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Several countries nowadays and in the past face a birth rates below replacement level. To what extent should the fertility of this shrinking population be increased during a given planning period such that it approaches stationarity at the end as close as possible? Both immediate adaptation to the replacement level as well as delaying it to the end of the planning period are suboptimal. Distributed parameter optimal control theory provides an appropriate tool to ascertain the efficient intertemporal trade-off between costly birth control and zero population growth. It turns out that the optimal adaptation rate of the net reproduction rate (NRR) balances between unacceptable adjustment costs for fertility and huge deviations of the terminal age composition from the desired stationary one. The optimal adaptation rate is monotonically increasing with a curvature that depends on the growth rates of the NRR, the fertile population, and the value of newborns.

Moving from a Defined Benefit (DB) to a Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) pension formula creates significant re-distributive effects. We estimate the amount and the intensity of these effects in the case of the Italian transition to NDC, which began in 1995. Based on administrative data of the main Italian pension scheme (FPLD), we study the evolution of yearly inequality within old-age pension benefits. Furthermore, we study the adequacy and the actuarial fairness of the pension system, by estimating the replacement rates and the Net Present Value Ratio distribution for workers who retired in the period 1996–2019. Our results show that the very generous interpretation of acquired rights determined by the 1995 reform has contributed to maintaining a high level of adequacy and a significant level of intergenerational imbalance. The financial costs of this imbalance are estimated and its extent is significant.

Recent studies have argued that regional diversification emerges as a path-dependent process. Developed countries that industrialize do so first from core areas in an uneven industry space and have more opportunities to jump to new related industries and sustain economic growth than do developing countries that jump from peripheral areas. Can developing countries/regions jump further to break these path-dependent trajectories? Based on China’s export data, we show that regions can make such a jump by investing in extra-regional linkages and internal innovation. The effects of these two sets of variables vary across regions and industries.

Green technology transfer can help narrow the regional differences in green innovation, thereby contributing to a more coordinated green development. This study uses the social network analysis approach to explore the characteristics and regional differences in green technology diffusion in mainland China from 1985 to 2021. A unique dataset of patent transactions was used to construct green technology transfer networks. The findings demonstrate that energy-related technologies had the highest demand in the market. In addition, private sectors, especially multinational enterprises, were the most active network entities, whereas universities played a limited role in diffusion. Moreover, green patent transactions were highly localized and presented regional disparities. Resource-based regions with high pollution had lower green technology flows and formed a path dependence, whereas a few developed regions served as influential spreaders. The network exhibited a core-periphery pattern and dis-assortativity, thus creating a Matthew effect and widening the regional gaps. The absorbers and beginners tended to form connections with bilateral spillover, while peripheral provinces faced delinked risks. These findings help us understand the regional disparities and diffusion patterns of green technologies in China, thus accelerating the diffusion of green technologies.

Leveraging the use of history to advance international business research, this article focuses on the crucial debate over intellectual property rights (IPR) between the United States and China. Ironically, during the 19th century the United States was not a leading IPR advocate as it is today, but was a leading IPR violator. Developing an institution-based view of IPR history, we identify three underlying theoretical mechanisms that help to explain IPR in the two countries - path dependence, long-term processes, and institutional transitions. We argue that both the US refusal to protect foreign IPR in the 19th century and the current Chinese lack of enthusiasm to meet US IPR demands embody rational responses to their respective situations. However, given long-term processes with intensifying ¡somorphic pressures, institutional transitions in favor of better IPR protection are quite possible. Finally, going above and beyond these two countries, we draw on the IPR history in over ten other countries to develop a more globally generalizable framework, which in turn contributes to the key question of how history matters.

Where and how new industrial paths emerge are much debated questions in economic geography, especially in light of the recent evolutionary turn. This article contributes to the ongoing debate on path creation with a new analytical framework that specifies the formation of generic resources in embryonic industries. It suggests that path creation processes are not only conditioned by preexisting regional capabilities and technological relatedness but also by the way firm and nonfirm actors mobilize and anchor key resources for industry formation. Our framework elaborates on the early industry development phase, extending the focus on regional knowledge spillovers in evolutionary economic geography (EEG) literature with recent insights on industry formation dynamics from innovation studies. It understands early path creation as conditioned by four systemic resource formation processes-knowledge creation, investment mobilization, market formation, and technology legitimation-that can be mobilized both from inside or anchored from outside the region. The use and value of the analytical framework is illustrated by a case study on on-site water recycling technology (OST), based on interviews with 40 experts in three Chinese city regions. The findings suggest that, despite possessing the least favorable initial conditions, a sizable OST industry developed only in Beijing. This is explained based on the specific anchoring process of the four key resources in the early development stage of the industry. Our results imply that EEG would profit from incorporating a broader set of variables than knowledge-based relatedness in explanations of regional industrial path creation.

