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This article investigates the moderation effect of human capital formation on the relationship between economic growth and selected significant indicators of environmental degradation. Panel data for 115 countries for the period 1990 – 2016 were collected from World Development Indicators (2018). The Human Development Index (HDI) is employed as a proxy for human capital formation in investigating the growth-environmental pollution nexus. The study employs structural equation modelling (SEM) hypothesis testing with multiple variables and complex causal relationships. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to assess the reliability and validity analysis in the measurement model. Results reveal that HDI interaction with GDP degrades the quality of environment while its interaction effect with GDP2 mitigates varied selected emissions for upper-middle and high income countries, all of which show concurrence with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Moreover, interaction effect of HDI reduces both CH4 and PM2.5 emissions in low income countries. Findings provide evidence of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH) that GDP and GDP2 growth emit a significant amount of CO2 in low- and lower-middle income countries, highlighting contradictory results with an HDI interaction. The results give rise to several policy implications, all of which point to a need for concerted efforts in implementing prudent economic development initiatives that mitigate environmental degradation. Also, the study pinpoints the need for a serious consideration of placing a global focus on the "education for sustainability" (EfS) principle in consumption and production activities and, accordingly, incorporating SD into national curricula to reap larger benefits of human capital formation in the growth-environment nexus.

"To properly understand the nature of the digital economy we need to investigate the phenomenon of a "ubiquitous computing system" (UCS). As defined by Robin Milner, this notion implies the following characteristics: (i) it will continually make decisions hitherto made by us; (ii) it will be vast, maybe 100 times today's systems; (iii) it must continually adapt, on-line, to new requirements; and, (iv) individual UCSs will interact with one another. This book argues that neoclassical approaches to modelling economic behaviour based on optimal control by "representative-agents" are ill-suited to a world typified by concurrency, decentralized control, and interaction. To this end, it argues for the development of new, process-based approaches to analysis, modelling and simulation. The book provides the context--both philosophical and mathematical--for the construction and application of new, rigorous, and meaningful analytical tools. In terms of social theory, it adopts a Post-Cognitivist approach, the elements of which include the nature philosophy of Schelling, Marx's critique of political economy, Peircean Pragmatism, Whitehead's process philosophy, and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the flesh, along with cognitive scientific notions of embodied cognition and neural Darwinism, as well as more questionable notions of artificial intelligence that are encompassed by the rubric of "perception-and-action-without-intelligence""--

"Pakistan's economy is currently semi-industrialized, but it has the high potential for prosperity in the 21st century. The focus of this book is on industrial infrastructures of production and circulation, from power distribution and roads to dry ports and airports. It looks at how these infrastructures underpin visions of progress and mediate relations between the state and capitalist firms in export-oriented industrial and industrializing districts in Punjab, Pakistan. Infrastructure Redux explores infrastructure's affect in two ways: (1) by examining the impact of poor infrastructure on different sized firms in diverse export-oriented industries, and (2) by analyzing the conditions through which the workings of infrastructure, its disruptions and facilitations, bring to the fore struggles to reshape modern industrial life in contemporary Pakistan. The author argues that in the present conjuncture of an infrastructure crisis the apparent absence of the state in the planning and provision of industrial infrastructure is somewhat deceptive. Although the state is not absent, its presence is re-configured through a variety of firm-led infrastructural initiatives. Furthermore, the strategies of capitalist firms operate within a moral economy in which a pervasive narrative of national moral decline and uncertainty explains the disintegration of a specific type of public infrastructure: electricity. This study will appeal to students, scholars and researchers interested in industrialization and globalization"--

