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The purpose of this paper is to propose and verify the influence mechanism of various kinds of infrastructure investment on farmers' income in rural China. It further analyzes the effect of rural infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation.

This research is used to GMM model to verify the relationship between infrastructure investment and farmers' income; furthermore, the mediating effect model is used to verify the linear conduction mechanism, and panel threshold model is used to verify the nonlinear conduction mechanism.

The results show that: (1) Rural infrastructure investment can indirectly affect farmers' income by changing land efficiency and land use structure; (2) The impact of infrastructure investment on farmers' income is nonlinear; (3) Increasing infrastructural investment of productivity and transportation will contribute to accelerating the transformation of rural economy.

This paper expands the research on the impact of rural infrastructure investment on farmers' income; it analyzes the inner mechanism and enriches the research contents in this field; the influence of various infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation is further discussed; it provides policy suggestions and theoretical basis for accelerating the transformation of China's rural economy.

The chapter studies the problems of formation of regional mechanisms of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, which are determined by complexity of attracting private capital in financing of infrastructure, which is limited by a long return period and the level of profitability of projects. The mechanism of public–private partnership is offered, which allows leveling high risks of implementation of infrastructural projects under guidance of the state. Also, the methodology of foresight control is studied, which is the last stage of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, as innovational tools of forecasting the future, which is aimed at leveling the risks, allows determining and neutralizing the danger of nontarget usage of invested financial resources, and seeing the threats to internal environment and external environment.

This study investigates the performance of Indian states based on infrastructural investment in social and economic sectors using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Most of the studies in the literature are based on how different elements of infrastructure such as transport, energy, education, healthcare system affect the economy of different countries/regions. In this study, we consider these elements under two different sub-systems, namely, social and economic infrastructure and measure the cooperative efficiency for competitive growth.

A four-stage DEA approach is proposed for the analysis of a sample of 28 Indian states for the years 2011, 2013 and 2015 under consideration. First stage calculates the per capita GDP contribution, while stage-2 evaluates the efficiency of investments in social infrastructure followed by the efficiency analysis in economic infrastructure in stage-3. Finally, fourth stage evaluates the co-operative efficiency for the overall performance.

The findings of three different cases based on population sizes, viz., highly populated, moderately populated and less populated regions suggest that the government can identify the top and poor performers. It also studies the variations in efficiency tally of states using Malmquist indices.

This kind of study will vigilant government and local authorities on the investments made in all the states for social and economic infrastructure and establish a competitive environment among state governments to compete for improved infrastructural growth.

This study is the first of its kind in developing countries like India, which focuses on efficiency analysis using DEA based on two sub-sectors of social–economic infrastructural investments.

Compares the intended operations strategy of 112 manufacturing plants in the metal‐working industries with the realized strategy, as measured by investments designed to improve both the manfucturing structure and infrastructure. Data were collected via a mail survey administered to 202 plants in 1994, and re‐administered to 112 of the same plants in 1996. Examines how the emphasis placed on four key competitive priorities (cost, flexibility, delivery and quality) is associated with investment a company makes to support these objectives. The data indicate that companies support their key competitive priorities both through investments in structural improvement and through investments in infrastructural improvement. Two findings contradict the established literature. First, investments in design‐based advanced manufacturing technologies are not associated with a strategic emphasis on any of the four competitive priorities. Second, plants which emphasized flexibiltiy as a key component of their operations strategy did not invest in either structural or infrastructural improvements to support this objective.

The purpose of this paper is to study the reasons and decision-making processes of heterogeneous firms’ bribery behavior, and how they will affect an aggregate economy’s development and corruption status.

The authors build a dynamic model to study a firm’s joint decision to bribe and invest, and how the decision is determined by its production and infrastructure status. The authors simulate the firm-level decision and development paths, and then build an aggregate economy consisting of heterogeneous firms. The authors then also simulate the development and corruption growth paths of the economy, by calibrating the model according to Chinese manufacturing firms in 2012.

Following the simulation results, the authors conduct counterfactual policy analyses. By comparing between the simulation results of two different counterfactual scenarios, the authors study how a government could control bribing better – as to decrease the number of bribers, and the average amount of the bribery payments. It is found that directly raising the bribery costs works more efficiently in controlling corruption, compared with reducing the benefits received by the bribers. The finding provides insightful policy implications for the government to clear up its economy.

The paper makes a novel and unique contribution to the literature by filling the current theoretical gap. The authors introduce a dynamic firm-level model to interpret firms’ bribery decisions and replicate the aggregate stylized facts. The paper innovatively treats bribery as both discrete and continuous decisions. Given both types of bribery decisions, now the authors can successfully simulate and quantify a firm’s intertemporal status and growth path.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on Public Private Partnership (PPP) markets around the world. Specifically, it aims to highlight the extent of over reliance on debt finance, as well as the conditions needed to attract enhanced levels of institutional investment into key infrastructural provision.

Quantitative insight for the paper is derived from the Infrastructure Online Database. The Infrastructure Journal (IJ) Online Database profiles PFI/PPP deals around the world depicting the key actors involved, as well as the capital value of deals and the financial structures applied in terms of debt, equity and Multilateral and Government Finance. The quantitative insight derived from the IJ database is complemented by interview evidence and forum‐based discussion. In total, 38 interviews were conducted with a diverse range of key stakeholder groupings from across the public and private sectors, including government advisers, client side representatives (Health and Education sectors), contractors, financiers and FM providers. Interviewees were drawn from five key PPP markets at different stages in the maturity cycle, namely, Australia, Canada, India, the UK and the USA. In addition to the interviews, three forum‐based discussions were undertaken as part of the investigation exploring the key themes to emerge from the interviews from multi‐stakeholder perspectives.

