This study investigates the structural and macroeconomic determinants of sustainable economic growth in Chongqing by integrating a multidimensional sustainability framework with dynamic econometric modeling. A composite sustainable economic growth index is constructed using an entropy-based weighting method, incorporating indicators of economic performance, social development, and innovation capacity to capture the systemic nature of sustainability. To examine both equilibrium relationships and adjustment dynamics, an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) error correction model is employed, enabling simultaneous estimation of long-run cointegration and short-run responses among variables with mixed integration orders. The empirical findings reveal that education expenditure, infrastructure development, and innovation capacity exert significant long-run effects on sustainable growth, while monetary conditions, exchange rate movements, and external sector dynamics primarily influence short-run adjustments. The analysis distinguishes structural drivers from cyclical macroeconomic factors, thereby providing a dynamic perspective on sustainability-oriented transformation. By integrating economic, social, and innovation subsystems within a unified empirical framework, this study advances existing literature and offers policy-relevant insights for regional economies undergoing structural transition.
This research seeks to determine how the perceptions of green branding in terms of perceived environmental responsibility, green trust, and brand authenticity are related to consumer purchase intentions. Quantitative research design was employed in the research, and data were gathered by a structured survey of 325 respondents with various demographic backgrounds. To identify the predictive strength of these constructs and the mediation of green attitudes, the analysis was based on descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression modeling (including SEM using SPSS and SmartPLS). The results indicate that the positive attitudes toward the concept of green branding are important predictors of a consumer's intention to purchase green products. In particular, green trust was identified as the most influential predictor of purchase intent and brand authenticity, and perceived green image came as the next important predictor. It is concluded that in a marketplace where people are becoming more environmentally conscious, the match between brand identity and the real environmental values is the key to determining consumer behavior. The implications, therefore, indicate that companies should focus on clear and realistic green marketing initiatives to alleviate the level of doubt and create a long term customer confidence. These lessons are helpful to marketers who aim at creating sustainable branding strategies that achieve a competitive advantage in the Indian green market.
In Marxian terms, exploitation is not merely the existence of profits or surplus capture, but a structural relation in which wage-labor systematically produces a surplus appropriated by owners or controllers of productive assets. Yet in modern political economy, measured profits can arise from many channels-competition-compatible returns, rents generated by market power, transfers, and risk premia-that are not isomorphic to the Marxian concept. We lay out a number of contingent factors that govern when surplus capture from labor becomes exploitation in the Marxian sense. We provide: (1) a clean conceptual decomposition separating labor-generated surplus from rents and transfers; (2) sufficient conditions for Marxian exploitation as a class relation; (3) a catalog of contingent amplifiers (labor-market power, product-market power, state distortion, organizational control, financialization, and social reproduction); and (4) a dynamic, finite-horizon selection framework in which time preference and trust determine which labor contracts and institutional "protocols" can persist without direct state control. The resulting view is compatible with Marx's core structural insight while treating exploitation intensity as an equilibrium outcome of slow-moving social and institutional parameters.
This article argues that contemporary Japan represents the most advanced case of rentier capitalism among major developed economies. Drawing on classical political economy, Keynesian theory, and the recent rentier capitalism literature, the article identifies four interdependent structural mechanisms that have consolidated this regime over three decades of unconventional monetary policy: monetary-policy-induced asset inflation, corporate financialization through the accumulation of retained earnings, the institutionalization of wage growth suppression, and the socialization of rentier profits by the state. While asset prices have soared, real wages have stagnated, productive investment has declined, and household consumption has weakened. By situating Japan within the broader trajectory of advanced capitalist economies, the article contends that Japan is not an outlier but a harbinger of the structural tendencies of twenty-first century capitalism, contributing to heterodox debates on secular stagnation, financialization, and the contradictions between capital accumulation and social reproduction.
The future of global capitalism is tied to the future of the US's economic dominance. We argue that many commentators greatly exaggerate US economic decline because they rely on outdated conceptualizations of national economic power from before the post-1990s age of globalization. Once we understand how American power has globalized, the virtually insurmountable nature of US hegemony in global capitalism becomes clear, for the foreseeable future. This is partly because of-not despite-China's capitalist rise and integration into this system. Here we spell out the several distinct mechanisms, or sinews, by which the US sustains its economic dominance, with particular attention to the global concentration of power and wealth in the hands of US corporations, and to the US control over advanced semiconductors. This structural power will likely endure despite Trump's behaviors in the diplomatic realm of relational power (including wars), as long as there is no rival that can compete economically and counterbalance militarily. Only anti-capitalist forces could threaten capitalism, and since none are currently on the horizon, there is a greater chance of ecocide and interplanetary colonization than the end of global capitalism in this century.
