On the relationship between population change and sustainable development

This paper investigates the relationship between population growth and economic growth, through the study of fertility choices and their effects on natural resources. It aims at analyzing the interactions between endogenous fertility choices and the environment and their link to the sustainable matter. We analyze a growth model driven by natural resources and without production, where agents have jointly to determine consumption and fertility, taking into account the effects of their decisions on the dynamics of natural resources. We adopt the most optimistic view on natural capital (it generates endogenous growth) and the weakest notion of sustainable paths (all variables are positive): in such a framework we expect that sustainable paths exist. We instead show that this is not always true. In fact, even if renewal capacity of natural resources is unbounded, not always can a sustainable path be found: this depends on the difference between the stationary fertility rate and the mortality rate. If the stationary fertility is lower than the mortality rate, a sustainable path will not be found, and in such a case public intervention is necessary in order to address the economy along a sustainable path. This can simply be done through policies affecting public attention to environmental protection or the intensity of the dilution effect.     

Ecosystem services and regional development: An application to Sweden

This study carries out interregional comparisons of development and sustainable use of natural capital with and without inclusion of non-marketed ecosystem services. A simple dynamic model of an open economy shows that appropriate adjustment of conventional income accounts includes flow and stock components, but excludes explicit entrance of pollution. Calculations are made for Swedish regions and for two types of ecosystem services — pollution sequestration and recreational services — provided by three types of ecosystems: forests, agricultural landscape and wetlands. When comparing the adjusted and non-adjusted regional income accounts it is shown that the two measurements generate significantly different pictures of regional income and growth; regions that are traditionally considered as relatively less growth promoting are shown to hold important sources of wealth from natural capital, while counties that are rich in conventional accounts fall behind when adjusting for values of changes in natural capital.     

人力资本对区域可持续发展贡献差异的实证研究

人力资本是推动区域可持续发展的重要因素,不同区域间人力资本存量及作用效率的差异造成了区域可持续发展状况的差异。通过构建人力资本贡献模型考察了不同区域间人力资本对可持续发展贡献的状况,结果表明不同区域间人力资本对可持续发展的贡献存在较大的差别,而且同一区域中人力资本对区域可持续发展3个方面的贡献也存在差异。依据人力资本贡献的差异对各区域进行了划分,并在此基础上对区域人力资本贡献差异产生原因及相应的提升途径进行了探讨。     

Environment, human development and economic growth

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into economic growth and development theories and empirics is currently widely analyzed in the literature. The effects of natural resources endowment on economic growth are mainly analyzed through the so-called Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) whereas the effects of economic growth on environmental quality are part of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Furthermore, recent contributions on RCH and EKC have shown the important role of institutions and human development dimensions in building a sustainable development path. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the causal relationships between economic growth, human development and sustainability combining the RCH and EKC models and adopting a human development perspective. Results confirm the importance of high institutional quality and investments for human capital accumulation in order to build a sustainable development path.     

资本匹配、创新力培育与区域协调发展：理论机制与经验证据

区域协调发展不仅受到资本积累数量的影响,更受到资本匹配质量的制约。在拓展MRW模型的基础上,理论分析“实物资本-人力资本-社会资本”最优匹配存在性与高效经济增长的关系,进一步构建资本匹配程度与匹配质量通过创新力培育实现落后地区经济赶超,进而影响区域协调发展能力的传导路径,并利用中国省级面板数据进行实证检验。结果表明,实物资本、人力资本与社会资本存量之间存在最优比例关系,且资本匹配质量主要通过创新力培育影响区域协调发展水平;资本匹配整体上有利于区域协调发展,东部地区资本匹配度对区域协调发展的促进作用高于中部地区、西部地区;机制检验发现,资本匹配通过组织创新效应实现区域协调发展的解释程度最大,其次为技术创新效应,最后是产业创新效应。     

智能服务赋能创新型城市群建设路径研究——实体与虚拟产业集聚视角

从实体集聚与虚拟集聚双重理论视角,基于2011—2019年我国271个城市面板数据,运用门槛面板模型和中介效应模型,实证分析智能服务水平对区域创新绩效的影响及作用机制。研究结果表明：智能服务水平提升对区域创新绩效的广度和深度具有正向影响;受网络外部性影响,智能服务水平与区域创新数量呈“U型”单门槛特征,与区域创新质量呈先降后边际效应递增的双门槛特征;智能服务通过降低实体集聚要素流动的拥塞效应、增强虚拟集聚要素流动的溢出效应提升区域创新绩效。通过区域异质性分析发现,相比中西部地区、外围城市以及其它城市群,智能服务对区域创新绩效的积极效应在东部地区、中心城市以及京津冀、长三角、成渝和长江中游城市群更显著。     

