ASSESSMENT OF TRIP EXPERIENCE FROM CHINESE TOURISTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON INDONESIA TOURISM

With China's rapid economic growth and improved standard of living, travel and tourism are increasingly becoming the first choices for vacation activities. The purpose of this research is to assess the trip experience on destination loyalty through tourist satisfaction of Chinese tourists who visited Indonesia tourism. The quantitative research method was used and the primary data collected using questionnaire to 158 respondents of Chinese tourists who visited Indonesia analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The study indicates that 6 of the 7 hypotheses are accepted. As a result, accommodation mediated by tourist satisfaction has no significant effect on destination loyalty. The impact of trip experience on destination loyalty mediated by tourist satisfaction accounted for 64.4 percent. This study demonstrates how Chinese tourists evaluate their trip experiences of Indonesia tourism. Transportation was discovered to have the greatest impact, whereas need to be improved in order to create destination loyalty.

Assessment of the Trend and Development of Regional Economy in Central Asia

Assessment the trend of regional economic development is significant to address the economic situation and developmental policy. This study assesses the regional economic development in Central Asia since 1992. Several developmental indicators were applied. The results demonstrated that the regional economy was gradually growing. Relatively, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan enjoyed a rapid economic growth. Production of oil increased in Kazakhstan as exporting rose to China whereas declined in Uzbekistan – shifted to natural gas. Central Asia is moving gradually toward industrial and trade economic sector. Nevertheless, enormous natural resources were exported from Central Asia to China and Russia, and strong economic relationship was established with Europe, India and Algeria. Therefore, this research is significant for general understanding in economic growth of Central Asia, and it may be helpful for further studies.

Green Transition of Iron Cities: A Comparative Case Study of Kitakyushu and Pohang

This comparative case study explores why two cities similar in socio-economic factors diverge in their pathways to environmental improvement. Our research looks at the changing local economies and environmental pollution problems facing Kitakyushu in Japan and Pohang in South Korea. Both cities drove their nations’ rapid economic growth as the main heavy industry hubs but have performed radically differently vis-à-vis public demands for environmental improvement despite sharing much in common. Employing the advocacy coalition framework as a main analytical tool, we examine the unfolding of policy efforts to turn a manufacturing-oriented industrial city into a “greener” city responding to environmental objectives and the respective outcomes. The research reveals that variations in regulatory decentralization, external events and coalition opportunity structures largely explain the observed discrepancy in green transition between the two settings. Our findings contribute to expanding scarce case study literature illustrating the mechanisms that can underpin environmental improvements in cities that have served as the location of heavy industries and offer suggestions for advancing them.

A microgrid for the secluded Paana Theertham Kani settlement in India

Recognizing the importance of electricity as a driver of rapid economic growth and poverty alleviation, India aims to provide access to all households by 2030. Despite the best efforts of state and federal governments to meet consumers’ electrical needs, budget constraints, inefficient operations and massive loan burdens have hampered their efforts. Aside from these concerns, rural India, which accounts for 65% of the population, is plagued by a slew of issues, including low electricity demand, a low load factor and the expectation of cheap electricity. These concerns bind the authorities’ hands, preventing them from moving forward. As a result, this project aims to model an autonomous microgrid system that integrates three potential renewable-energy systems, namely wind, sun and hydrokinetic, to provide electricity for a remote society. It starts with assessing the region’s electricity needs with its inhabitants. The HOMER Pro platform creates a cost-effective microgrid based on the demand estimate. The components of the microgrid include 6.4-kW small wind turbine (SWT) groups, 4.4-kW solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, a 5-kW hydrokinetic water turbine, battery storage and a converter. The project is unique in that it considers site-specific initial capital costs, replacement costs, and operation and maintenance costs of the renewable-energy systems, and it does not include any environmentally hazardous energy system. The successful optimization results in terms of levelized energy costs are $0.0538, $0.0614 and $0.0427/kWh for wind, solar and hydrokinetic components, respectively, without any environmental issues.

Official Tenure, Fiscal Capacity, and PPP Withdrawal of Local Governments: Evidence from China’s PPP Project Platform

PPP withdrawal policy is helpful to reduce over-investment in PPPs leading to sustainable development. However, little is known about the role of local governments on over-investment in PPPs. Using the PPP Project Platform Data, a unique dataset, this article is able to quantify over-investment in PPPs by coding PPP withdrawal for the first time. This research tests the influencing factors of PPP withdrawal at the municipal level, according to the centralized withdrawal policy in late 2017 as an exogenous treatment. Based on the theory of over-investment to rapid economic growth, this study develops a two-pillar framework under the combination of political man and economic man assumptions to explain the PPP withdrawal of local governments. The results show that both official tenure and fiscal capacity are significant factors. In addition, debt partially mediates the mayor tenure on PPP withdrawal, and the land revenue growth can hinder the negative relationship between mayor tenure and PPP withdrawal. It implies that over-investment in PPPs is strongly influenced by official leaders’ personal promotion incentive and official group members’ collective benefit. Thus, our findings indicate that the centralized withdrawal policy is an effective instrument to prevent over-investment in PPPs. Moreover, a match should be formed between local development planning and investment plans to promote sustainable of PPP investment.

