This study examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, environmental quality, and capital stock on economic growth in 17 Middle East and North African Countries (MENA) countries. We did our analysis in the panel framework over the period 1990–2012 using both the static (ordinary least squares method (OLS), fixed effect (FE), and random effect (RE)) and dynamic (difference-generalized method of moments (Diff-GMM) and system-generalized method of moments (Sys-GMM)) panel data approaches. The empirical results show that the increases in FDI inflows and capital stock enhance the economic growth process in MENA countries. On the other hand, our findings demonstrated that economic growth in MENA countries reacts negatively to the environmental degradation. These empirical insights are of particular interest to policymakers as they help build sound external and environmental policies to sustain economic growth.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13132-015-0323-y.pdf

The Impact of FDI Inflows and Environmental Quality on Economic Growth: an Empirical Study for the MENA Countries

Purpose – Since the start of the twenty‐first century China has stepped into a new stage of harmonious urban‐rural development. Based on the brief review of policy changes since the new century, the purpose of this paper is to figure out the comprehensive policy framework, and analyze its background and reasons.Design/methodology/approach – First, this paper offers a brief review of China's rural reform with focus on the policy framework and changes since the reform of rural tax and fee system in 2000. Next, the paper focuses on food security to discuss grain price increase and China's grain imports, then the current problems facing China's agricultural and rural development are discussed and countermeasures provided.Findings – The paper finds that several policies have been implemented toward the coordination between urban and rural areas and toward the integration of urban and rural development. However, China's grain production is still facing big challenges, both from the increasing demand and the res...

Review of China's agricultural and rural development: policy changes and current issues

This study sought to investigate the impacts of climate change on cereal production in China over the period 1990Q1-2013Q4. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, the results showed that CO2 emissions, average temperature, and temperature variability have a significant negative impact on cereal production in the long run. However, energy consumption, average rainfall, labor force, and cultivated area significantly and positively influenced the production of cereal crops in the long run. Meanwhile, the study observed that rainfall variability has no significant effect on cereal production in the long run. The study again found that in the short run, CO2 emissions, average temperature, and temperature variability have a significant negative relationship with cereal production. Besides, energy consumption, average rainfall, rainfall variability, labor force, and the cultivated area had a significant positive association with cereal production in the short run. The results of the Granger causality test showed that there exists a unidirectional causality running from CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and labor force to the production of cereal crops in China. On the contrary, the study found no causality between cultivated area and cereal production. The study suggests that improved cereal crop varieties ought to be developed and introduced to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change in China. This will help to circumvent Huang et al.'s (2017) prediction of a decline in the total food self-sufficiency of China from 94.5% in 2015 to about 91% by 2025.

Cereal production in the presence of climate change in China.

Climate change impacts on crop yield: Evidence from China

This paper advances the multi-mechanism framework, integrates the GIS technology and spatial panel data models for analyzing regional inequality mechanism. Applying this integrated methodology, we investigate China’s regional inequality at the county level using a comprehensive panel dataset that includes socioeconomic, environmental, locational, policy and GIS data from 1992 to 2010. The results show that Chinese regional inequality at the county level has a non-stationary dynamic structure, mirroring global inequality and spatial autocorrelation. In addition, the spatial panel data models analysis reveals the relative influence of explanatory variables. The impact of essential productive factors on regional development is gradually fading. Industrialization and decentralization play the most important role. The influence of marketization on regional development is not clear. The expansion of urban built-up areas has exerted a strong influence on the uneven regional development. Policy and transportation factor plays an indispensable role in regional inequality. The analysis additionally recognizes that socioeconomic factors play a dominant role, beyond policy and location factors. The role of environmental factors appears to be masked. This paper suggests that more attention needs to be paid to micro-inequality to coordinate inter-county and intra-county inequality under the pressure of rapid industrialization, urbanization and modernization of agriculture. Given the pattern of economic development, deepening balanced development reforms, optimizing and upgrading the industrial structure might be effective ways to develop a more coordinated regional development structure in China at the county level.

Analyzing the multi-mechanism of regional inequality in China

Foreign direct investment and China's regional income inequality ☆

Non-tradable goods and the border effect puzzle

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the impacts of climate change on the People's Republic of China's (PRC) grain output using rural household survey data. The paper highlights the regional differences of impacts by estimating output elasticities (with respect to climate change) for different grain crops and different regions. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses production function to investigate the responses of grain output to climate variables as well as other traditional input variables. The use of production function approach allows us to do away with the competitive land market assumption as required in the Ricardian approach. The paper will use interaction terms of climate variables and regional dummies to capture the regional differences of climate change impact on grain crops. Findings – The results indicate that the overall negative climate impacts on the PRC's grain output range from −0.31 to −2.69 percent in 2030 and from −1.93 to −3.07 percent in 2050, under different emission s...

/pdf/impacts-of-climate-change-on-the-people-s-republic-of-china-4ya73ktccj.pdf

Impacts of Climate Change on the People's Republic of China's Grain Output - Regional and Crop Perspective

Technological change and China's regional disparities — A calibrated equilibrium analysis☆

Purpose – The paper aims to assess the impact of agricultural output changes on the general price level over time with China as an example.Design/methodology/approach – A simple numerical global general equilibrium (GE) model of two regions (China and the rest of the world) and three commodities (agriculture, manufacturing goods, and services) is used to assess the impacts of agricultural output changes on the overall economy price changes. The numerical GE model of this paper consists of production, final consumption, and market clear conditions. The results are generated with the GE model calibrated to aggregated China's input‐output tables of 1987, 1997, and 2005.Findings – The results suggest that China witnessed a declining influence of agricultural output changes on general price changes. The contribution of given agricultural output change on the general price change in 2005 was merely less than 60 percent of that in 1987, which in turn implies that macro policies targeting to curb general inflatio...

Xiaoyun Liu

Papers

Foreign direct investment and China's regional income inequality ☆

Non-tradable goods and the border effect puzzle

Impacts of Climate Change on the People's Republic of China's Grain Output - Regional and Crop Perspective

Technological change and China's regional disparities — A calibrated equilibrium analysis☆

The diminishing influences of agricultural output changes on general price changes in China