Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western countries have signed several agreements regarding the use of hydrocarbon resources in the Caspian Basin, with the aim of diversifying their energy suppliers. However, recession in the world economy and persistently low oil prices have...

While bringing positive impacts and benefits, cross-border infrastructure projects face additional challenges relative to national projects. Moreover, such projects involve a variety of technical, regulatory, institutional, and legal factors, and their obstacles constrain the development of...

The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and implementation of the Paris Agreement will require significant new investment. New financial technologies ("fintech") offer the potential to unlock green finance technologies, such as blockchain, the Internet of Things and big data,...

This study investigates the long-run cross-economy dynamics in energy productivity across the world. We construct a data set comprising value-added and energy use data on 18 productive sectors in 47 economies over the period 2000-2015. First, we analyze the cross-economy distribution of energy...

Established by the United Nations in 2015 with a target date of 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework with specific objectives to guide global development policy. The SDGs extend and modify an earlier framework, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), established in...

It is an empirical fact that it is very difficult to balance economic growth, poverty reduction, and environment protection, particularly for developing and transitional economies. While the economic environment of a country is influenced by conditions within the country, it is also influenced...

Japan's "two lost decades" perhaps represent an extreme example of a weak recovery from a financial crisis, and are now referred to as "Japanization." More recently, widespread stagnation in advanced economies in the wake of the global financial crisis led to fears that Japanization might spread...

Whether the People's Republic of China's (PRC) economic slowdown since the 2008 financial crisis is a cyclical downturn or a long-run trend has important policy implications. Based on provincial panel data, this article identifies the determinants of productivity and uses counter-factual...

This paper provides estimates of the costs of organic agriculture (OA) programs, and sets them in the context of the costs of attaining the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It analyzes the costs of OA programs in four case studies: Wanzai, PRC; Wuyuan, PRC; Kandy, Sri Lanka; and...

This paper examines financing mechanisms to support infrastructure development and connectivity in Northeast Asia - comprising the Northeastern People's Republic of China, Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and the Russian Far East. Although...