Urban tourism in the developing world: The case of Johannesburg

Urban tourism has attracted a growing literature in the context of cities in the developed world. In this article, the role of urban tourism is explored in the developing world setting of Johannesburg. As in the case of the developed world, in Johannesburg the promotion of urban tourism is linked to economic regeneration and urban economic development. Johannesburg's tourism economy exhibits distinct geographical and sectoral clustering, with business tourism being the most vibrant subsector for tourism development. New development initiatives by both provincial and local government are seeking to further enhance the role of tourism in Johannesburg's economic development.     

Urban pollution and road infrastructure: A case study of China

Urban road infrastructure is crucial in affecting air pollution. Yet, little is known about the roles played by road width vs road length. This paper attempts to fill this gap by estimating the effects of road infrastructure on PM₁₀ using city-level data from China. Our robust modeling results show that the road density index, defined as the ratio of road surface area to city territory size, is negatively correlated with PM₁₀. More importantly, when the road width and length components of the road density variable are separately included in the regression models, the width is found to be significantly and negatively correlated with PM₁₀, whereas the correlation with the length variable is insignificant. This is expected as increases in road width can help mitigate congestion, improve fuel efficiency, and thus reduce emissions. On the contrary, extending roads to new or unconnected areas is likely to bring more vehicles onto the roads and extend average driving time. Our findings appeal for careful consideration of the trade-off between road width (lane numbers) and road length when planning and constructing urban road infrastructure.     

城市经济的空间结构：居住、就业及衍生问题

居住与就业的空间关系是企业和家庭空间选址和竞争的结果,决定了城市内部的空间结构形态。本文从城市土地利用要素的空间分布出发,回顾了城市空间结构的经典理论,探讨了居住与就业空间关系的外在表现和内在经济机制,特别是集聚经济和通勤成本这两个相反经济力量是如何相互作用以决定城市空间结构基本特征的。在此基础上,对当前备受关注的交通拥堵、环境污染、弱势群体就业障碍及住房问题等“城市病”的缘由和改善途径加以讨论。城市政策应对土地利用、交通和环境进行统筹考虑,并设计恰当的制度激励机制,使个体行为的外部性进行正确的“内部化”,这可以提高城市效率和居民生活质量,改善环境影响并促进城市发展的可持续性。     

Rebuilding or refurbishing: Heterogeneity effects of urban renewal strategy

This study investigates the heterogeneous policy effects of urban renewal strategies in shantytown renewal in Beijing. Using the spatial difference-in-difference approach, this study identifies the renewal approaches for each shantytown to analyze how each strategy affects housing prices and population density within the policy target area and surrounding area. The empirical results suggest that current urban renewal actions in Beijing have not achieved the expected policy goals and imply significant heterogeneity between refurbishing and rebuilding shantytowns in improving building value. Rebuilding projects have positive renewal effects and externalities, driving housing prices to increase by 5.86%–7.25% within the shantytown and a 1-km radius. Furthermore, the dynamic analysis shows that these impacts are prolonged, with housing prices maintaining an upward trend for 2–6 years after rebuilding. However, there is no causality between refurbishing dilapidated areas and increasing building values.     

Urban Self-organization, Urban Management and Urban Harmony

Making Wuli-Shili-Renli systems methodology as stand, this paper puts forward an integrated framework with methodological significance to meet needs of urban science research, namely Urban Systems Engineering （USE）. USE regards the whole urban as research object, with urban system, regards urban logic and urban institution as research dimensions, and regards evolution, control and game as research techniques. In the framework of USE, three topics including urban self-organization, urban management and urban harmony are in turn probed by adopting methods of multi-agent simulation, system evaluation, and game analysis of institution. The current and anticipative results will contribute to deeper understanding of evolution of urban space, optimization of urban management and betterment of urban institution, and will offer effective decision support to harmonious city construction as well.     

Trade Liberalization,Economic Restructuring and Urban Poverty: The Case of China*

Increased trade openness and rapid market-oriented transformation have largely altered the patterns of wealth accumulation and wealth distribution in post-reform China. In the present paper, with the help of Chinese provincial level data over the period of 1986 to 2000, simultaneous equations estimation and generalized method of moment techniques are applied to investigate the relationship between trade and poverty in urban China. Empirical results suggest that China's trade liberalization helps to reduce urban poverty both directly and indirectly through its favorable impacts on economic growth.     

对城市更新融资体系的几点思考

历经30年的改革开放,中国正面临着城市空间资源再生、再分配的问题,需要进行城市更新。在此过程中,城市更新投融资需求的快速增长与供给短缺的矛盾日益突出。尤其在当前我国执行货币紧缩政策的形势下,拓展、拓宽融资渠道显得尤为迫切。为了寻找解决这一矛盾的办法,本文希望通过对国内外城市开发建设、企业经营等在投融资方面成功经验的总结,结合我国特有的经济发展背景,总结对我国城市更新投融资制度建设的经验启示。在此基础上,本文进一步研究提出我国城市更新投融资制度建设的思路与构想,从而为城市更新投融资服务体系的进一步构建和完善奠定一定的基础,最后对我国城市更新的投融资体系建设提出建议。     

State,capital, and the transformation of dependence: The Brazilian computer case

Brazil's policy of reserving the lower end of the computer market for indigenous firms has been controversial since its introduction 10 years ago. This paper examines the implications of the Brazilian computer case for the “dependency approach” and for current thinking on the role of the state in development. The case is considered to demonstrate that dependence is a dynamic condition whose character is continually being transformed and that the state, while it may play a crucial role in the initiation of new industries, is limited in its ability to act autonomously once an industry is established.     