Under the ca. 15 years of doi moi (renovation) policy, Vietnam's development has been taking place in the two different but overlapping contexts of transformation and swift economic development. These contexts correspond to two different scenarios for the country's future: One scenario of transformation is the Eastern European pattern; the other is the Tiger Scenario, with increasing industrialisation and rapid economic growth. The research and development (R&D) potential created during the period of planned economy could assume a key role in these processes. In the 1990s the R&D system was restructured, with the aim of solving the financial problems that had arisen during transformation, while at the same time seeking to better achieve a functional integration of R&D into innovation processes in the economy. A joint research project carried out by the 'Working Group Transformation of Science Systems (WZB) and the NISTPASS, Hanoi conducted macrostructural research and in-depth case studies in selected industrial sectors and R&D institutions to clarify how this is taking place, which organisational forms are created by it, and how the new structures affect the functions of R&D. This report presents the results of this research. The impact of doi moi policy in the area of S&T must be described as ambiguous: There is an incongruity between successful structural changes and their functional effects, in particular regarding increased innovation activities - which have so far not or only partially been achieved. Some serious problems in the science system, in industrial enterprises as targets of innovations and in infrastructural prerequisites for innovation diminish Vietnam's current and future potential to utilise R&D for economic growth and social welfare. ; Die Entwicklung Vietnams verläuft seit etwa 15 Jahren unter der doi moi (Erneuerungs-) Politik in zwei verschiedenen, einander überlagernden Kontexten der Transformation und der raschen Wirtschaftsentwicklung. Diesen beiden Kontexten entsprechen unterschiedliche Szenarien für die künftige Entwicklung: Ein Transformationsszenario nach osteuropäischem Muster und ein 'Tigerszenario' mit zunehmender Industrialisierung und einem raschen Wirtschaftswachstum. Dem in der planwirtschaftlichen Periode geschaffenen Forschungs- und Entwicklungs- (FuE) Potential könnte eine Schlüsselrolle in der künftigen Entwicklung zukommen. In den 90er Jahren erfolgte eine Umstrukturierung des FuE-Systems, die das Ziel verfolgt, die im Zusammenhang mit der Transformation entstandenen Finanzierungsprobleme zu lösen und gleichzeitig seine funktionelle Einbindung in das Innovationsgeschehen in der Wirtschaft zu erreichen. Wie dies geschieht, welche Organisationsformen dabei entstehen und wie die neuen Strukturen die Funktionen der FuE beeinflussen, wurde durch ein gemeinsames Projekt der Arbeitsgruppe Wissenschaftstransformation des WZB und des NISTPASS untersucht. In diesem Heft werden Ergebnisse dieses Projekts vorgestellt. Die Auswirkungen der doi moi Politik auf Wissenschaft und Technik müssen als zwiespältig charakterisiert werden: Es gibt ein Missverhältnis zwischen erfolgreichen Strukturveränderungen und deren funktionellen Auswirkungen, insbesondere hinsichtlich verstärkter Innovationsaktivitäten, die bisher nicht oder nur teilweise erreicht worden sind. Einige ernsthafte Probleme innerhalb der Wissenschaft, in den Industriebetrieben, die Ziel der Innovationen sind, und in der relevanten Infrastruktur vermindern Vietnams aktuelle wie künftige Möglichkeiten, FuE für Wirtschaftswachstum und Wohlstand nutzbar zu machen.

This paper presents the results of a case study of one informal settlement in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, subject to titling under Systematic Land Registration (SLR) since 2009. The paper discusses the complexities around land titling programs in securing land tenure security and the well-being of urban poor residents in environments of political instability and rapid rates of economic and urban growth. The findings show that title and private ownership do not automatically guarantee security of tenure and the well-being of urban poor citizens, and, without careful consideration of social and political dimensions, power inequality, and the impacts of land and housing financialization in cities, land administration systems can make the urban poor vulnerable to state and market-driven displacement. Based on these findings, the paper proposes policy recommendations and additional steps to complement land titling programs for more effective implementation and outcomes in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings of the research constitute part of a PhD project that an Australian Postgraduate Award and a grant from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland funded, which used social research methods to collect data in Phnom Penh in 2016.

The study of the determinants of entrepreneurship at the country level has been dominated by economic influences. The relative stability of differences in levels of entrepreneurship across coun-tries suggests that other forces such as certain institutional and/or cultural factors are at play. The objective of this paper is to explore how post-materialism explains differences in entrepreneurial activity across countries. Entrepreneurial activity is defined as the percent of a country?s popula-tion that is self-employed, using a broad definition that also includes CEOs of both unincorporated and legally incorporated establishments. The measure for post-materialism is based upon Ingle-hart?s four-item post-materialism index. Because of the known interactions between economic and cultural factors found in previous research, a set of economic and cultural factors is included to provide a clearer picture of the independent role post-materialism plays in prediction of self-employment levels. In particular, education, life satisfaction, church attendance and political (left or right) extremism are used as control variables in our analyses using data of 14 OECD countries over in recent period. Findings confirm the significance of post-materialism in predicting self-employment even when controlling for economic and cultural factors. However, strong covariation between post-materialism and other cultural factors makes it difficult to clearly discriminate be-tween the effects.

This open access handbook, Ten Crises systematically traces the economic history of China from 1949 to 2020, unravelling the complex domestic and global factors leading to the cyclical crises identified by WEN and his research team, and examining the corresponding counteracting policies and measures by the government to resolve or defer the crises. The book offers profound insights into China's endeavours and predicaments on the path of modernization, and contemplates opportunities and lessons for the forging of alternative trajectories not only for China but also for the global south: to reconstruct rural communities for integrated cooperation and governance, and to revitalize ecological civilization.