Exploring the ‘Partial Connections’ between Growth and Degrowth Debates: Bhutan’s Policy of Gross National Happiness

Debates on degrowth have emerged with the realisation that the existing growth-oriented economic order has infringed upon our biosphere’s limits and human wellbeing. This must be rectified in favour of a more sustainable and equitable order through the promotion of green, caring and communal economies, as pointed out by degrowth advocates. However, these advocates argue for abandoning economic growth as a policy objective, thereby missing an opportunity to heed the potential of forging ‘partial connections’ between growth-seeking and degrowth-oriented measures. To explore a remedy against this pitfall, this study examines Bhutan’s policy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which downplays a growth-for-growth’s sake approach but avoids precluding the pursuit of growth, in line with the historical unfolding of the country’s development plans and its Buddhism-based mores. Although GNH is yet to elicit a structural shift towards a full-fledged post-growth society, its balanced stance aids the search for a clue on how best to promote a post-growth transition with an intricate combination of growth-seeking and degrowth-oriented measures. Despite this potential, GNH has been largely overlooked by degrowth advocates, who depart from their own principle of valuing ‘locally determined paths’. JEL: B59, 029

Crisis-induced disruptions in place-based social-ecological research ‐ an opportunity for redirection

Place-based research faces multiple threats, including both natural and global health hazards and political conflicts, which may disrupt fieldwork. The current COVID-19 pandemic shows how these threats can drastically affect social-ecological research activities given its engagement with different local stakeholders, disciplines, and knowledge systems. The crisis reveals the need for adaptive research designs while also providing an opportunity for a structural shift towards a more sustainable and inclusive research landscape.

An investigation into the use of Catford's shifts in translating short stories: translating english grammatical sentences into persian in focus

The present study investigated the use of Catford's shifts in the Persian translation. To achieve the research objectives, the researcher used a qualitative research design to examine Catford’s Translation Shifts category (1965). The research corpus was 50 English sentences of Introductory Steps to Understanding book and its Persian translation by 100 elementary EFL learners. The findings showed that shift structure, unit shift, class shift, and in-system shifts were used by learners. Also, the most shift used by learners was a structural shift. The findings achieved in this study indicated the applicability of shifts in translating grammatical sentences in Persian. Due to the complexity and variety of languages and their structure, the role of translation is very important. The researcher tried to prove that although education in the SL can be practical, finding equivalences for the grammatical sentences will complete it.

Convergence as a Structural Goal of Sustainable Economic Development: the Overview of Approaches

The processes of a green economy development, changes in approaches to the production and use of energy, the emergence of new sources of investment in the technological transition - all this is a consequence and, at the same time, the cause of structural shifts in the economies of advanced countries. In this light, the technological backwardness of the Russian economy, caused by a negative structural shift during the period of market reforms, impedes the transition to a green economy, rationalization of the use of natural resources and reduction of environmental pollution. Therefore, the development of theoretical provisions for the convergence of environmental and economic policies, the development of appropriate incentives for business are considered as an important step in the transition to sustainable development. For this purpose, the authors examine the original approaches to various paths of transition to sustainable development caused by structural shifts of a convergent nature in the economy.

Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of the Structural Convergence of the Economy in the Transition to Sustainable Development

At the present stage of the transition to sustainable development, when the share of a green economy in technologically advanced countries reaches one third of GDP, overcoming the structural crisis of the Russia is inseparable from reducing the technological gap and structural imbalances in the economy. These imbalances alienate Russia from ecologically and technologically advanced countries. Therefore, it is highly relevant to develop a methodology for assessing the structural convergence of the economy in the context of the transition to sustainable development, accompanied in developed countries by a new type of structural shift caused by the expansion of convergent technologies, the emergence of new principles of sectoral genesis and the formation of a green economy. The deepening of the divergent nature of Russian economy development was the result of a series of negative structural shifts that consolidated the dominance of extractive and resource-intensive industries, which threaten the final loss of technological identity, consolidation of the recessive trend and a lag in the transition to sustainable development. Therefore, today it is extremely important to formulate a methodology for assessing the structural convergence of Russian economy with technological and ecologically advanced countries, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative aspects.

Fintech in Europe

Europe’s high pre-existing level of financial development can partly account for the relatively smaller reach of fintech payment and lending activities compared to some other regions. But fintech activity is growing rapidly. Digital payment schemes are expanding within countries, although cross-border and pan-euro area instruments are not yet widespread, notwithstanding important enabling EU level regulation and the establishment of instant payments by the ECB. Automated lending models are developing but remain limited mainly to unsecured consumer lending. While start-ups are pursuing platform-based approaches under minimal regulation, there is a clear trend for fintech companies to acquire balance sheets and, relatedly, banking licenses as they expand. Meanwhile, competition is pushing many traditional banks to adopt fintech instruments, either in-house or by acquisition, thereby causing them to increasingly resemble balanced sheet-based fintech companies. These developments could improve the efficiency and reach of financial intermediation while also adding to profitability pressures for some banks. Although the COVID-19 pandemic could call into question the viability of platform-based lending fintechs funding models given that investors could face much higher delinquencies, it may also offer growth opportunities to those fintechs that are positioned to take advantage of the ongoing structural shift in demand toward virtual finance.