Regional development

Migration has been seen as an important issue in regional development worldwide. This study analyses the impact of internal migration on provincial growth in Indonesia. Applying a growth model, this study found evidence that migration played no role on regional convergence during the 1975–2005 period. However, different policies affected the signs and sizes of the estimates across sub-periods. Moreover, inter-provincial migration, especially in-migration in poorer provinces, had a positive impact on economic growth in Indonesia.

"Increasing demand for fossil fuels due to the luxurious lifestyle, significant growth of population, transportation and the basic industry sectors has caused serious environmental problems. Moreover, a rapid decline in the fossil fuels has led scientists and researchers to look for new alternatives. In this regard, alternative fuels such as biofuels are becoming important increasingly due to environmental and energy concerns. Biofuels are commonly referred to as first generations, which are produced primarily from food crops. However, the use of edible oil to produce biodiesel in many countries is not feasible in view of a big gap in the demand and supply of such oils for dietary consumption. This paper critically reviews the facts and prospects of biofuel utilization especially, three edible biodiesels namely soybean, rapeseed, palm and two non-edible viz. jatropha and cottonseed to reduce engine exhaust gas, noise emission and petro dependency. Based on various biofuel feedstocks, this paper generally found that biodiesel fuels are considered as offering many benefits, including sustainability, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and many harmful pollutants along with noise emission, regional development, social structure and agriculture, and security of supply. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1364032112005874/1-s2.0-S1364032112005874-main.pdf?_tid=f92c4ac6-a9c6-11e3-8dad-00000aacb362&acdnat=1394615960_605e5bab0b3d8fe737e8d65e7fd49630 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032112005874  "

"Measuring sustainable development is a highly significant issue as there is neither a unified
set of indicators nor any preferred methodology on how to do it. This is despite continual
attempts to evaluate entities from the point of view of sustainable development. The most
problematic level according to sustainable development assessment seems to be the
“lower” regional levels, such as LAU 1 (former NUTS 4) level. On one hand, there are
usually at this level already serious problems with data availability, on the other, it is almost
impossible to regularly perform detailed questionnaire surveys in all LAU 1 regions (77
districts in case of the Czech Republic), as it is done in cities. The aim of the paper is to
decide how to assess sustainability at this level.
Relevant indicators, although different from indicators used at the national or NUTS 3
level, with data available for all LAU 1 regions were selected. We succeeded in filling all
the three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) with a
sufficient number of suitable indicators. For the first phase, cluster analysis was applied to
find coherences among regions that are affected by similar problems. Composite indicators
were then constructed in order to create a ranking of all 77 districts. Ranking was derived
from this composite indicator approach. Ten composite indicators were constructed to test
different methods of normalisation, weighting and aggregation. The results show the
ranking of LAU 1 regions in the Czech Republic from the sustainability perspective, both
including and excluding the capital city of Prague as an outlying district. A good
interconnection between cluster analysis and constructed composite indicators can be seen;
this is also supported by the discussion of the results."

The phenomenon of labor mobility in Fiji is encouraged by the existing pattern of uneven regional development which creates and contributes to limited economic opportunities. This is manifested by a disparity in the average annual growth rate of the provincial population, which implies migration from the lower income provinces to the higher income provinces. Circular labor migration follows the same path. Gains to the village economy from circular mobility, especially in the remote periphery and the outer islands, take the form of remittances which supplement local income. labor mobility, and particularly its circular form, expresses the interdependency between the capitalist and village modes of production. This mobility is a mechanism whereby the native villagers supply cheap labor for the production of commodities, and at the same time contribute to village households income, and thus enable the native population to satisfy cash requirements beyond local commercial production capacity. Although this mechanism supports the existing core-periphery pattern in Fiji, it may be considered an integrative component in development strategies of small island states.

In this article we analyse the effects of expressions of trust and distrust in various sites of interaction in public policy. We analyse  interactions between government officials of the Investment Fund for Rural Areas (ILG) in the Netherlands. We found that both trust and distrust were performed in different settings. The distrust performances developed into stories. Through telling and retelling, these stories became dominant in the more non-public settings. As performative stories, they became the basis for further actions. The performances of trust took place in more public settings, but were interpreted as signs of distrust when linked up to stories of distrust. On these sites trust was faked and forced in an attempt to uphold a story of successful policy implantation. We found that the performances of both trust and distrust negatively influenced the course of the ILG. We conclude that expressions of trust, which generally have positive associations, can contribute to distrust and troubled relations within inter-governmental cooperation. 

In a context in which multinational companies are increasingly able to choose their locations of production, this paper examines how social and political governance actors in host regional economies attempt to attract and retain foreign direct investment. Based on a comparative study of two regions in each of Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK, it shows both national and in some cases sub-national variations in the nature of attempts to attract and retain foreign investment, as well as in the actors involved. The paper also discusses how these differences in policy interact with the characteristics of specific foreign investors. Our findings support arguments that attempts to embed regime-shopping firms are facilitated by active governance from social as well as state actors.