自然资本引领绿色基础设施可持续管理

自然资本是将人类赖以生存的自然环境资本化，以 资本的视角看待自然。绿色基础设施的物质客体作为自然资本 存量的组成部分，为人类社会提供了蕴含巨大价值的生态系统 服务。将自然资本与绿色基础设施紧密结合，有利于精准制定 政策以协调经济发展和自然管理的关系，实现国土空间内自然 资本增值。通过梳理30多年来自然资本理论的演变特征，认 为自然资本经历了“理论探索阶段”的道德合理化、“应用推 广阶段”的应用普及和规范化，以及“制度建设阶段”的制度 化变迁。在其影响下，绿色基础设施提升了生态内涵，创新了 评估方法，最终二者在制度上走向了融合，成为实现可持续发 展的重要途径。自然资本提供了甄别绿色基础设施生态价值的 路径，并将绿色基础设施作为一种锚定在国土空间上的生态资 产进行永续利用，这为中国生态资产价值的实现和提升提供了 空间规划途径和政策制定思路。     

Wealth,Natural Capital,and Sustainable Development: Contrasting Examples from Botswana and Namibia

Theoretical work has demonstrated that sustainable development requires non-declining per capita wealth, where wealth is defined to include produced, natural, human and social capital. Several studies have attempted to measure total national wealth or changes in wealth, but have been seriously hampered by a lack of data, especially for natural and human capital. To address this problem, the UN and other international statistical agencies developed a standardized framework for environmental accounts, the System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA). Using the newly available asset accounts for natural capital, national wealth accounts are constructed and used to assess the contrasting development paths of Botswana and Namibia. Botswana, with an explicit policy of reinvestment of resource rents, has roughly tripled per capita wealth and national income over the past two decades. Namibia, with no explicit policy to use natural capita to build wealth, has seen per capita wealth and income decline.     

Schooling in a Corporate Society

This article defines a measure of the quality of life in the regional capitals of Poland and compares the results. This taxonomic measure is based on a set of diagnostic traits, including housing conditions, state of the natural environment, labor market, personal safety, and range of cultural services available. For this purpose, a set of variables from 2011 was observed for each regional capital. This research is important in defining the difference between our target cities from the standpoint of social development. It also allows us to classify the cities into groups based on the quality of life of their inhabitants.     

Natural capital, subjective well-being, and the new welfare economics of sustainability: Some evidence from cross-country regressions

The measurement of natural capital and its management during the economic development process are important aspects of the capital approach to sustainable development. However, the assessment of social welfare in terms of genuine savings (or changes in total wealth per capita) is arguably too limited. This paper tries to make a case for the incorporation of subjective well-being measures in debates about sustainable development by exploring the macro-level relationship between subjective well-being and natural capital in a cross-country setting. It is tested whether natural capital per capita is correlated with subjective well-being in a sample of fifty-eight developed and developing countries, using natural capital data from the World Bank's Millennium Capital Assessment. Bivariate regressions indicate that it is. When multiple regression models are estimated that include (a) major country-level determinants of subjective well-being (GNI per capita, social capital, income distribution, unemployment, inflation), and (b) regional dummy variables for ex-Soviet Union and Latin American countries, the positive correlation remains. The role of data outliers is carefully explored, and the sensitivity of the results to the use of alternative subjective well-being measures (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness, and a combined life satisfaction and happiness index) is investigated. This does not change the nature of the results. The findings arguably strengthen the case for a ‘new welfare economics of sustainability’ that takes subjective well-being measures into account.     

