The UN Millennium Development Goals have recognized poverty reduction as the main goal of global development policy. A comprehensive framework to evaluate the effectiveness of single policy measures and policy packages with respect to poverty reduction is still lacking, though. Policy evaluation...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between economic growth and industrial pollution emissions in China using data for 112 major cities between 2001 and 2004. Using disaggregated data we separate FDI inflows from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from those of other foreign economies. We...

Can others learn from China's remarkable growth rate? We explore some indirect determinants of China's growth success including the degree of openness, institutional change and sectoral change, based on a cross-province dataset. Our methodology is the informal growth regression, which permits...

This study investigates the effects of rural urban migration on economic development in Thailand. It draws upon a panel data base of some 2000 rural households collected from 2007 to 2010 in three provinces from Northeast Thailand and migrant survey of some 650 migrants in the Greater Bangkok...

The cloud computing model is a modern concept of computation that provides a number of benefits for its adopters. This online computing model has been widely used in the western world and accepted to have some business and economic impacts. This paper provides some basic knowledge about cloud...

This study develops a policy model under the hierarchical administration system of the regional economy in Japan. In case of Japan, a hierarchy of national, prefectural, and municipal (city) administration exists, and a different regional policy in these each hierarchies can be set up....

This study develops an easy forecasting model using prefectural data in Japan. The Markov chain known as a stochastic model corresponds to the vector auto-regressive (VAR) model of the first order. If the transition probability matrix can be appropriately estimated, the forecasting model using...

This study examines intra-regional disparity and municipal merger in Fukuoka Prefecture. Fukuoka Prefecture (Fukuoka-ken) is a prefecture of Japan located on Kyushu Island. It faces the sea on three sides, bordering on Saga, Oita, and Kumamoto prefectures and facing Yamaguchi Prefecture across...

A growing body of theoretical contributions and empirical studies has explored how the spatial distribution of public resources and governmental transfers is likely to be driven by efficiency and equity, as well as by political considerations. This article applies this line of research to...

In this article, we quantitatively analyze changes in the size distribution of municipal jurisdictions in Japan by using their rank-size distribution to capture the change. In Japan, the central government sometimes enacts large-scale municipal mergers, aimed at the creating of municipalities of...