Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies最新文献

This research examined the connection between Bitcoin, the prominent and extensively mined cryptocurrency, and CO₂ emissions using the SVAR model. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia, the three main countries in the Caspian Basin that are the centre of cryptocurrency mining, were examined in terms of their primary industries. The variance decomposition analysis indicated that the Bitcoin price had the most significant explanatory role in CO₂ emissions released by Oil and Natural Gas industry in Azerbaijan. When it comes to the CO₂ emissions that were emitted by the Petroleum Refining-Manufacture of Solid Fuels and Other Energy industry, as well as Manufacturing Industries and Construction, the Bitcoin price had the most important effect in Kazakhstan. There was a significant contribution made by Bitcoin to the CO₂ emissions that were emitted by the Manufacturing Industries and Construction in Russia. The impulse response functions illustrated a strong association between Bitcoin and CO₂ emissions. However, in contrast to existing research, this relationship was found to be negative. The increase in energy usage during Bitcoin price falls can be attributed to the need to compensate for losses, particularly in the mining process. To diminish this connection, the dependence of the cryptocurrency on fossil fuels must be minimised.

This study explores the linkages between gender and rural transformation in Indonesia. Utilising time-series data from the National Labour Force Survey from 32 provinces in three different years (2010, 2015, and 2020), we analysed the linkages between rural transformation and gender-related variables such as womenʼs access to healthcare, education, and technology, gendered income gaps, and womenʼs engagement in agriculture. The results reveal that enhancing education and healthcare accessibility for women can significantly boost their earnings. Basic infrastructure, such as electricity and clean water, is also critical in driving non-agricultural GDP growth. The findings also show that involving women in rural non-farm labour is essential for rural transformation, suggesting that policies must focus on gender equality in education, healthcare, and infrastructure access to accelerate economic diversification. Further action is also needed to overcome ongoing gender disparities in womenʼs economic empowerment, such as the prevailing substantial gendered income gap between men and women in rural areas in Indonesia.

To make progress on decarbonisation, a large number and variety of stakeholders need to be engaged. In this Policy Forum, we assess the participation of different types of ASEAN actors in major international initiatives for climate action. We build a database of 335 international climate initiatives and find that ASEAN is underrepresented. Especially ASEAN municipalities are absent, whereas ASEAN national governments and companies are well represented. We also find that ASEAN actors participate more frequently in initiatives that facilitate political dialogue and less in those that fulfil concrete purposes. Only three out of 335 climate initiatives are headquartered in ASEAN countries, suggesting a paucity of international climate leadership by ASEAN actors. Finally, we find that actors from the different ASEAN countries often do not participate in the same initiatives, reducing the possibility of acting as a unified bloc.

Extensive research has shown that transition economies often experience internal friction, conflicts, and institutional fragility when different institutional dimensions evolve at an uneven pace. However, limited knowledge exists regarding how institutional fragility specifically affects entrepreneurial activities. This study develops a theoretical framework that integrates institutional theory and public choice theory to examine the impact of institutional fragility on entrepreneurship, considering both institutional costs and government intervention. Our findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between institutional fragility and entrepreneurial activity in China. Furthermore, we find that regional guanxi culture—a key informal institution in China—mitigates this relationship. Overall, this study provides a novel perspective on institutional fragility, offering new insights into how the institutional environment shapes entrepreneurial activity in China.

The local government wields substantial influence over inter-jurisdictional interactions in China, underscoring the imperative of governmental analysis pertaining to intercity collaborative innovation. Based on co-patent data from 21 prefectural cities in Guangdong province, this study investigates the effects of intergovernmental networks on intercity collaborative innovation, with a specific focus on the different impacts of top-down designed and self-organised networks. The findings indicate that both the designed and self-organised intergovernmental networks can promote intercity collaborations regarding innovation. Furthermore, although geographical distance continues to pose a significant barrier to collaborative patents, it has been mitigated by the establishment of intergovernmental networks. This substitution effect is most evident for the networks established through intercity site visits and policy learning. Further analyses indicate that intergovernmental networks have more pronounced impacts on intra-industrial co-inventions, primarily resulting from the networking of self-organised intercity relationships and interactions between developed city-pairs.