Identifying cost-effective hotspots for restoring natural capital and enhancing landscape multifunctionality

Much effort is expended toward planning for conservation, natural resource management and sustainable land use in agricultural landscapes. Although often not explicitly stated, the aims of these efforts are often to restore natural capital for the provision of ecosystem services and stimulate multifunctionality in landscapes. However, the scarcity of resources for, and the potential economic impact of, ameliorative actions that restore natural capital necessitates the identification of cost-effective geographic priorities, or hotspots, which provide multiple ecosystem goods and services. This requires the integrated spatial modelling of multiple environmental and economic processes accompanied by clear goals and performance indicators. Identification of hotspots provides guidance for highly targeted land use change that cost-effectively adds to the stocks of natural capital in a landscape. Additionally, the multifunctionality of the landscape can be increased through the provision of multiple ecosystem goods and services. This paper begins by examining data requirements for identifying geographic hotspots for land use change. This study integrates traditionally disparate landscape-scale biophysical and economic data and models. The elements of natural capital considered here are species and ecosystems, soil and water resources, and the atmosphere. It is demonstrated that locating ameliorative actions towards hotspots will be more cost-effective at restoring natural capital and stimulating landscape multifunctionality than a random targeting approach. We calculate these efficiencies using a small set of indicators for assessing aspects of multifunctionality. The focus of this study is the agricultural landscapes of the Lower Murray region of south-eastern Australia.     

Mapping community values for natural capital and ecosystem services

Whilst biophysical, and increasingly economic, values are often used to define high priority hotspots in planning for conservation and environmental management, community values are rarely considered. The community values mapping method presented in this paper builds on the concept of natural capital and ecosystem services and the landscape values methodology to link local perception of place to a broader measure of environmental values at the landscape level. Based on in-depth interviews and a mapping task conducted with 56 natural resource management decision-makers and community representatives, we quantified and mapped values and threats to natural capital assets and ecosystem services in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region. GIS-based techniques were used to map the spatial distribution of natural capital and ecosystem service values and threats over the region and analyse the proportional differences at the sub-regional scale. Participants assigned the highest natural capital asset value to water and biota assets primarily for the production of cultural, regulating and provisioning services. The most highly valued ecosystem services were recreation and tourism, bequest, intrinsic and existence, fresh water provision, water regulation and food provision. Participants assigned the highest threat to regulating services associated with water and land assets. Natural capital asset and ecosystem service values varied at both sub-regional and place-specific scales. Respondents believed people were integral to the environment but also posed a high threat to natural capital and ecosystem services. The results have implications for the way values toward natural capital and ecosystem services may be integrated into planning for environmental management.     

区域创新生态系统可持续运行建设路径研究

基于区域创新生态系统理论,联合生态系统可持续性特征,对区域创新生态系统可持续运行内涵与影响要素进行理论阐释,以我国内地31个省市为样本,运用模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）方法,结合可持续创新种群结构、可持续能力和可持续创新潜力3个维度,重点探究区域创新生态系统高水平可持续运行建设路径。根据维度要素的不同组合构型,归纳出4条区域创新生态系统实现高水平可持续运行的建设路径;相对于其它要素,创新种群新颖性与政府创新投入对系统高水平可持续运行更重要。研究结论有助于拓展区域创新生态研究视角,为不同地区优化创新生态系统、提高系统可持续运行水平和实现高质量发展提供参考。     

Green Attitude and Economic Growth

We analyze the interdependence between green attitude and equilibrium development of environmental quality in an endogenous growth model. Individuals take only part of their impact on pollution into account, hence there is a negative externality of capital accumulation on environmental quality. Increasing wealth or increasing pollution enhance green attitude and reduce the externality, because individuals care more about the environment if their income is higher or if pollution is more obvious. The time path of pollution as well as the evolution of equilibrium growth are shown to depend crucially on the determinants of green attitude. Ongoing growth may lead to complete internalization of the environmental externality if green attitude improves with increasing wealth, e.g. as a consequence of an increase in environmental education. In contrast, if green attitude is determined exclusively by the level of environmental quality, pollution remains at a suboptimally high level. The interdependence of wealth and pollution in the determination of environmental awareness implies more complex dynamics. Capital growth enhances green attitude and thereby decreases pollution. Improved environmental quality in turn may increase capital growth due to less green attitude and therefore slow down convergence to the sustainable balanced growth path.     

环首都经济圈生态产业化的路径选择

生态产业化是按照社会化大生产、市场化经营的方式来提供生态服务。它与产业生态化一起,构成生态产业的形成路径。生态产业化的实质是生态资本的保值增值。生态学的进展和公共物品理论的现代扩展,分别为生态产业化提供了生态学、经济学依据。生态产业化的实现需要一系列条件,对生态安全的担忧不应成为生态产业化的障碍。环首都经济圈生态产业化已探索出多种路径,包括林下产业、森林旅游、碳汇林业、非公有制林业等,其增强贫困地区内生发展能力的作用得到初步验证。目前生态产业化在实践中存在进展缓慢和盲目发展两方面问题,亟需加强理论研究,完善顶层设计,加强政策扶持与引导。     

Is Environmental Protection Beneficial for the Environment?

