Research on the Industrial Upgrade of Vegetable Growers in Shaanxi: A Cross-Regional Comparative Analysis of Experience Reference

The prime goals of this article are to classify farmers’ production structures in different regions through comparative analysis and propose a structural framework that can quantify the transformation and upgrade of the vegetable industry in Shaanxi. The study utilized New Structural Economics (NSE) theory to construct the theoretical model, and the empirical data set has been crafted from 1992 vegetable growers in the Shaanxi, Hebei, and Shandong provinces. We qualitatively evaluated the potentiality of the Shaanxi vegetable industry, facilitating an industrial upgrade by drawing on the development experience of other regions. More specifically, we utilized the tomato growers to construct a five-step analysis method to transform and upgrade the vegetable industries. This article found that the chosen three provinces have structural differences and similarities in their production sides, and, compared with Hebei and Shandong, the vegetable industry in Shaanxi is still in the catching-up stage. Hebei has similar planting characteristics to Shaanxi, but the production characteristics of growers in Shaanxi are quite different from those in Shandong. Therefore, tomato growers in Hebei are the desired learning object for growers in Shaanxi. By learning planting experience from Hebei growers, tomato growers in the Shaanxi Province can improve their yield and product quality. We found that Shaanxi farmers have 15.57 percent improvement potential in improving crop management and rational allocation of production materials. Proper information-sharing platforms should be implemented to grasp consumption trends on the demand side and guide industrial upgrading.

An Empirical Study on Coupling Coordination between the Cultural Industry and Tourism Industry in Ethnic Minority Areas

Background/Objectives: China is actively promoting the reform of its economic structure and industrial upgrade, and the integration of the cultural industry and the tourism industry is an important approach. It is necessary to explore the degree of coordination and coupling between the cultural industry and the tourism industry in ethnic minority areas and find ways to promote the coordinated development of the two industries. Methods/Statistical Analysis: This study selected Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as the sample, collected data from 2010 to 2018, and analyzed it based on the coupling coordination theory. Findings: The results revealed that the comprehensive development evaluation index of the cultural industry and the tourism industry basically showed a year-on-year upward trend, and the development speed of the cultural industry is slightly higher than that of the tourism industry; the coupling degree of the regional cultural industry and tourism industry was at a high level; the coordination degree of the two industries increased gradually from 0.3971 in 2010 to 0.9425 in 2018. It indicated that the coupling development of the two industries continues to improve. However, the development speed of tourism industry slightly was slower than the development speed of the cultural industry. Improvements: This study attempts to develop an index to evaluate the tourism and cultural industries in an ethnic minority region and assess the coupling and coordination degree through an empirical analysis. This study emphasizes the need to better understand the integration of the cultural industry and the tourism industry as a process to complement each other, which can produce a positive synergy effect to benefit both the economy and the environment. This paper also provides development suggestions for the culture and tourism industry stakeholders in other areas of the world from the perspective of open innovation.

Industrial upgrade, economic catch-up and industrial policy in Brazil: general trends and the specific case of the mining industry

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of industrial policy in promoting technological upgrading in Brazil. To do that, we focus on the main characteristics of the Brazilian national innovation system and the role of its institutions. We examine whether industrial policy implemented between 2003 and 2014 was able to promote changes in agents’ conventions towards more vigorous strategies linked to technological upgrading and catch-up. In addition, we analyze the Brazilian mining industry, a sector in which Brazil has developed relevant competitive advantages in international markets, and in which domestic agents have built important operational capabilities. Main results show the huge difficulties faced by industrial policy efforts in establishing mechanisms to drive technological catch-up, based on the unsuccessful experiences of policies in the years 2002 to 2014. The specific experience of the Brazilian mining industry confirms these general findings, since domestic mining companies were not able to create new technological capabilities, even during the commodity price boom period.

Key Factors Affecting Environmental Protection Values in China

Utilizing a total of 31 non-numerical variables on environmental protection values from 1990–2014 in the World Values Survey (WVS) database (i.e., WVS2, WVS3, WVS4, WVS5 and WVS6), this study analyses the temporal changes of environment protection values in China and identifies the key factors related to these changes. We define indices for the standardized values of action and attitudes to environmental protection after clustering the 31 variables into two categories according to the meanings of their variable labels. Through statistical analysis on the possible impacting variables (e.g., GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, carbon emissions per capita, industrial wastes, and rural township enterprises), we find that the variable rural township enterprises is the main factor that causes obvious changes in action and attitude, coupled with other environmental impacts at home and abroad, such as economic globalization, the financial crisis, and frequent natural disasters. In particular, the significant improvement in action during the period from the late 2000s to early 2010s is mainly due to switching the emphasis from quantity to quality. The structural adjustment and industrial upgrade of township enterprises were promoted as important measures to improve environmental values according to Document No. 1 of the Central Committee of the People’s Republic of China in 2010.

Replicating Silicon Valley in China

The aim of this research is to generalize a quasi-universal approach for the Silicon Valley “replication” in China. To transform widely existed traditional industrial parks into Valley-style innovation parks in China, an industrial upgrade and expansion approach is proposed. Four steps including innovation resource and industrial base analysis, government promotion as well as industrial upgrade and expansion would make this transformation. Furthermore, a case in Suzhou and the two pilot projects for its expansion could be examined to verify this approach.