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As one of the pillar sectors, China’s construction industry (CE) is not efficient in productivity with large regional gaps over the past decades. It is crucial for stakeholders to have insightful information on regional input of resources and output of productive efficiency for making policies and investment decisions. The purpose of this paper is to develop an efficiency measurement for the CE and explore the regional differences of construction productive efficiency across the three regions of China.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is an objective benchmarking methodology used for measuring the performance of construction productivity. Distance friction minimization (DFM) approach, based on DEA model, is applied to identify the causes of inefficiency, sources of growth and the optimal paths to efficient frontier for regional CE. Further studies are conducted to provide insightful information for efficiency improvement, according to DFM modeling results and empirical analysis.

The results indicate that eastern region leads construction development due to strong performance of coastal provinces. Faced with decreasing supply of skilled workers in developed region, investing more on construction plants and equipment for labor savings is more efficient to the long-term productivity growth of CE in the east. For developing midland region, heavy reliance on cheap manpower should be gradually relieved by allocating more budgets to vocational training and education program to boost quality labor supply, as well as making steady investment on construction equipment and advanced technology. In underdeveloped western region, raising construction labor wages is recommended to attract more workers to meet the market demand and achieve an optimal production efficiency in the CE.

The findings provide insights into the causes of inefficiency, the sources of growth and the best strategies for efficiency improvement in regional CE, recommendations are made for policy making and strategic planning to enhance the overall performance of China’s construction productive efficiency.

Geographical disparities in the light of regional development constitute ever present issue affecting academic debates as well as decision process of policy makers also in the Central and East European countries, mainly during the last two decades. The purpose of this paper is to outline the economic development of one of the most underdeveloped regions in Slovakia, of Banská Bystrica, during the transformation stage of post-socialist societal development, with emphasis on the period after 2000, in the context of the economic performance related to other regions of the country.

For this purpose, several economic indicators (unemployment rate, vacancies, employment in economic sectors, wages, gross domestic product, foreign direct investment and housing construction) are utilised, whose common contribution to assessing the economic performance of a territorial system is secured by using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodological approach. Thus, analytical part of the study stems from standard statistical data, enriched by 11 in-depth interviews conducted with stakeholders involved in socio-economic and political life of the region.

Of internal factors, innovation capacity of the region and supporting the business environment appear to be a key for its further economic development. Attractiveness for foreign direct investment as well as social cohesion of the EU are considered the crucial factors of regional development stemming from the external environment.

Using TOPSIS method and series of in-depth interviews with regional stakeholders the authors identified development prospects of underdeveloped Banská Bystrica region, in the context of opportunities and threats forming its presence in the near future.

In September 2008, all of China was shocked by the tainted milk scandal. In order to help the Chinese government to establish a food traceability system (FTS), the authors conducted the present research which aims to investigate the acceptability of certified traceable (CT) food among Chinese consumers.

A survey consisting of face‐to‐face interviews with 1,757 consumers from 13 cities in the Jiangsu Province of China was used. The 13 cities fell into three different categories according to their levels of economic development. The acceptance and purchase of CT food were compared and analyzed in the three levels of consumers. The factors affecting consumer unwillingness to purchase CT food were obtained by factor analysis.

After the respondents were fully informed about FTS, their acceptance level for CT food significantly increased. The respondents who were willing to buy CT food particularly preferred milk, eggs, and honey as well as meats such as pork, beef, mutton, chicken and duck. Of the total respondents, 68 per cent stated that they would be willing to pay extra for CT food. The main factors affecting consumer unwillingness to buy CT food were: lack of familiarity with CT food and doubt about its function, preference for direct and concise food quality labels, and worries regarding excessively high prices.

Ultimately, it is hoped to improve the overall safety of food in China and potentially worldwide. The Chinese government has to ensure the effectiveness of the FTS, to increase public knowledge about the FTS, to allocate government funds for the establishment of a FTS, and to give extra support to underdeveloped regions. These are the key issues that the Chinese government faces in establishing and popularizing the food traceability system.

This paper researched the acceptability of CT food among Chinese consumers and the factors preventing its acceptance. It provides valuable information for developing countries while seeking to raise China's food safety levels.

Montenegrin economy is characterized by large disparities in terms of level of economic development as well as regional development. Although the northern region of Montenegro offers a very good precondition for economic development in terms of its potentials, the situation is quite opposite. There are significant differences between the southern, central and northern region when it comes to development, income level and unemployment rate. With respect to natural resources and potential with which the northern region is endowed, agriculture emerges as one of the factors of economic development. Almost all future-oriented strategic activities recognize agriculture as an instrument for overcoming differences and thus ensuring sustainable development. Agriculture in Montenegro appears to be an instrument which can, coupled with an entrepreneurial activity, contribute to a better quality of life and thus the future sustainable development of the whole country and its individual regions.