We analyze a simple endogenous growth model with environmental interactions. Economic production generates emissions of pollutants whose environmental impact is mitigated by abatement activities financed by government expenditure; environmental quality affects preferences but does not play any productive role. We show that government intervention, by reallocating resources from capital accumulation to environmental preservation activities, allows the economy to achieve a sustainable balanced growth path. Along such a path, softer environmental policy regimes lead to win–win outcomes, fostering economic growth and improving environmental quality. Such a result needs to be interpreted as a long run outcome, but it clearly shows that the compatibility between economic growth and environmental improvement is far from automatic. Indeed, in the long run it could paradoxically be the case that both the economy and the environment benefit from low levels of environmental protection.     

区域持续发展的因素分析与主要对策

持续发展是解决当今全球性PRED问题的基本原则和社会经济发展的最终目标．已得到各国政府、社会工作者的普遍关注。区域持续发展是区域发展的最理想境界，其主要目标是区域的社会、经济和生态可持续发展。它受到多种因素的制约．如资源短缺、环境压力、区域不平等、增长的质量、人口压力、科技水平和管理、决策水平等。针对我国国情．提出区域持续发展的主要对策：加强基础设施的建设：建立资源节约型国民经济体系；加快科技进步：控制人口数量，提高人口素质；加强区域协调．实行对外开放；加强环境保护和整治：加强法制及组织管理。     

The interactive effects of human capital and quality of life on economic growth

To bridge the gap in the quality of life (QOL) and economic growth literature and understand the reinforcing effects of QOL and human capital on economic development, we examine the interactive effects of these two factors on wage growth from 2000 to 2007 at the county level across the United States. First, a Rosen–Roback model is employed to estimate implicit values of amenities including climate, clean air and other natural attributes, which are used to generate QOL indices. Second, QOL, human capital represented by the share of college graduates, and their interaction serve as key variables in the wage growth model. An instrumental variable approach and location fixed effects are used to address endogeneity of human capital and control for location-specific unobservable characteristics. Results suggest that human capital and QOL significantly contribute to economic growth and the growth effects are even larger in nonmetropolitan counties. Importantly, we find that the effect of human capital on growth is larger in high-QOL counties and QOL enhances the effect of human capital on growth. Our results provide empirical support for community development strategies through providing utility-enhancing amenities that improve QOL and retain human capital.     

A nonsmooth, nonconvex model of optimal growth

This paper analyzes the nature of economic dynamics in a one-sector optimal growth model in which the technology is generally nonconvex, nondifferentiable, and discontinuous. The model also allows for irreversible investment and unbounded growth. We develop various tools to overcome the technical difficulties posed by the generality of the model. We provide sufficient conditions for optimal paths to be bounded, to converge to zero, to be bounded away from zero, and to grow unboundedly. We also show that under certain conditions, if the discount factor is close to 1, any optimal path from a given initial capital stock converges to a small neighborhood of the golden rule capital stock, at which sustainable consumption is maximized. If it is maximized at infinity, then as the discount factor approaches 1, any optimal path either grows unboundedly or converges to an arbitrarily large capital stock.     

环境规制约束下FDI对中国科技创新与经济高质量发展的影响——基于中介效应与门槛效应的机制检验

基于2003—2019年中国内地30个省份面板数据，运用中介效应、门槛效应模型实证检验FDI对我国技术创新与经济高质量发展的影响，并进行机制分析。研究发现：第一，在环境规制约束下，FDI技术溢出效应显著，FDI能够促进我国经济高质发展，现阶段环境规制具有“创新补偿”效应；FDI与环境规制的交互项能够显著促进经济高质量发展，环境规制对FDI发挥一定的正向筛选作用。第二，在考虑内生性后，FDI、环境规制及其交互项对经济高质量发展影响的核心结论依然成立，并且存在区域异质性。第三，两种中介效应检验结果显示，FDI通过技术创新机制作用于我国经济高质量发展。第四，整体而言，FDI通过技术创新水平这一中介路径对经济高质量发展产生负向影响，与理论预期不符。