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This article identifies major public financial management developments in the European Community (EC). Despite a certain degree of disparity, the EC member countries have had a number of common developments in public financial management. In general, central governments of most EC member countries were faced with resource constraints, growing spending demands and large budget deficits. Moreover, fiscal changes had to be made in order to reach the single European market goal targeted by 1992. Thus, several fiscal policy and management initiatives were developed including tax reforms, changes in spending programs, improve-ments of government performance, and fiscal harmonization. The results of these initiatives are reflected in the patterns of central government receipts and outlays in the EC member countries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analytically review the trends of financial crimes as channels of corruption that impact the development process and economic progress in Africa.

This paper outlines the trends in financial crimes by compiling statistics derived from a scan of the publicly available survey and other published data related.

The financial crimes of embezzlement and theft, bribes and kickbacks, money laundering and illicit financial flows and state capture are all channels of corruption that are prevalent in Africa with significant negative effects on the continent’s socio-economic development progress. The magnitude of these crimes has been trending upward with the resultant effect that corruption continues to have significant negative impacts on Africa’s current and future development prospects. To develop policies to minimise these negative effects, it is necessary to quantify and continuously monitor the magnitude of these various corruption channels.

The main value of the study is the insights it provides on the nature and extent of the trends in financial crimes as channels of corruption in Africa, and the resultant negative impact on socio-economic development in the region.

Digitalization is one of the major factors that fosters economic growth across the world. However, the level of digitalization varies significantly between developed and developing countries, with the latter often lagging behind. To bridge this gap, it is crucial to pinpoint the drivers of digitalization, specifically from the macroeconomic and country-level governance dimensions. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the determinants of digitalization, particularly for countries in Asia and the Pacific region.

Our study utilizes unbalanced panel data from 46 Asian and Pacific countries for the period of 2001–2021. Initially, we analyzed the data using conventional econometric methods, such as pooled ordinary least squares (POLS), random-effects model (REM) and fixed-effects model (FEM). Moreover, we employed endogeneity-corrected techniques and alternative proxies to enhance the robustness and reliability of our findings.

Our findings reveal that economic development progress, government expenditure relative to country size and political stability are key drivers of digitalization. In contrast, corruption at the country level emerges as a significant impediment. Notably, our results remain robust to endogeneity-corrected techniques and alternative proxies of digitalization. Overall, these insights can inform policymakers, helping them to understand the macroeconomic and governance factors shaping digitalization and guide their decision-making toward effective policy interventions.

This study’s empirical findings add significant value to the existing literature by quantifying the impact of macroeconomic and governance factors on digitalization in selected countries. This offers valuable insights for policymakers, particularly in nations with lower levels of digitalization.

The objective of this study is to develop a model for analyzing the relative importance of facilitating and constraining factors that determine changes in the structure of distribution channels as a country progresses along the path of economic development.

Data on channel structure were collected on national, regional and municipal levels. The hypotheses in this study were tested by using time series and cross‐sectional data. The ordinary least squares method was used for multiple regression and correlation analyses.

The most significant findings from the above research are that channel structure is determined by economic development and, to some extent, by government policy. Both of these factors work hand‐in‐hand to affect distribution reform. First, economic development provides the need for more efficient channels, first as more privately‐owned intermediaries enter the distribution system, and later as the number of channel intermediaries contracts, partly stemming from vertical integration and from a shakeout of less efficient enterprises. Second, government policy can be formulated to encourage these developments. In order to promote distribution reform, the government's “open policy”, which allows for market access by foreign firms as well as local ones, should be continued.

More cross‐sectional data for China are needed in order to better analyze the impact of different economic sectors (at different levels of development) on channel evolution. As more data become available, these analyses will be possible.

Very little is known about the factors that shape a nation's channel system. Improvements in distribution systems are crucial to upgrading marketing systems in developing countries. Understanding how improvements in distribution systems contribute to economic development can aid decision makers in developing countries to improve resource allocation. This study has contributed to the theory of channel evolution in developing countries.

For any developing countries in the 20th century, there exists a problem of how to choose the economic development route – socialist or capitalist; which means how to compare different social and economic benefits and make different value judgements in economic development. Socialism is not a pure political and ideological question, certainly not just a political question. It is a way for developing countries, particularly large agricultural countries, to realise their industrialisation and modern commercial economy. Essentially, it is a focus of development economics. For economically backward countries the aim of socialism is not to fight against the capitalist world, but first to develop their own economy. Socialist public ownership connected with the stage of economic development involves inner contradictions in its own development from the very beginning. We cannot make socialist public ownership perfect without overcoming those contradictions. Public ownership cannot improve social productivity without coming across its own historical limitation. Economic reforms now being practised in China are an effort to improve socialist public ownership: to reform traditional forms of public ownership which have not satisfied the development of productivity. Socialism and public ownership are not features for economically backward countries to flaunt. Neither are they historical trends. They are a way to get rid of poverty, and to realise a modern commercial economy, a way different from the development route of capitalism. There are historical necessity and economic rationality for that kind of socialist public ownership connected with economic development of backward countries. And, of course, socialist public ownership has its own inner contradictions and historical limitations, just like any other kind of ownership in history. It changes and develops continually. Socialist public ownership needs to improve itself, to realise its own development and evolution, and finally to make assets of public ownership the social capital satisfying the demand of highly socialised productivity.

