{"title":"Patterns of subordination in the Global South between natural resources, foreign ownership and financial inflows","authors":"Samuele Bibi","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.09.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.09.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Peru and Kazakhstan have often been presented as success stories—respectively, in Latin America and Central Asia—due to their sustained economic growth since the early 2000s. Despite their distinct histories, geographies, and cultural contexts, both countries exhibit comparable economic features: a heavy reliance on natural resource exports, significant foreign ownership in strategic sectors, and persistent dependence on external financial inflows. These shared characteristics raise concerns about a common pattern of dependency and subordination. While the 2003–2014 commodity supercycle enabled both countries to reduce poverty and transition into upper-middle-income status, this growth was primarily driven by extractive sectors and fuelled by foreign capital. Beneath this apparent success lies a more troubling reality: structural current account deficits, driven by negative primary income balances despite strong trade surpluses. These deficits were increasingly financed through pro-market policies aimed at attracting foreign direct investment, particularly in copper extraction in Peru and oil in Kazakhstan. Although commodity prices have experienced partial revivals, long-term sustainability remains questionable—especially given rising social unrest and mounting geopolitical tensions. This paper explores the financial underpinnings of this subordination by analysing balance of payments dynamics and international investment position statistics for both countries and further contrasting it with Mexico as a third country. In doing so, it critically assesses the viability of development strategies based on natural resource extraction and foreign capital inflows, situating the analysis within broader geopolitical and historical frameworks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 349-368"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wolfgang Schwarzbauer , Virág Bittó , Philipp Koch , Jonathan Steininger
{"title":"Mapping CO2 emissions in Global Value Chains: Does a value-added smile curve imply an emissions frown curve?","authors":"Wolfgang Schwarzbauer , Virág Bittó , Philipp Koch , Jonathan Steininger","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Global value chains (GVCs) play a crucial role in international trade. High value-added activities tend to cluster at the start and the end of GVCs, resulting in a U-shaped relationship across production steps known as the “smile curve”. The distribution of CO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> emissions along the value chain, however, is relatively unexplored. Here, we map embodied CO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> emissions to test whether emissions are distributed differently across production stages than value–added. We find that activities with high emission intensities cluster at early stages, while late stages exhibit lower emission intensities. This results in a downward-sloping CO<span><math><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> emissions curve with tentative evidence of a frown-curve pattern. Also, we find that the prevalence of a U-shaped pattern in the distribution of value-added across production stages declined significantly since 1995. We explore several examples and provide an interactive tool to explore the mapping of value-added and emissions across more than 1,000 GVCs of industrial goods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 332-348"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Muhammet Deveci , Mehtap Isik , Arunodaya Raj Mishra , Pratibha Rani , Ilgin Gokasar , Zhe Liu
{"title":"Evaluation of bioeconomic practices within structural changes using picture fuzzy decision-making model","authors":"Muhammet Deveci , Mehtap Isik , Arunodaya Raj Mishra , Pratibha Rani , Ilgin Gokasar , Zhe Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.017","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.017","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impacts of the bioeconomy transition from a multidimensional perspective. As a growing response to sustainability challenges, the bioeconomy is driving dynamic structural changes in both the economy and society. This transition holds significant potential for job creation, integration with circular economic systems, and the revitalization of rural areas. Given that the transformative effects of emerging bioeconomic practices vary in scale and scope, their evaluation in the context of bioeconomic growth is essential for analyzing their efficiency and feasibility. The evaluation process should have a multidimensional approach, addressing technical and social factors, economic considerations, environmental expectations, and regulatory constraints. Taking complex nature of assessment problem into account, this study introduces a multi-criteria decision-making analysis (MCDA) framework to formulate evaluation of different alternatives under uncertain constraints setting. A hybrid combination of three different MCDA methods and new divergence measure for picture fuzzy sets are developed to estimate objective weights of criteria in assessing the trends concerning their multidimensional impacts. The framework is applied to the case of Türkiye, a country with substantial bioeconomic growth potential. A structured survey is conducted to assess current bioeconomy trends. Three biotechnological alternatives are evaluated against fourteen criteria, categorized into four dimensions: technological, economic, environmental, and social. The findings indicate that the use of biotechnology for enzyme production receives the highest prioritization across these dimensions, highlighting its strategic importance in advancing bioeconomic growth. While the case study of Türkiye demonstrates the model’s implementation and effectiveness, the analysis is further extended to offer policy recommendations—such as establishing a robust institutional framework that enhances local governance capacities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 369-390"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sheng Zhang , Yifu Yang , Yijie Zhao , Ya Wang , Jiming Hao