Profiles Gunnar Myrdal, who was born in Sweden, but after his graduation from Stockholm University’s Law School, studied in Germany and England, before moving to the USA, where he was commissioned to make an in‐depth study of the ‘sAmerican Negro problem’s (1944). Equality was a recurring theme in his work, and as all great scientists, he told the truth, as he believed he saw it.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of the green talent dividend on China’s economic growth and regional differences using a theoretical derivation of the Cobb–Douglas production function.

This study develops a measurement model with human capital based on Chinese inter-provincial panel data for 2001–2017, and analyzes the influences on economic growth of employees’ education level, per capita material capital, green labor participation rate and green jobs. The study explores the impact of the green talent dividend on regional economic growth for different regions.

Employees’ education level, per capita material capital, green labor participation rate and green jobs promote China’s economic growth. The dependency ratio hinders economic growth. The green labor participation rate impacts economic growth more than green jobs do. Furthermore, the scale of green talent in China and its dividend effect are regionally unbalanced. Therefore, to fully release the dividend of green talent, the green labor participation rate should be improved to promote the rational flow of talent among regions.

These findings shed light on the talent dividend, provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant talent policies, and show that the demographic dividend can be transformed into the green talent dividend, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of China’s economy given its aging population.

This study provides a macro perspective on the green talent dividend’s impact on economic growth. The Cobb–Douglas production function in this study differs from the traditional micro perspective on green labor.

This study investigates whether and how place-based industrial relocation policy affects firm innovation.

By exploiting the establishment of China's National Industrial Relocation Demonstration Zones (NIRDZs) as a quasi-natural experiment in a difference-in-differences design, the authors examine the externalities of industrial policies that support sustainable development and growth from the perspectives of firms' patenting activities.

The study consistently finds that the NIRDZs policy significantly boosts local firm innovation, translating into a 60.46% increase in the patent applications of treated firms. The estimation results remain robust to a series of alternative specifications. Moreover, heterogeneity analysis suggests that the firms that benefited most were state-owned enterprises, firms with higher productivity, or firms in non-high-tech industries. Further, the authors find that the NIRDZs policy stimulates firm innovation mainly in the form of utility model patents, followed by designs and invention patents.

The results provide suggestions and implications for policymakers to improve the efficiency of state-led industrial policies and avoid “government failure” in policy implementation.

This study provides suggestions and implications for policymakers to improve the efficiency of state-led industrial policies and avoid “government failure” in the policy implementation.

This study fills the research gap by exploiting quasi-experiments to assess the effectiveness of state-led industrial policies for emerging economies. (2) The analysis sheds empirical light on how corporate innovation is motivated and financed by selective and functional industrial policies. (3) Theoretically, the results rationalize why state-led industrial relocation fuel innovation capabilities of localities from Marshall externalities and competition crowding-out effects.

Based on several important environmental protection and information disclosure policies that have been issued in China, the purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between characteristics and the environmental information disclosure quality of sample companies.

The OLS regression analysis is selected for this research which takes China’s heavy pollution companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2015 to 2016 as samples.

The quality of these environmental information disclosures needs to be strengthened, and while the quality of the disclosures among the companies examined improved significantly in 2016 compared with 2015, there are still high variations in quality from industry to industry. In addition, the scale of company is most closely correlated to the quality of environmental information disclosure and the economic situation of the enterprises is the next. Other factors affecting the disclosure quality include in order the degree of local economic development the scale of the state-owned shares and the independent directors. Listed years and equity restriction show a positive correlation but not significant in statistics.

The research will assist administrative organizations to allocate governance sources effectively, plan governance investment as a whole, and improve the overall level of the disclosure of environmental information while strengthening the governance efficiency and effectiveness, according to the correlation and degree between the company characteristics and environmental information disclosure quality.

Firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviour is embedded in the institutional context. Under this logic, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the institutional antecedents of CSR, especially how two sub-national institutions – regional institutional development and industry dynamism – and their interactions affect firms’ CSR.

The sample consists of 608 Chinese listed firms, with 2,694 observations made from 2009 to 2014. The data were collected from two sources. The CSR information was acquired from the CSR rating agency Rankins CSR Ratings, and the financial data from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research database. Panel ordinary least squares regression was used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results indicate that firms located in advanced regional institutions and more dynamic industries are more likely to engage in CSR. Moreover, macro institution, termed as regional institutional development, positively moderates the relationship between micro institution in terms of industry dynamism and CSR.

Overlooking how the institutional environment influences CSR decisions limits understanding of firms’ CSR activities. This paper offers an institutional explanation of CSR and, in particular, investigates different levels of sub-national institutions and their interaction.