The East Asian countries of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan share many cultural similarities and connections. As a group, they have the lowest birth rate in the world. Among them, South Korea (henceforth, Korea) has the lowest birth rate, equivalent to less than one child per woman. If this continues, it will bring severe population decline and aging, approximately halving the population size by the end of the century and creating an aged society with three-quarters of the population over 60 years of age. The causes are well known but difficult to address: a demanding work culture with long working hours, a high-pressure examination system that puts demands on parents as well as students, and small but expensive housing in cities. Although previous policy emphasized financial support for the family, its level is still below what is needed. Two fundamental problems are recognized but have only recently been addressed: the effective restriction of childbearing to married couples and the unattractiveness of marriage to many women because of the extra burdens and restrictions which it places on them, especially if they want to work and have children. Here attitudes, behavior, and policy are all changing. Immigration, to which Korean attitudes seem more welcoming than in other parts of East Asia, is bound to play a part. Immigration could preserve population size, but it but can only protect the proportion of the population in working age with increasing levels of migration, which would inflate population size and lead to a population of primarily non-Korean origin.
This paper contends that the project of mainstream economics ought to be understood through the totality of its systemic delusion to reveal its failings as a societal science. I argue that this systematic delusion springs from and is sustained by two interrelated systems. I construct a framework of mainstream economics that integrates its ideological foundations with its methodological pillars, which I refer to as system I and system II of the mainstream project. First, I document the process of the ideological evolution (sub-system IA) of mainstream economics from the Classicals to the present to demonstrate that the mainstream has consistently served the capitalist system. Second, I argue that this service is made possible through the obstinate use of homo economicus (sub-system IIA) and the dogmatic insistence on mathematical formalism (sub-system IIB), despite their incompatibility with the true behavior of social individuals. Lastly, I expose how the intellectual cartel of mainstream economists (sub-system IB) at various levels of the capitalist social system marginalizes those outside the cartel. In this vicious circular project, the intellectual cartel upholds the capitalist ideology by committing to analytical rigor that does not necessarily engage with concrete material reality.
Japan occupies a foundational place in national innovation systems (NISs) research. Yet post-bubble stagnation, shifting corporate governance, labor-market dualization under aging, and renewed industrial policy amid digital, green, and geopolitical pressures raise a political-economy puzzle: how do capitalist institutions shape an innovation system's capacity to reproduce, diffuse, and renew productive capabilities over time? We specify an evolutionary mechanism-variation, selection, and retention (VSR)-that links familiar NIS inventories to system evolution. We argue that outcomes hinge on retention capacity: replication infrastructures that store and transmit routines, skills, standards, and investment horizons so innovations diffuse, scale, and cumulate. Defining retention narrowly clarifies two failure modes: under-retention produces leakage and recurrent pilotism, while over-retention produces lock-in and delayed reorientation during paradigm shifts. These failure modes can coexist across different institutional layers, producing simultaneous volatility and inertia. We develop a typology of five retention mechanisms (organizational routines, skills pipelines, inter-firm diffusion architectures, standards/infrastructures, and policy-financial memory) and derive propositions about how changing selection environments reconfigure them. Using Japan as an interpretive case, we offer a stylized periodization and highlight the policy challenge of building "reorientable retention".
This article describes and analyzes the economic growth and stagnation of postwar Japan, focusing in particular on its manufacturing industry during the post-Cold-War period, when it faced intense global competition and explosive digitalization. Both semi-macro statistics and field survey results are used for historical analysis. In addition, the combination of a classical economics (Ricardian) industry study and modern design theories is adopted. Our empirical research shows that Japan's manufacturing industry continued to grow slowly between the1990s and the 2010s. The number of its employees shrank to about two thirds, while value-added productivity doubled during the same period. After China's entry into the world market with extremely low wages, Japan's average wage rate almost stopped growing in the 1990s-2010s, but it started to increase again in the 2020s. Many Japanese manufacturing firms disappeared during the wave of global competition and digitalization, but many survived thanks to significant improvements in physical labor productivities, achieved by introducing advanced production systems/technologies, such as the Toyota-style production system. The Japanese manufacturing industry tended to accumulate coordinative manufacturing capability in the Cold War period of rapid economic growth (economy of scarcity), and it later retained its design-based comparative advantage in coordination-intensive or integral-architecture products, e.g., highly-functional automobiles, as predicted by the CAP (capability-architecture-performance) approach to industry studies. Overall, for Japan's manufacturing industries, firms, and factories, the post-Cold-War period was characterized not simply by stagnation and decline, but by multifaceted interactions among stagnation, struggles, and resilience.
