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This paper critically evaluates regional development through the lens of well-being and purpose. The paper provides insight into the key roles that well-being and purpose play in regional development and the way in which various actors are engaged in this process. This paper focuses on the Swansea Bay City Region within Wales, a country at the forefront of well-being legislation.

This paper analyses a case study of 4theRegion, a membership organisation that undertakes regional development activities underpinned by a social purpose and well-being across the Swansea Bay city region. 4theRegion has been selected due to (1) its unique business model; (2) its clear focus on well-being and purpose; and (3) the influence of its regional development actions bringing together various stakeholder groups under a common aim.

This paper extends existing debates on collaborative development approaches and underlines the unique emphasis on asset-based local development influenced by well-being, which seeks to engage with a variety of community stakeholders to derive “holistic flourishing”. This emphasises inclusive development activities across the region, through people, place, process and purpose, underpinned by well-being. The research also underlines debates about the subjectivity of well-being and how the impact of well-being legislation can be evaluated.

This research provides a new way of looking at regional development, through the lens of well-being and purpose and provides insight into the way in which various actors are engaged in this process. Implications of this research could influence policymaking in supporting regional development activities, as well as practical lessons for those involved in place-based development.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This article aims to evaluate the entry and exit of companies from local productive structures, with a specific focus on the sectoral complexity of these activities and the complexity of these portfolios. The study focuses on empirically demonstrating the thesis that related economic diversification exacerbates the development gap between more and less complex regions.

The article uses indicators formulated by the economic complexity approach. They allow a relevant descriptive analysis of the economic diversification process in Brazilian micro-regions and provide the foundation for the econometric tests conducted. Through three distinct estimation strategies (OLS, logit, probit), the influence of complexity and relatedness on the entry and exit events of firms from local portfolios is tested.

In all estimated models, the stronger relationship between an activity and a portfolio significantly increases its probability of entering the productive structure and, at the same time, acts as a significant factor in preventing its exit. Furthermore, the results reveal that the complexity of a sector reduces the probability of its specialization in less complex regions while increasing it in more complex regions. On the other hand, sectoral complexity significantly increases the probability of a sector leaving less complex local structures but has no significant effect in highly complex regions.

Due to the data used, the indicators are calculated considering only formal job numbers. Additionally, the tests do not detect the influence of spatial issues. These limitations should be addressed by future research.

The article characterizes a prevailing process of uneven development among Brazilian regions and brings relevant implications, primarily for policymakers. Specifically, for less complex regions, policies should focus on creating opportunities to improve their diversification capabilities in complex sectors that are not too distant from their portfolios.

The article makes an original contribution by proposing an evaluation of regional diversification in Brazil with a focus on complexity, introducing a more detailed differentiation of regions based on their complexity levels and examining the impact of sectoral complexity on diversification patterns within each group.

By using a wide range of macro and micro factors, this paper aims to provide a new assessment of the recent literature on inbound tourism demand models.

This study examines the determinants and spatial effects of inbound tourism using Hausman–Taylor and spatial econometric models.

Several important factors were identified, including local economic growth, openness to the outside world, regional size, geographic distance, foreign direct investment, level of innovation and average annual temperature. In addition, the study found strong cross-city competition effects on tourism resource endowment and hotel infrastructure.

Inbound tourism is a crucial link in achieving high-quality economic development. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the analysis of single influencing factors, ignoring the spatial spillover effects of factors.

By studying the green development efficiency (GDE) of 33 cities in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian in China, this study strives to conduct an analysis of the sustainable practices implemented in these developed regions, and derive valuable insights that can foster the promotion of green transformation.

First, the urban green development system (GDS) was decomposed into the economic benefit subsystem (EBS), social benefit subsystem (SBS), and pollution control subsystem (PCS). Then, a mixed network SBM model was proposed to evaluate the GDE during 20152020, with Moran’s I and Bootstrap truncated regression model subsequently applied to measure the spatial characteristics and driving factors of efficiency.

Subsystem efficiency presents a distribution trend of PCS > EBS > SBS. There is a particular spatial aggregation effect in EBS efficiency, whereas SBS and PCS efficiencies have no significant spatial autocorrelation. Furthermore, urbanization level contributes significantly to the efficiency of all subsystems; industrial structure, energy consumption, and technological innovation play a crucial role in EBS and SBS; external openness is a pivotal factor in SBS; and environmental regulation has a significant effect on PCS.

This study further decomposes the black box of GDS into subsystems including the economy, society, and environment. Additionally, by employing a mixed network SBM model and Bootstrap truncated regression model to investigate efficiency and its driving factors from the subsystem perspective, it endeavors to derive more detailed research conclusions and policy implications.

The China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, hereafter) has reenergized the Silk Road concept, with most literature focusing on the political and economic effects of the BRI. While certain aspects of the Digital Silk Road (DSR), digital component of BRI, have been researched, much less focus has been placed on the technological development, tech transfer and information diffusion aspects of the BRI. The aim of this study is to investigate the opportunities, issues and critiques that have arisen as a result of the Belt and Road Initiative’s implications on innovation, knowledge transfer and dissemination.