We show how the initial subnational entry location of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China influences their subsequent within-country location choices and expansion speed. We distinguish between MNEs that establish their first subsidiary in co-ethnic cores – dense agglomerations of other firms from the same country of origin – and MNEs that locate their first subsidiary in the periphery, i.e., outside of these co-ethnic cores. To identify co-ethnic cores in China, we employ a geo-visualization methodology, which draws the boundaries of cores organically and dynamically over time. We contrast our findings with the prevailing approach of using static administrative boundaries for identifying agglomerations. Our results provide evidence of path dependency, in that (a) entry through subnational locations with strong co-ethnic communities is followed by expansion into other locations where co-ethnic communities are present, and that (b) entry through co-ethnic communities accelerates the pace at which MNEs establish additional subsidiaries in China. We also find that co-ethnic community effects continue to influence within-country MNE activities over time, despite a host of economic, institutional, and investment developments.

We propose that local corruption distorts the allocation of government-controlled resources and impairs the contract environment, thereby reducing firms’ use or suppliers’ provision of trade credit. We use a sample of Chinese-listed firms from 2007 to 2020 to examine the role of local corruption in firms’ access to trade credit and find that the level of local corruption is negatively related to firms’ trade credit use. This effect is more pronounced in firms with weak (vs. strong) internal governance, slack (tight) external monitoring and high (low) supplier concentration. The results of path analysis show that local corruption extends short-term bank loans as well as government subsidies and impairs firms’ accounting quality, thereby inhibiting firms’ demand for or suppliers’ provision of trade credit. Moreover, the post-2012 anti-corruption campaign in China plays a significant role in correcting the misallocation of trade credit caused by corruption. The results of this study illuminate the negative external effects of local corruption on trade credit.

Theoretically based on historical materialism, the historical initiative of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a precious character of creating new prospects amid changing circumstances consciously and proactively to acquire benefits for Chinese people. Integrated into its centenary history and showing highlights in different historical periods, the CPC’s historical initiative features dialectical unity between problem orientation and mission pursuit, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, regularity and consciousness, as well as the leadership of the CPC and the pioneering spirit of the people. To accomplish the Second Centenary Goal and advance national rejuvenation, the CPC will follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics under the guidance of Marxism, stay committed to achieving national rejuvenation, unite and rely on the people, and stimulate the spirit of innovation and creation, thereby pooling more proactive spiritual strengths to make greater contributions in the new era.

Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have transformed from a centrally planned communist system to a market economy and liberal democracy after 1990. The rapidly changing social and power relations have been gradually manifested in the spatial pattern of cities. After the turn of the millennium, a growing number of papers reported that the regeneration of inner-city neighbourhoods intensified, generating population change in certain areas. Authors writing on urban renewal and gentrification in CEE have been inspired by the typology of gentrification elaborated in Western contexts, even though historical legacies and specific local conditions set serious limitations on the use of such concepts. The aim of this paper is to scrutinise the essential features of urban change and gentrification in post-socialist cities, discussing the main pre-conditions for, actors in and the resulting types of this process. Existing literature in the field has been systematically collected, analysed and compared. According to our findings the classic stage model of gentrification cannot be used in post-socialist cities, partly because the process is still in its infancy and partly because several hybrid forms of gentrification-like processes hide the spatial effects of market-based renewal. The variegated forms of urban change are the result of historical legacies, path dependencies and a set of factors embedded in local contexts. The paper highlights some of the research gaps in the field. 1990年后，中欧和东欧 (CEE) 国家从中央计划的共产主义制度转变为市场经济和自由民主。迅速变化的社会和权力关系已经逐渐体现在城市的空间格局中。在世纪之交之后，越来越多的报纸报道，市中心街区的重建力度加大，导致某些地区的人口发生变化。阐述中欧和东欧城市更新和绅士化的作者从西方背景下阐述的绅士化形态汲取灵感，然而，历史遗产和特定的地方条件对这种概念的使用构成了严重的限制。本文的目的是审视后社会主义城市中城市变化和绅士化的基本特征，讨论这一过程的主要先决条件、参与者和结果类型。我们系统收集、分析和比较了该领域的现有文献。根据我们的发现，典型的绅士化阶段模型不能在后社会主义城市中使用，一则这一过程仍处于初级阶段，二则几种混合形式的类绅士化样过程掩盖了基于市场的更新的空间效应。城市变化的多样化形式是历史遗产、路径依赖和当地环境的一系列内置因素的结果。本文强调了该领域的一些研究空白。