Regional Science Policy and Practice最新文献

This paper investigates the relationship between external debt and energy access in the Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1999–2021. Results from the dynamic panel threshold method indicates that the link between external debt and energy access is nonlinear. Moreover, the findings reveal a statistically negative relationship between external debt and energy access above the threshold of 5.04 %, beyond which external debt reduces energy access in SSA countries. Besides, results indicate that economic growth and trade openness enhance access to electricity. However, renewable energy consumption decreases energy access. This paper upholds the view that external debt should be kept to a reasonable level in order to avert the opposite effect on energy access.

This paper aims to investigate how external debt influences selected socio-economic variables in a sample of the five biggest emerging nations of the world, i.e., the BRICS block from 1996 to 2020. The data was found to have cross-sectional dependence, which was addressed by using second-generation unit root tests of CIPS and CADF. Cross-sectional dependence was further effectively addressed using the techniques of FMOLS. The study uses the ARDL models to achieve the desired objective. Dumitrescu Hurlin’s (DH) panel causality analysis was adopted to analyze the variables' causality. The study found that, in the long run, External Debt has a positive impact on Unemployment and Life Expectancy while it has a negative impact on Net National Income. The results are also consistent in the short run, except in the case of unemployment, which has been shown to reduce with an increase in the external debt component of the country.

Energy poverty is one of the major deprivations that has direct effect on the well-being of a household at micro level. At macro level, it also has significant effect and hinders the sustainable development of a nation. The binary measurement, commonly used to identify the energy poor population, has major drawbacks as it only takes accessibility of the services into consideration, whereas, in the contemporary period more emphasis should be on the affordability, quality, reliability and legal implications of energy services. The present study, therefore, tries to estimate the energy poverty condition by following a multi-dimensional approach and also tries to identify the actual energy poor by analysing the spatial disparity prevalent in the state of Odisha. A multidimensional framework is used to capture different aspects of energy provisioning at household level and an energy poverty index is constructed by assigning equal weights for the parameters. Spatial disparity is measured by considering proxies for the social parameters and following Gini’s coefficient of disparity measurement. The results indicated persistence of disparity in energy poverty at regional, inter and intra-district levels.

While India’s low female labor force participation in urban areas is often attributed to its demographic and labor market characteristics, education, and cultural aspects, attention is not paid to the labor market opportunity structure limiting women’s labor market participation. We examine the role of transport infrastructure in gender-gap in labor force participation and its variations by gender-norms across communities. Using India Human Development Survey and city-level data on transport infrastructure, the causal effects of differential employment status of women and men are related to size and quality of transport in twelve Indian cities. Interaction effects are explored to understand varying impacts of transport on employment by gender-context in communities. We find that an improvement in the size and quality of transportation infrastructure improves women’s labor market participation more than that of men. In gender egalitarian communities, stronger positive effect of transport on female labor and reduction of gender gap in employment. Along with generation of new job opportunities suitable for women, it is important to encourage a gender-friendly institutional and social fabric to allow women to connect to new jobs. Using a novel data, the paper highlights the importance of ostensibly gender-neutral development policies for shaping gender inequalities in outcomes.

Alcohol consumption among women in India is a complicated phenomenon driven by several determining variables and demonstrating clear regional patterns throughout the country. The study examines district-level disparities in women's alcohol prevalence (WAP) in India using recent NFHS-5 data from 2021. This study used exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) techniques like local Moran’s I statistics and bivariate local indicators of spatial association (BiLISA) to illustrate spatial patterns of the specified variables and pinpoint probable lagging regions. Besides, global models such as ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag models (SLM), and spatial error models (SEM) were used to grasp an overview of explanatory factors and alcohol prevalence at global levels. Further, geographically weighted regression (GWR) was employed locally to capture the determinants' spatial fluctuations. The results indicate significant clustering patterns among the predictors exhibiting the existence of spatial autocorrelation. The analysis also reveals that marginalized populations contribute to higher alcohol consumption among women, as evidenced by the clustering patterns. The study highlights the spatial disparities and factors influencing WAP in India, providing insights for targeted interventions and policy-making at the local level.