Land costs,government intervention,and migration of firms: The case of China

By using unique firm relocation data in China, we first document the relocation behavior of Chinese firms and show that less government intervention (relative to market forces) can improve economic efficiency by facilitating industrial relocation which saves on costs. Ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, investments have poured into the coastal region, which in turn, have almost tripled land costs in the major coastal cities. We exploit this land cost shock in the early 2000s to identify its effect on the relocation behavior of firms. Specifically, we instrument land price growth with the access of a city to foreign markets (approximated by distance to Shanghai), and then estimate the differential impact of land costs on firms regarding land reliance. Our major findings are as follows: (1) the migration rate of Chinese firms in China is on average 3.2%, (2) Rising land costs drive firms to migrate, and firms that use more land-intensive technology are more compelled to migrate, and (3) in regions where the local government intervention is stronger (the market is less developed), the relocation decision of Chinese firms is distorted in the sense that firms are less likely to relocate despite surging land prices due to government intervention.     

Redistribution,demand structure and factor requirements: The case of India

This paper investigates the hypothesis that a redistribution of private consumption expenditure from rich to poor, or from urban residents to rural residents, would bring about an increase in employment and reduce capital and import requirements, through its impact on the structure of aggregate demand. The simulations reported here, using Indian data, do not provide much support for the ‘redistribution promotes employment’ argument. The analysis suggests that even ‘radical’ redistributions of private consumption expenditure would have no significant impact on the level of employment, either directly through increasing labour requirements or indirectly through reducing scarce resource requirements.     

Price oscillation, oligopolistic behaviour and inflation: The Argentine case

This paper argues that the degree of relative price oscillation is one of the essential characteristics of any inflationary process. Inflations which are similar in terms of their overall inflationary rates may be differentiated by the degree of price oscillations. The paper also contends that price oscillations are very much the consequence of an underlying struggle between oligopolistic groups for a share of the income, and that this behaviour has become more generalized than before and has become one of the major causes, and one of the most dangerous effects, of inflation. Much of this interpretation is based on the recent experience of Argentina.     

The role of bamboo plantations in rural development: The case of Anji County,Zhejiang, China

Bamboos have often been viewed as inferior products, labeled as the “poor man's timber.” Development groups have proposed bamboo production as an opportunity for increasing the wealth of the lower-income groups. This paper is a study of the household economy of 200 bamboo farmers in eight townships of Anji County in China. The authors describe the process of transformation of rural China from communes to the household responsibility system, the differentiated rate of development among farmers and the role of bamboo in that change. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to study the factors that influence farmers' incomes and their evolution. A warning is sounded against using bamboo production to target low-income groups, as well as relying solely on aggregated data when drawing conclusions on income disparities in China.     

Inflation and inflation uncertainty: The case of Cambodia,Lao PDR,and Vietnam

This paper studies the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam. Inflation uncertainty is estimated as the conditional variance in a family of generalized autoregressive heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models. This paper finds that inflation causes inflation uncertainty in these countries, which supports the argument of Friedman (1977). Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that inflation uncertainty causes inflation only in Lao PDR, which implies that Cukierman and Meltzer's (1986) argument can be supported in Lao PDR. This paper also investigates how inflation in the United States is related to inflation and inflation uncertainty in Indochina countries. The result shows that inflation positively responds to US inflation only in Cambodia.     

Developers, property cycles and local economic development: The case of Sheffield

The interaction between the property market cycle and the development industry at the local level is examined. The Sheffield office market is used as an example. Market trends result in limited periods of development profitability. Developers therefore face a difficult operational environment and adopt different tactics to cope with it. Some are more successful than others. The implications for the development sector and for the local economic development process are considered.     

Democracy and growth: The Sub-Saharan African case, 1960–1992

This article conducts a cross-national analysis of forty sub-Saharan African countries during the years 1960–1992. It examines the longrun relationship between political democracy and economic growth, taking advantage of the availability of large economic and political data sets. The conclusion from this study is that the economy grows faster under a regime that enjoys a higher level of institutionalized democracy. It is also found that a positive feedback relationship exists between democracy and growth; while democracy promotes growth, growth leads to a higher level of democratization. In addition, it is found that the duration of authoritarian rule decreases economic growth, while growth shortens the tenure of an autocratic government. Other factors that account for growth in sub-Saharan African countries include the initial size of the economy, human capital stocks, domestic investment share, and international trade.