Understanding China's Economic Growth from a Regional Policy Perspective

There has been ongoing interest in China's economic growth. What were the drivers of China's economic growth in past years? What policies were used to promote China's economic growth? Although different lenses may be used to understand and explain China's economic growth, this paper draws on historical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives to discuss the nexus between China's regional policies and economic growth. First, we review the evolution of China's regional policy and the policy's changing emphasis in different development stages, from balanced, unbalanced, and coordinated development to synergistic development. Then we construct a theoretical model to illustrate the impact of regional policy on the local economy and conduct an empirical examination with a case study of regional policy using regression discontinuity design. This paper analyzes the concept of regional policy and the underpinning logic of economic growth and presents practical approaches to formulate a better regional policy framework.     

A warm welcome for destination quality brands: the example of the Pays Cathare region

In this paper, the salient complexities characterising quality management at the tourism destination are outlined, and in light of these, a number of quality principles are deemed particularly appropriate for the further investigation of destination quality management (DQM). The complexities include the significant number of services provided at the destination, the highly fragmented nature of the tourism destination product and the large number of small businesses that go to comprise this product. General principles are drawn from the SERVQUAL, Kano and EFQM Business Excellence models in order to provide a tentative framework for investigating how one destination has striven to overcome these challenges. The example of the Pays Cathare Region in southern France, which has been recognised by the European Commission as an example of best practice in integrated quality management (IQM), shows how these quality tenets can be translated from the theoretical framework into actual practice by means of its destination quality brand. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.