Expectations have been high that East Asia would provide the growth engine for the global economy in the twenty first century. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that these economies face headwinds, not least in north-east Asia from accelerated demographic aging, leading to fears that these economies, too, face the prospect of secular stagnation, and that Japan's 'lost decades' could spread much further afield. With geopolitical tensions in East Asia there is a possibility of a coming countermovement, in the form of military Keynesianism to stimulate economic growth. A large literature has debated the economic effects of military spending and while there is no consensus, there is little support for any belief that military spending is a good way of stimulating the economy. This paper reviews the finding of the literature and considers its relevance and its implications for East Asia. It then considers whether there is consistent evidence to support the military Keynesian arguments, through a brief discussion of the countries and an empirical analysis of available data. It finds little evidence to support simple military Keynesian arguments.
This paper studies the applicability of the concept of "secular stagnation" to four Northeast Asian economies, specifically China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It revisits growth outcome in those countries since the 1980s and discusses future growth prospects. A bibliometric analysis demonstrates that secular stagnation and related concepts of "lost decade", "growth trap" or "growth slowdown" have risen in academic studies focusing on East Asia. While some deceleration in growth is expected as economies approach the technological frontier and move beyond catch-up growth, recent performance has been weaker than earlier expectations. On the supply side, rapid population aging, slower labor force expansion, and the flattening of educational attainment have contributed to declining growth potential. On the demand side, rising inequality and cross-country spillovers have further dampened growth prospects. Nevertheless, the diversity of country experiences and policy responses within East Asia suggests that prolonged stagnation is not inevitable.
Fintech adoption accelerated due to the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, high financial illiteracy hinders effective decision-making and elevates crisis vulnerability, possibly worsening financial issues despite innovation. Theoretical frameworks support this, but global empirical analysis is limited. Addressing this research gap, the study aims to examine the impact of Fintech adoption (FA) and digital financial literacy (DFL) on financial development (FD), using panel data from 118 countries (79 developed and 39 developing) spanning the period from 2004 to 2022. Employing the System-Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and Two-Way Least Squares (2SLS) estimators, the study explores both linear and nonlinear dynamics, as well as the moderating role of DFL. The results show that a one-unit increase in FA raises FD by 0.16 points on average, with stronger effects in developing countries. In developed economies, the relationship follows an inverted U-shape, peaking at an optimal Fintech index value of 2.65, beyond which marginal benefits decline. In contrast, developing economies exhibit a continuously increasing effect. Moreover, DFL significantly enhances the FA-FD relationship, especially in low-literacy contexts, indicating a strong synergistic effect. These findings offer new cross-country empirical evidence on the differentiated roles of Fintech and DFL in financial development across development levels.
The aim of this paper is to provide evidence for the proposition that China still has potential for mid-level growth for several years by comparing the level of urban housing development between China and Japan. In the author's view, the saturation of demand for urban housing in Japan is one of reasons for its long-lasting stagnation. By contrast, there is still a large volume of unmet demand for urban housing in China, and therefore there is potential for growth. The paper compares Japan's postwar urban housing development process with that of China's and shows that the current level of two of the four largest cities-Shenzhen and Guangzhou-is similar to the big cities of Japan in the 1960s, because they still continue to absorb the inflow of migrants. By contrast, the other two big cities-Beijing and Shanghai-have been refusing the net inflow of migrant population for more than ten years and therefore have moved prematurely into the next phase. The paper concludes that the former two cities need to expand the area in which people can regularly commute by investing in public transportation infrastructure to facilitate their urban development to move into the next phase. The latter two cities should change their policy to a more migrant-friendly one to avoid a premature saturation of housing demand.