{"title":"ESG in Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE): Driving Forces for SDGs","authors":"Sheng Zhang , Yifu Yang , Yijie Zhao , Ya Wang , Jiming Hao","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.015","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.015","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As global attention to sustainability grows, integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into macroeconomic models is crucial for understanding their impact on achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study develops a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model, validated with a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model, to assess how ESG factors act as driving forces for the SDGs. The findings reveal that ESG investments, particularly those enhancing environmental quality, involve a short-term trade-off with consumption but lead to long-term capital accumulation, improved production efficiency, and macroeconomic stability. Empirical analysis using data from China confirms the positive impact of ESG factors on consumption and capital. This study highlights the critical value of incorporating ESG into economic modeling, providing key quantitative insights for policymakers formulating strategies t hat promote sustainable development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 301-312"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144931997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spatio-temporal evolution and convergence analysis of China's land economy and marine economy green development synergy","authors":"Yanwei Wang , Kedong Yin , Xue Jin","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The green development coordination of land economy (LE) and marine economy (ME) is an inevitable choice to respond to the requirements of sustainable development. This paper measures the level of LE and ME green development synergy in China from 2010 to 2023, and further analyzes the regional differences and convergence characteristics in coordination by using Dagum Gini coefficient method and convergence model. The research shows that LE and ME green development synergy level in all regions has risen to good coordination. The main source of the difference of LE and ME green development synergy has changed from hypervariation density to inter-regional differences, and the internal difference of southern marine economic circle is the largest. Only the northern marine economic circle exists <span><math><mi>σ</mi></math></span> convergence in stage 1, and it maintains stable <span><math><mi>β</mi></math></span> convergence with coastal area, which is affected by different factors in different periods. Therefore, make policy recommendations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 423-438"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145060185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International cost-push inflation and monetary policy in Brazil","authors":"Guilherme Spinato Morlin","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Exchange rate and commodity prices are often considered primary drivers of inflation in Brazil. However, international cost shocks from intermediate inputs are less studied. We estimate a Structural VAR model including a Foreign Producer Price Index, measuring cost changes of Brazilian trade partners in the period 1999–2020. Estimates show a positive effect of the Foreign PPI on the Brazilian Consumer Price Index, providing a relevant explanation for domestic inflation. Consistently with the empirical literature, our results underscore the Exchange Rate as the main determinant of the CPI. Our findings highlight the predominance of shocks related to the external sector (Exchange Rate, Foreign PPI, and Commodity Prices) in explaining inflation in Brazil. Since the international shocks and Foreign PPI are beyond the direct influence of the Central Bank, our results confirm that the inflation targeting regime in Brazil relied mainly on the exchange rate effect following changes in the interest rate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 486-500"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A model of maximum employment growth with a one-third profit share","authors":"Alain Villemeur","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The economies of the European Union and the United States have been predominantly wage-driven in recent decades, according to most empirical studies on the <span><span>Bhaduri–Marglin model (1990)</span></span>. Nevertheless, since the 1980s, European governments have operated under the neoclassical belief that full employment can be achieved by reducing labour costs and increasing the profit share of income, a strategy that has proven effective, though the reasons remain a mystery (Storm and Naastepad, 2017). How could this happen? To explain these developments, the proposed new model of growth and distribution integrates the principles of chain reaction, creative destruction, effective demand, and the significance of income distribution, as outlined by Kaldor, Schumpeter, Keynes, and Ricardo, respectively. It has been theoretically demonstrated that employment growth reaches its maximum when profit share accounts for one-third of income. This relationship is illustrated by the evolution of the U.S. economy throughout the 20th century and by 17 advanced economies since 1961, the earliest year for which precise data is available. Thus, wages drive output and productivity growth, while employment growth is driven by the profit share when it is below the one-third threshold, and by the wage share when it exceeds that point.