Despite rapid technological advancements and rural transformation in many Asian agricultural economies, persistent sociocultural norms, patriarchal barriers, and limited access to funding pose significant challenges to rural womenʼs participation in agricultural development. However, studies addressing gender disparities in this context are absent in Pakistan, highlighting a critical research gap. The present address this gap by conducting an analysis based on 78 districts over the period 2004 to 2019 to investigate whether gender inclusion has any role in the rural transformation process at the regional level or not. Using fixed effects panel model, findings highlight the role of educated women in advancing rural transformation. These impacts vary in magnitude across regions and stages. Education is significantly related to share of high-value crops in agriculture, especially in districts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the impact is more pronounced compared to Baluchistan. However, education does not significantly increase female off-farm employment in Punjab compared to Baluchistan, likely due to regional heterogeneity. In Sindh, increased female education correlates with a shift from farm to off-farm employment. Additionally, female employment rate, female labour force participation rate, and per capita income positively influence rural transformation, especially at advanced stages.

This study uses data from Statistics Indonesia for 2010 and 2020 to analyse the correlation between gender and agricultural transformation. It employs descriptive statistics to explore the transformation from food crops to high-value commodities, womenʼs roles in on-farm and non-farm sectors, womenʼs working hours and wages, and rural household income. The findings reveal a complex dynamic. While womenʼs participation in the workforce has increased across Indonesia, their roles in the agricultural sector remain multifaceted. Furthermore, the shift towards high-value commodities presents both challenges and opportunities for women. Although it may lead to increased workloads and marginalisation, it may also offer new income-generating opportunities and opportunities for greater empowerment. This study addresses a critical research gap by examining womenʼs specific experiences and contributions in the transition from food crops to high-value commodities and their role in the shift from agricultural to non-agricultural livelihoods, which remain understudied in the context of Indonesiaʼs agricultural transformation. It emphasises the importance of policies that address gender inequality and empower women to fully participate in and benefit from rural development initiatives.

Motivated by global environmental challenges, China introduced a green credit policy to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This study examines the regional effects of the green credit policy using a difference-in-differences model. The results reveal significant local and regional carbon emissions reduction effects, along with negative outcomes for exports. The mediating analysis reveals that green credit policy drives regional decarbonisation by fostering green innovation. The internal firm characteristics (geographic location and ownership) and the external environment (financial technology development and government service capability) significantly moderate the policy’s impact. Additionally, the green credit policy has local and regional employment reduction effects. Green innovations mediate the reduction in employment, whereas a shift in labour from SOEs to low-pollution nonSOEs occurs.

The rise of global agricultural value chains presents both opportunities and challenges for rural transformation and economic development. In this regard, we propose that the expansion of the service sector in developing countries significantly influences the development of agricultural value chain, promoting wealth creation. We posit that when global value chains in agriculture are used to interpret rural transformation, the crucial function of services is often underemphasised. We construct an interaction term between the productivity dynamics in services and the evolution of global value chain (GVC) over time. The key finding suggests that the coevolution of service sector development and participation in GVC strongly correlates with increases in agricultural sector productivity. The analysis highlights the importance of considering the stage of development and the specific service subsectors when examining the relationship between services, GVC and rural transformation. We propose that enhancing the institutional environment, particularly with respect to contracts within such value chains, enables a larger role for domestic actors in capturing this value.

This paper contributes a new paradigm for international agricultural development research. It uses machine learning techniques to aid expert diagnosis of development problems in conjunction with New Structural Economics (NSE) to analyse and design policies to enable effective rural transformation. It conducts a multi-country, multi-regional, multi-level and multi-dimensional analysis in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan to identify stage segmentations of rural transformation and examine stagewise associate policies and applicable learnings across each dimension. By presenting structured stages of rural transformation, we provide guidance on designing dynamic comparative-advantage-adapting policies that are able to adapt at each stage. This analytical procedure can serve other relevant agricultural development studies.