Influence of Financialization of Heavily Polluting Enterprises on Technological Innovation under the Background of Environmental Pollution Control

In the wake of the acceleration of China’s industrialization and rapid economic growth, environmental pollution has also attracted great attention. The technological innovation of heavily polluting enterprises is conducive to reducing pollution emissions and promoting environmental health. The financial investment tendency and behavior of real enterprises have a significant impact on the technological innovation decision-making of enterprises. A panel model is used in this paper in order to empirically test the impact of financialization of Chinese heavily polluting enterprises on technological innovation based on the data of Listed Companies in Chinese heavily polluting industries from 2008 to 2019. The + results show that the financialization of heavily polluting enterprises has a significant crowding out effect on technological innovation. After introducing arbitrage motivation as the regulating variable, further research finds that arbitrage motivation weakens the inhibitory effect of enterprise financialization on technological innovation, that is, the stronger the arbitrage motivation, the smaller the negative effect of financialization on enterprise technological innovation, which weakens this crowding out effect. Finally, the listed enterprises in heavily polluting industries are divided into state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises according to their corporate attributes. Compared with state-owned enterprises, the financialization of non-state-owned enterprises has a greater squeeze out of technological innovation; and arbitrage motivation has a more significant regulatory effect on the impact of enterprise financialization on technological innovation.

The wage effects of overeducation across overall wage distribution on university graduates: incidence, heterogeneity and comparison

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the extent to which overeducation imposes wage effects on university graduates, taking into account the individual heterogeneity due to skills and innate ability.Design/methodology/approachUsing Graduates Occupation and Mobility Survey (GOMS) 2019 and Korea Dictionary of Occupations (KDOT) 2019, the overeducated and adequately educated graduates are differentiated by the job analysis (JA) measure. To unveil the masked results, the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) accompanying skills and field of study mismatches is adopted to explore the wage effects of overeducation across the overall wage distribution.FindingsEmpirical evidence shows that the incidence of overeducation is high; however, overeducated graduates only suffer a 6.5% wage loss relative to their adequately matched peers. The findings indicate that regardless of being derived from either overskilled or field of study mismatch, genuine overeducation impose a higher wage penalty at all percentiles relative to the apparent overeducation. Meanwhile, high-ability men suffer lower-wage penalties than their low-ability peers, whereas the inverted “U” pattern is exhibited for women. The theoretical hypotheses differ depending on the estimated results by gender.Research limitations/implicationsEach measure of educational mismatch has been criticized for its insurmountable shortcoming. The recent graduates are likely to overstate the job requires of skills.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the insufficient evidence on the multiple aspects of wage effects of overeducation by providing new and rigorous examinations and by focusing on the country experiencing rapid economic growth, industrial upgrading and educational expansion.

Governed by Opportunity

<p>Singapore is known as an advanced industrialising city-state with the aspiration to be a global city in the international economy (Yuen, 2005). With the rapid economic growth; the country’s population has been increasing alongside the high demand of: housing, commercial areas, industries, transport and infrastructure (Yuen, 2005). Having an area of only 720km², the country is forced to optimise their land by building vertically and closely together. Consequently, older buildings, activities and traditions are more prone to vanishing despite their cultural and historical significance. The loss of tangible and intangible heritage results in a highly modern country that is becoming more international in scale and style but evermore faceless and lacking in cultural identity (Yuen, 2005). The aim of this research investigation is to explore how the traditional trades can be conserved and integrated with the present and future development of Singapore. Through interviews and observations conducted in field research, it will provide a better understanding of the community and government’s point of interest. This will develop social cohesion to promote a sense of belonging and identity in this metropolitan city. The design outcome of this research investigation will be an integration of the Sungei Road Market and the future development of the Singapore Johore-Express Bus Terminal.</p>

Diversification and Industrialization in the Economic Development of Turkmenistan

In the early stages of its transition, Turkmenistan pursued a gradualist path. Diversification, industrialization, and market-based reforms led to very rapid economic growth particularly since the late 2000s. This article investigates the role of Turkmenistan’s economic development policy in diversifying industries and promoting the manufacturing sector. The government has diversified the destinations for the natural gas exports. Although its agriculture had been characterized as cotton monoculture, the share of wheat has risen since the 1990s. The textile industry has led the manufacturing sector, and other industries are not well developed. The government has successfully attracted foreign direct investment. Turkmenistan’s trade policy has contributed to supplying machines for manufactured products, although it might have been harmful to the early-stage development of the manufacturing sector. Turkmenistan, which is not a member of the WTO, may actively utilize its policy space to promote technology-intensive industries and must strengthen its level of human capital.

Comprehensive evaluation of the water environment carrying capacity of a river basin: a case study of the Weihe River Basin in China

By combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and system dynamics (SD) models, a compound index system is established for simulating and evaluating the water environment carrying capacity (WECC) of the Weihe River Basin. The development tendencies of the population, economy, water resource demand and supply, water environment, water pollution, and water management were obtained from 2005 to 2040 by applying the five scenarios designed in this study. The results indicate that the comprehensive solution scenario was the optimal scenario, and the WECC would upgrade from a ‘general’ status to a ‘good’ status. Moreover, the blind pursuit of rapid economic growth is inadvisable, and it will compromise the sustainability of the river basin area. The river basin area should divert local development modes toward increased sustainability, emphasizing the coordinated development of society, the economy, and the environment.