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 403-422"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Supply chain spillovers of Pilot Free Trade Zones on GVC upgrading of Chinese firms","authors":"Yongming Huang , Xin Li , Changwei Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs) represent a pivotal national strategy for advancing China’s high-quality opening up, which offer a quasi-natural experiment to test the supply chain spillovers. By constructing the panel data of Chinese A-share listed firms during the period of 2008 to 2016, this study examines the spillover effects of PFTZs on firms’ GVC positions through supply chain linkages utilizing DID method. The results indicate that PFTZs significantly improve GVC positions of both upstream and downstream firms. Specifically customers in PFTZs enhance their suppliers’ GVC positions by triggering innovation, while suppliers in PFTZs facilitate their customers’ GVC upgrading through cost reduction. These spillovers exhibit significant heterogeneity across financial constraints, market concentration, and regions. In addition, this study reveals that PFTZs exert significantly negative effects on GVC positions of downstream SMEs, whereas the positive effects on upstream SMEs’ GVC positions are not statistically significant. The implication of these findings is that greater policy attention should be paid to supply chain spillover mechanisms, considering their heterogeneous effects across customers, suppliers, and regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 439-450"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Driving environmental, social, and governance excellence: The direct and indirect effects of intelligent transformation","authors":"Yuhang Chen , Yilin Zhong , Feng Xu , Qinghua Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Integrating intelligent technologies into corporate processes represents a transformative response to sustainable and responsible business practices. Despite its growing significance, the effects and mechanisms through which intelligent transformation impacts corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance remain insufficiently explored. Drawing on resource orchestration and dynamic capabilities theory, this study develops a theoretical framework to analyze how intelligent transformation empowers ESG improvement. Using a comprehensive dataset of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2023, the empirical results confirm that intelligent transformation significantly enhances ESG performance. This improvement is realized through three key channels: enhancing information disclosure quality, fostering green innovation, and mitigating supply chain concentration. Furthermore, the effects are more pronounced among state-owned enterprises, technology- and capital-intensive corporations, corporations located in the eastern area of China, and those operating in highly marketized regions. A value chain analysis further reveals that intelligent transformation in research design, manufacturing, and marketing consistently drives ESG enhancements. These findings enrich the literature on intelligent transformation and provide actionable insights for corporations seeking to optimize their sustainability practices in an intelligence era.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 313-331"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144932000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Innovation and industry growth under private and public ownership: non-creative destruction versus welfare maximisation","authors":"Johan Willner, Sonja Grönblom","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.08.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyse the impact of ownership, market structure, and quality of governance on sustainable industry growth as driven by process innovations generated by salaried agents under asymmetric information. The agent faces uncertainty because of performance-related pay and random punishments, which can be imposed by the employer (as arguably in the case of Nokia’s demise as a producer of mobile phones) or by external forces. Intermediate concentration yields the highest growth when firms maximise profits, but innovation costs increase with the market size. This can lead to monopolisation, and hence to non-creative destruction. A welfare-maximising public monopoly outperforms the oligopoly, but not necessarily under bad governance. An oligopoly can reach reasonable growth, but only under stringent conditions if the discount rate is low. Public ownership might then be an attractive alternative, but interventions to improve governance and to ensure decent working conditions, job security, and long-termism may then be necessary. (#149)</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Pages 513-525"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145104465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}