This conceptual paper examines the claim of ahistorical, transcultural universality in aspects of Enlightenment thinking as it has been embedded in the assumptions of classical economic theory. Specifically, with respect we query to presupposing rationality and maximization, that all nations are on an evolutionary course to betterment conceptualized as development and progress.

Using historical data, examined from a cross-cultural perspective, the arguments put forth in England in the late seventeenth century to justify the enclosures and private property, that led to revolution, are shown to have introduced new institutions, including private property, entrepreneurship and self-regulating markets.

Maximizing behavior is shown to be the result of successive generations being socialized under the new institutional arrangements that, conflated with modernity, were then taken to the Americas and South Asia as part of British colonial/imperial expansion.

When economic theory is examined in its cultural and historical context it is just one of a large number of possible cultural patterns.

If contemporary economic and social institutions, and the behaviors they produce, are but one of a number of alternative possibilities, many of the problems facing so many can be rethought and perhaps ameliorated with new institutional arrangements.

This purpose of this paper is to review the progressive development in bilateral trade and investments between China and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 1970. China's economic reform has served as a great incentive for ASEAN countries to engage in continuous political and economic dialogue with the economic giant as it is considered as one of the largest, growing markets in the world. The political and economic efforts initiated by ASEAN have sought to affirm an outward‐looking ASEAN in playing a pivotal role in the international community and advancing ASEAN's common interests, which include economic trade with China as regional partner.

A review of the literature based on secondary data provides the analysis of the stages of the Chinese political and economic reforms that had brought about improvement in the economic relationship between China and ASEAN.

The findings comprise reports that highlight the promising trend in investment relations between China and ASEAN.

The paper highlights the need for further in‐depth analysis of Chinese political and economic reforms that will have a significant impact on regional trade and investment in the Asia‐Pacific region.

The paper will allow international managers of multinational enterprises to have a better appreciation of the political and economic developments in China and to consider options to enhance greater business partnerships with Chinese corporations.

The literature gap in this particular area of study presents an opportunity to explore new developments in the Chinese Government's economic reforms.

A climate of austerity has gripped the politico-economic philosophy of many nation states across Europe and beyond as governments seek to rebalance budget deficits. This presents unique challenges for those engaged in purposeful acts aiming to regenerate communities of places – the regeneration managers.

England provides an interesting case study to examine some of the prime challenges facing regeneration managers by focusing on the ideologies that have informed successive UK governments’ policy responses and spatial strategies. The main body of research, including interviews, was carried out between 2010 and 2012, and was subsequently updated in early 2013.

Tracing an apparent transmutation of urban regeneration policy, the chapter helps to unmask a spatially unjust neoliberal toolkit, albeit pierced by some socially motivated actually existing regeneration initiatives. The transmutation of regeneration that has taken place is often concealed by de facto austerity measures and austerity politics.

The programme of interviews remains ongoing, as the research continues to track the shifting contours of state-led regeneration policy. Analysis is therefore provisional and explorative, with more detailed research reports and publications subject to follow.

The chapter explores emerging new agendas and sets out to identify some of the primary challenges that regeneration managers must face.

‘Regeneration’ as a state-led policy objective and political concern has been virtually expunged from the Coalition lexicon. The present policy preference is to target public resources in ‘value-added’ schemes that favour private oriented objectives in a highly unbalanced way.

The curtailment of broader regeneration debates has framed discussions limited to the depth of cuts, the speed of implementation and the spatial distribution of such measures. The result is that regeneration, understood as a capitalist policy instrument intended to respond to and assuage the outcomes produced by capitalist frameworks, is no more.

Economic growth, without distributional measures and policies, engenders inequality and concentration. National income may be distributed either through the establishment of a proper welfare system, or by the encouragement of and incentive for economic activities and policies with built‐in distributional factors. The prerequisites for sustainable income distribution are fair distribution of assets, investments and power. The main outcome of the growth‐based developing theories and activities are concentration of production, people and financial and political power. These concentrations are the sources of many problems of both developing and industrialised countries. Although there have been countless studies about development, few have made an attempt to investigate the social and economic interactions of small business with sustainable development. Small business’ contributions to the process of development, in terms of distribution of economic and non‐economic resources, are substantial. This article will explore the economic and political distributional power of small business and their roles in the process of socio‐economic development.

This chapter highlights why, with the current situation in a VUCA world, governments should consider to ‘leave alone’ the educational policy for the prosperity of special education. One possible way is that governments should let the ‘economic invisible hand’ take on the arrangement of inclusive education and proceed without interference to induce educational competition and the effectiveness of inclusive education.