure from monocentric — with a growth pole in the form of Singapore, to polycentric due to the growing contribution of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. A distinctive feature of the pharmaceutical industry in Southeast Asia is the enclave type of development of its territorial structure at the country level. A significant part of production facilities and research laboratories is concentrated in one (capital), less often in two centres (the case of Indonesia — West and East Java and Vietnam with industrial cores in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City).

Heterogeneous links among urban concentration, non-renewable energy use intensity, economic development, and environmental emissions across regional development levels

This study examined the long-run and short-run heterogeneous links among urban concentration, non-renewable energy use intensity, economic development, and environmental emissions index across the regional development levels of 31 Chinese provinces. By employing the augmented mean group method and Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality, the following results are drawn: Firstly, a bidirectional positive linkage was existent between the economic development and urban concentration in both the long-run and short-run across regional development levels. Secondly, a unidirectional positive linkage emerged from non-renewable energy use intensity to environmental emissions index, with the most influential effect in EER China (highest development level). Thirdly, bidirectional mixed linkages prevailed between economic development and non-renewable energy use intensity. Economic development mitigated the non-renewable energy use intensity (inverted U-shaped curve) in the national data set and EER China (highest development level); nevertheless, the linear linkage was observed in IER China (medium development level) and WER China (lowest development level). Fourthly, unidirectional mixed linkages were found from urban concentration to non-renewable energy use intensity and environmental emissions index. Urban concentration demonstrated a U-shaped linkage with non-renewable energy use intensity and environmental emissions index in the national data set and EER China. But it unveiled a linear linkage with both variables in IER China and WER China. Fifthly, economic development showed an environmental Kuznets curve with environmental emissions index in the national data set and EER China. Conversely, it showed a linear linkage with the environmental emissions index in IER China and WER China. In turn, the environmental emissions index linearly hampered the economic development in the national data set as well as regional samples. Finally, the long-run and short-run effects showed homogeneity of the linkages' nature; yet, the degree of effects in the long-run surpassed those in the short-run for all development levels.

Аdaptive properties and selection value of the collection genotypes of winter wheat by the features of ear productivity.

In the conditions of the global climate change, it is important to find the donors of the adaptive properties among the existing initial material of wheat, because only on the basis of the targeted selection of the parental components for crossbreeding it can be expected to obtain the selection material with the specified parameters of adaptability. The purpose of this research was to assess the collection samples of soft winter wheat by the features of ear productivity and to establish the adaptive peculiarities by these features. The results of a three-year (2014–2016) study of the level of implementation and variability of the ear productivity features – ear length, ear weight, number of ear spikelets, number of ear grains and grain weight from the ear have been presented in the article, and also the indices of homeostaticity (Hom) and selection value (Sc) of the studied wheat genotypes by these features have been calculated. The object of the research was 45 varieties and 9 selection lines of different genetic and ecological and geographical origin. As the result of the conducted researches, the existence of a significant difference between the collection genotypes of wheat has been established both by the level of the ear productivity development features and their variability during the years of the research. The maximum development level of the ear productivity features had 6 species (Hordovyta, Stanichnaya, Legenda, Pereyaslavka, Oksana, Liryka). By the vast majority of the features, the average level exceeded 7 varieties and 2 selection lines (Rosinka Tarasovskaya, Banga, Venera, Volnitsa, Masha, Krasota, Ebi, Kiu-07, 89-I/2). The homeostaticity index characterizes the ability of the genotype to minimize the negative influence of the environmental factors. It has been established that the collection samples of soft winter wheat had different levels of homeostaticity features of ear productivity. Some collection varieties of wheat had a high level of homeostaticity by certain features of ear productivity, but a low or medium development level of the features themselves. Some genotypes were characterized by high values of both homeostaticity and features development level. The greatest value is represented by the genotypes in which high homeostaticity and selection value is combined with a high level of productivity features development – Zdobna, Dobirna, Zapashna, Dbailyva, Fermerka, Krasota, Masha, Stanichnaya, Oda, Legenda, Kyu99, 89-I/2, etc. These genotypes can be used as the donors of a high level of ear productivity with their high homeostaticity. Thus, as the result of the conducted researches, we have established different nature of the manifestation and variability of the ear productivity features of the collection genotypes of soft winter wheat of different genetic origin. The conducted assessment of the homeostaticity and selection value of the productivity features allowed identifying a number of the varieties and selection lines of wheat that can be used in the combination selection as the donors of high ear productivity in the complex of adaptability have been carried out. Key words: soft winter wheat, genotype, ear productivity, homeostatic, adaptability, selection value.