Evaluation studies focus exclusively on the impact of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP) on the functioning of the labor market. In particular, they measure the impact of specific programs on the income and future of target groups. Studies that aim to assess the impact of ALMPs as a whole on the overall performance of the labor market remain quite rare. Evaluation studies do not focus on the design and implementation of ALMPs. Little is known about the factors behind the failure or success of ALMPs. This paper addresses this problem by examining how a factor relating to the instability of ALMP and their associated budgetary allocations leads to ineffective ALMPs in a regional context. Based on dynamic panel regression models for a sample of 24 governorates in Tunisia grouped into 7 regions. over the period from 2005 to 2015, we found that ALMPs are effective in reducing the unemployment rate. In addition, by testing the moderating effect of the instability of ALMPs, we show that this instability is very harmful insofar as the link between ALMPs and the unemployment rate is attenuated.

The majority of flooding in cities occurs while raining because of the cities' uncontrolled growth of population and their pattern of settlements, haphazardly sprawling urbanization, their inadequate and faulty drainage, and also due to absence of scientific waste management. A proper example of these factors playing together might be in the town of Bardhhaman, the only Class-I town in the District of East Bardhhaman, living with both the River Banka in the North-Central section and the River Damodar in the Southern part. But the town gets often partially water stagnated not due to these rivers flooding, rather turning one of the rivers (Banka) in to a dump yard along with other drainage networks. And this scenario is being continuously worsened by the citizens who were supposed to things make better. The methodology chosen for the study includes semi-structured interviews, focused group discussions (FGD), and observational analyses during the field with respondents. The nine groups of citizens and two groups of Municipal workers from varied parts of the Municipality were selected based on certain demographic and socio-economic criteria but the incidents of water inundation of the citizens played an important role while sorting the groups. These outcomes of the interactions have been put for a thematic analysis using QDA Miner Lite 4.0 (14 day trial version) and plotted in PAST 4.03(shareware) and MS- Excel (2017) for graphical representations. This article seeks an improved comprehension of the flooding scenario from the perspective of individuals, and so argues for a shift in the Municipal Authority's and citizens' conceptions. During the survey, the discrepancy between the municipality's policy framework and the actual reality became clear--this is where a decentralized method of policies thought to appear as essential. So, this paper would portray the scenario of urban flooding keeping community in the center of discussion.

This paper aims to investigate the drivers of inequality of opportunity in health outcome among children below 5 years of age, using the Tunisian 2018 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. This study adopts the general entropy measures to examine the pattern of child health inequality. The results of the anthropometric measures show that 1.5% of children in Tunisia are underweight, 8.3% are stunting and 2.1% are wasting. The results of generalized entropy measures indicate that the general disparity in child health is low across demographic characteristics. Inequality of opportunity in Tunisia is particularly high in access to health services between regions. The results also show that geographical location, parental education and wealth are the main factors contributing to inequality of opportunity in child health outcome. On the basis of the results, this research suggests several policy recommendations.

This study employed an innovative spatial econometrics approach to analyze the spillover effects of foreign public debt and foreign direct investment (FDI) on regional economic growth dynamics of Eastern Africa. Specifically, we utilize Spatial Durbin Fixed Effect (SDM-FE) Model, drawing on balanced panel data from the World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 1992–2019. This study contributes by utilizing a spatial weight matrix and investigating its interactions with economic growth and various other macro-regional factors, thereby unveiling the presence of spatial spillover effects and the impact of geographical proximity of countries within the region. Our results indicate that foreign public debt, FDI, gross fixed capital formation, human capital development, inflation, and government expenditure, significantly have spatial spillover effects on regional economic growth. Additionally, the results underscore the presence of regional growth divergence and provide further evidence of substantial regional spatial dependence in economic growth. Based on these outcomes, it is evident that foreign public debt has a negative impact on economic growth, which is consistent with the debt overhang theory and the crowding-out hypothesis. Moreover, the foreign public debt and regional growth policies should be devised considering the geographical interconnectedness between countries in the region, as the research output has revealed the impacts of growth and debt spillovers among the countries studied. Policies that prioritize these objectives would promote long-term regional economic growth and prevent the effects of excessive foreign public debt by creating a favorable macroeconomic climate.