Research in its nature is descriptive. Literature reviews are a significant part of the development of a field. Therefore, secondary sources were considered.

The literature and the study have highlighted several opportunities, problems and criticism that decision-makers and the relevant agencies and institutions should take into account when deciding how to move forward with BRI and its digital component DSR.

This paper contributes to the research literature on BRI and its subset DSR’s impacts on innovation, knowledge transfer and information diffusion. In fact, the DSR’s primary aim is to strengthen international cooperation in the digital economy. Furthermore, digital platforms now play a significant role in global trade, emphasizing the necessity of DSR.

This study aims to analyze the causes and implications of legal uncertainty in the issuance of conventional municipal bonds in Indonesia and to draw lessons from Vietnam’s approach in providing better legal certainty.

This study adopts a normative legal method with a legislative approach and applies a comparative approach. Data sources involve primary and secondary legal materials from both Indonesia and Vietnam.

The legal uncertainty is caused by a lack of coherence and consistency in legislation. Based on Vietnam’s experience, Indonesia can gain valuable insights related to providing strong legal certainty for parties involved in issuing or investing through conventional municipal bonds.

This study focuses on the comparative legal analysis of conventional municipal bonds in Indonesia with Vietnam.

This research provides recommendations for the refinement of legislation regarding conventional municipal bonds to the government.

This study is related to legal certainty as a strategy to attract investment through municipal bonds and to ensure the municipal bond issuance process is transparent and efficient.

This study provides a comparative perspective on the issuance of municipal bonds in Indonesia, with a special focus on Vietnam, emphasizing the urgency of harmonization in legal regulation and the sustainability of legal certainty.

Digital inclusive finance has a positive promotion effect on the development of the national economy, but little research exists on how digital inclusive finance affects high-quality consumption in economically developed regions. Therefore, to fill the gap, this paper aims to study the impact of digital inclusive finance on high-quality consumption development using the economically developed regions of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai as examples.

Firstly, the entropy method is used to construct the index of high-quality consumption among residents. Then, the municipal-level data of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai from 2011 to 2020 are used to test the impact. Subsequently, the mechanism of action test and heterogeneity analysis are conducted.

The results show that digital inclusive finance has a positive role in promoting the high-quality consumption of residents in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. At the same time, digital inclusive finance can promote high-quality consumption through its own digital payment and internet insurance channels. There is regional heterogeneity in the impact.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine whether and how digital inclusive finance affects high-quality consumption. The authors consider multiple dimensions, such as consumption level, consumption structure, consumption ability, consumption environment and consumption mode, to measure high-quality consumption. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers, investors and regulators in planning regulations.

This study investigated the role of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, by concentrating on the obstacles that hinder effective governance of community infrastructure planning.

The qualitative approach via case study design was adopted in this study. The Song District, located in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, was selected as the case study area. Semi-structured interview sessions were conducted with 21 respondents who belonged to the government agencies involved in rural community infrastructure planning and village community representatives to capture their views on community infrastructure development planning in the selected district. The gathered responses were analysed thematically and the outcomes are discussed.

The findings revealed that although the development of community infrastructure in Song District has progressed and has exerted transformative impacts on rural livelihood, several challenges were identified in the delivery of community infrastructure. The four main themes of challenges that emerged from the data were location factors, financial resources, cooperation and collaboration of stakeholders, as well as community involvement. The outcomes disclosed that, in terms of governance, the institutional roles of the community, stakeholders and government agencies must be integrated throughout the rural community infrastructure planning process to resolve the emerging challenges effectively so that the demands of the rural community are met meritoriously.

An effective and efficient community infrastructure planning approach ascertains that the community infrastructure development gaps in rural areas are bridged and brings fruition to the rural communities for their livelihood transformation.

This paper delineates a view on the governance aspect of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, that is largely untapped. The study outcomes may facilitate practitioners and academics to move forward and recommend improvements in the approach to rural community infrastructure planning.

The results indicate that land prices exert pressure on retail performance (RP) and that the enhancement of digital means has a positive effect on RP. Additionally, digital instruments (DI) play a significant moderating role in the relationship between land prices and RP.

This paper empirically examines the impact of land prices on RP using panel data from 239 Chinese cities between 2011 and 2022.

The use of lagged land prices as instrumental variables effectively alleviates endogeneity issues. Both two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) regression results suggest that higher land prices are associated with improved RP. Further analysis reveals that the increase in land prices leads to scale effects, structural effects and technological effects, contributing to the enhancement of RP. The impact of land prices on RP becomes more pronounced in larger cities and economically developed regions experience the pressure from land prices earlier.

The findings of this study have practical implications for discussions on retail industry development, site selection for retail businesses and the establishment of sustainable mechanisms for expanding domestic demand.