Особенности развития социального интеллекта в младшем школьном возрасте

The article provides a review of ideas about social intelligence and information about severity of its various components in primary school age. During this period, the development foundations are laid for the next age stages, and social intelligence is the foundation of personal development. The review given by the authors showed that at the beginning of primary school age, social intelligence is at a low or medium level of development. Throughout the entire age period, the development of individual components occurs heterochronously. The child is consistently mastering social skills and is better aware of himself; these tendencies are distorted by the excessive enthusiasm for computer games. The regulation of their emotions and social sensitivity are initially more characteristic of girls, at the end of the period – to the same or greater extent in boys whose development of the emotional component of social intelligence is slowed down. At the behavioral level, the underdevelopment of the social intelligence of younger students is manifested in the difficulties of adapting to school life and communicative problems. Thus, social intelligence developed in primary school age ensures the use of optimal behaviors in interaction with others, satisfaction with family and school life.

STUDY OF HEAVY METAL DYNAMICS IN SOIL

The paper covers the results of a study, carried out during 2005 and 2018, regarding the impact of sludge dump of a wastewater treatment plant from Iasi city, Romania, on the soil characteristics. Experimental research was conducted to highlight the evolution of the heavy metal content of both the material in the storage site and the soil in its proximity. The following heavy metal concentrations were analyzed with atomic adsorption spectrometry method: Zn, Ni, Cr, Pb, Co, Cu and Cd. Research has also addressed other physical (particle size composition and soil moisture) and chemical (pH, sludge and soil reaction, organic carbon content, nitric nitrogen concentration, total nitrogen, mobile phosphorus and potassium content) properties that influence the mobility and retention of chemical compounds in the soil. The results of this study showed that the material consisting of sludge, on the depth of 0-20 cm, shows well-developed structural aggregates, with a structure between granules and subangular polyhedra, with a medium level of development. The analyzed material has good hydrophysical properties that give it mechanical and hydronic stability. Following the analyzes carried out during 2005 to 2018, we can say that there has been an increase in the humidity and the zinc content in the soil due to the sludge dump from the wastewater treatment plant in Iasi. Research results can be used as a scientific basis for developing an appropriate soil management system in the study area.

Multi-home ownership and household portfolio choice in urban China

This study shows that multi-home ownership determines the patterns of portfolio composition. The IV-Tobit models have been used on the 2015 China household and finance survey data, and the potential endogeneity problem has been addressed by using the variation of housing prices at the city level as instruments. The results show that multiple-housing ownership significantly crowds out the proportion of risky financial assets held by urban Chinese households, which reflects the substitution effect and people’s risk awareness with regard to real estate. Moreover, this crowding out effect is particularly significant and generally stronger for wealthy households and for regions with a medium development level of financial markets.

Relative improvements in road mobility as compared to improvements in road accessibility and economic growth: A cross-country analysis

Previous studies indicated that an increase in road length had a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth. However, the demand for and development of highly mobile or highly accessible roads likely varies according to the level of economic development, and this might have a significant influence on economic growth. The objectives of the present study were twofold: 1) to evaluate how road infrastructure growth facilitates export-led growth processes and 2) to determine the investment level needed for different road types to facilitate economic and commercial activities at different developmental levels. To shed light on these issues, fixed-effects linear regression analysis was conducted using time-series cross-sectional data on the relative improvement in road mobility as compared to improvement in road accessibility (MPA) and economic growth for 60 countries over the period 1980–2010. The key finding of this study was that in countries with a medium and high level of development, improvements in road mobility facilitated export-led growth. This indicates that policies to promote export should be implemented in conjunction with high-mobility road network expansion to enhance economic growth, particularly in countries with a medium level of development, which generally suffer from lower levels of high-mobility road network development. Such expansion in road mobility is necessary to fulfill demands for long-distance travel and enable the transportation of goods and services across regions, thereby facilitating productivity and trade. On the other hand, in countries with a low level of development, more investment is required to build roads with higher accessibility. Such roads are required to facilitate local business and trade activities. This type of road development is necessary to achieve sustainable economic growth in these countries.

Mapping Development Pattern in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration Using DMSP/OLS Nighttime Light Data

Spatial inequality of urban development may cause problems like inequality of living conditions and the lack of sustainability, drawing increasing academic interests and societal concerns. Previous studies based on statistical data can hardly reveal the interior mechanism of spatial inequality due to the limitation of statistical units, while the application of remote sensing data, such as nighttime light (NTL) data, provides an effective solution. In this study, based on the DMSP/OLS NTL data, the urbanization type of all towns in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration was analyzed from the aspects of development level and speed. Meanwhile, spatial cluster analysis of development level by local Moran’s I was used to explore spatial inequality, and the trend was discussed by comparing the development characteristics on both sides of the transition line of different development levels (inequality boundary). The results showed that the development level of the whole region increased dramatically as the mean DN value increased by 65.99%, and 83.72% of the towns showed a positive development during 2000–2012. The spatial distribution of urbanization types showed that Beijing and Tianjin were at a high urbanization level with rapid speed of development, with the southern region having a medium development level and the northwestern region lagging behind. The spatial cluster analysis also revealed a gradually intensifying trend of inequality as the number of towns with balanced development reduced by 319 during 2000–2012, while the towns in the high-high areas increased by 99 and those in the low-low areas increased by 229. Moreover, the development speed inside the inequality boundary was obviously higher than that outside, indicating an increasingly serious situation for spatial inequality of urban development in the whole region.