The findings from the study highlight a number of inherent deficiencies in the PPP model, including the over reliance on private sector debt. Additionally, the research profiles the extent and form of national government interventions in PPP markets around the world, highlighting the need for a more innovative, sustainable and balanced funding frameworks for essential infrastructure conducive to the next economic/financial cycle.

This study is distinct in that it examines the cross‐jurisdictional implications of the global financial crisis on PPP markets.

The popular business press, government regulators, environmentalists and the public are calling on operations managers to shift away from their traditional emphasis on pollution control toward pollution prevention when improving environmental performance. Yet, any managerial decision about the level and form of investment in these environmental technologies cannot be made in isolation, but instead must be implemented within the context of other manufacturing investments in process technologies and organizational systems. A survey of two Canadian industries – small machine tools and non‐fashion textiles – revealed evidence that environmental technologies have been regarded as ancillary investments; as investment in manufacturing increased, so did the proportion of that investment directed toward environmental technologies. Further, increased investment in advanced process technologies actually shifted investment away from pollution prevention. In contrast, increased investment in quality‐related organizational systems favored concurrent investment in recycling programs, along with pollution prevention and management systems. Thus, increased investment in quality management offered an important route to expand the implementation of pollution prevention.

Public involvement is essential in the creation of effective local strategies for the development of a sustainable built environment, yet there has been little research on stakeholder motivation and engagement in the creation of infrastructure-project value, in the entire life cycle of a given project, while different markets show that overlooking stakeholders can negatively affect the success of an infrastructure project. The purpose of this paper is to fill the theory-practice gap that has been discerned, and thus study how early public involvement determines the success of an infrastructure project, which is identified with its value creation (effectiveness, sustainability and utility).

This research entails a combination of methods. A case study analysis allowed observation of the role the stakeholders play and of how the relationships, perspectives, expectations and risks, along with other soft issues, continue to affect projects. The case study required comprehensive examination of project documentation and conduction of interviews. To collect data, focused group interviews and semi-structured interviews were used, supported with direct questionnaire surveys.

The study provides evidence that early public engagement can contribute to infrastructure-project value (effectiveness, sustainability and utility). Practically speaking, the stakeholder analysis performed allowed proposal of a general stakeholder analysis framework for infrastructure projects. It can be implemented at each investment phase of the project life cycle, since stakeholders and their motivation may develop and/or change over time, which necessitates development of proper managerial strategies. The findings highlight the opportunities and the challenges faced by stakeholder management.

The limitation of this study derives from the fact that the sample size was small, which was necessary for an in-depth qualitative research and application of the case study method. The observations were made on a selected case study, within a limited period of time, thus the context of the analysis as well as the stakeholder perception was subject to possible change. The research limitations concern the provisional nature of the information obtained, the cross-sectional nature of the analysis itself, and, finally, the inability to predict all future events. Ultimately, stakeholder mapping was performed for the operational phase of the investment exclusively, while the analysis was limited to identification and classification of the stakeholders, including their relationship with the project.

The research conclusions provide useful input for future research on development of effective strategies for management of the shareholders that are related to a given infrastructure project, in order to achieve project success. Simultaneously, from a property perspective, the research has contributed to a better understanding of the importance of infrastructure, on the part of real estate stakeholders.

Application of the approach proposed in the study may contribute to early development and implementation of appropriate trust-building processes. The building of relationships between stakeholders enables checks and balances, promotes short- and long-term project benefits, and increases the value of a project.

The novelty of the research consists in the connection, as part of infrastructure projects, of the theory of consumption values and the concept of an investment cycle with the framework of stakeholder analysis.

Investment promotion is gaining in popularity, yet its relationship with regional development remains unclear and under-investigated. The purpose of this paper is to combine place marketing and regional development concepts to explore investment promotion in the Czech, Polish and Slovak regions. It identifies elements of best practice and investigates to what extent these are used in foreign direct investment promotion conducted by regional authorities. Organisation- and implementation-related elements are studied. The discussion aims to answer the question of how systematic Central–Eastern European regional investment promotion is, and what are the factors determining regions’ involvement in, and the extent of, promotion activities.

Discussion is based on an original survey of Central–Eastern European (CEE) regional authorities' investment promotion. The paper develops a measurement of regional authorities’ engagement in investment promotion – an investment promotion index (IPI) and using non-parametric, two-tailed Spearmans correlation test investigates the relationship between IPI and socio-economic conditions in the regions. Kruskal-Wallis, a non-parametric test of difference is used to investigate statistical significance of differences in mean values between the three countries.

The analysis provides early insights into the relationship between regional development and investment attraction – the main theoretical contribution of the paper. Diverse levels of engagement in promotion are not influenced by the staple competitiveness factors of gross domestic product growth rates or foreign direct investment stock. Instead, it is conditioned by labour market situation in the countries studied.

Investment promotion relationship to regional development remains under-explored. The main focus of the analysis offered is the varying levels of CEE regional authorities’ involvement in investment promotion and its relationship to the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the regions. Exploring this relationship, the paper provides original contribution in the following two aspects: it establishes a systematic way of measuring regional authorities’ engagement with investment promotion; and it links the level of investment promotion to wider development of the regions.