The purpose of this study is to analyze the trade between China and 97 countries that have an important place in the bilateral trade of China in the period of 2008-2019 with the extended gravity model and to determine the determinants of trade. In the study, the potential impact of ASEAN and APEC member countries on Chinese trade was investigated, apart from the per capita incomes, populations and distances of the countries. In addition, the effect of energy imports required for industrial production on Chinese exports is also analyzed as another dummy variable for OPEC countries. Empirical results show that the GDP and population growth of dependent and independent countries are positively affected by trade, and as the distance increases, trade is negatively affected. The dummy coefficients of ASEAN, APEC and OPEC show that they are positive and statistically significant. Due to the fact that ASEAN and APEC consist of Asian countries and therefore are close to China, it has been observed that they are compatible with gravity model theory. The positive effect of OPEC member countries on Chinese exports was determined as importing the energy required for industrial production and converting intermediate goods into value-added products and exporting.

Various factors determine and affect economic growth, one of which is exports. Trade theory also states that exports increase the growth of the domestic economy in various ways. For this reason, the effect of exports on economic growth is a long-term area of research. In addition to the studies examining the effect of foreign trade on economic growth in the literature, some studies investigate the effects of economic growth on export capacity. These studies suggest that the export-based economic growth hypothesis is valid when the causality relationship between exports and growth is from exports to growth, and the growth-led export hypothesis is valid when it is from growth to exports. To this end, the primary purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of the new economic model for Turkey in two different periods. In this context, this study comparatively focuses on the 1999:Q1–2013:Q4 and 2014:Q1–2021:Q4 periods to test the validity of the export-led growth hypothesis and the growth-led export hypothesis. According to the analysis results for the 1999:Q1–2013:Q4 periods, only the growth-led export hypothesis is valid, and a 1% increase in the economic growth rate in this period increases exports by 0.42%. Considering the 2014:Q1–2021:Q4 period, the hypotheses of “Economic growth is not the cause of exports and exports are not the cause of economic growth” are rejected, and according to these test results, it was determined that both the export-led growth hypothesis and the growth-led export hypothesis are valid. In the results of this period, a 1% increase in economic growth rate increases exports by 0.38%, and a 1% increase in exports increases economic growth by 1.36%.

This paper examines the role of tourism in foreign direct investment-growth relation in upper-middle income countries. We deploy static and dynamic panel analysis to evaluate how tourism indicators influence the impact of FDI net inflows on growth using an unbalanced panel data on 29 upper middle-income countries from 2010-2019. The tourism indicators are receipts, arrivals and expenditures. The results from static and dynamic analyses indicate that for the most part (1) FDI and tourism exert asymmetric effects on growth, (2) tourism indicators reduce the negative effect of FDI on growth, (4) trade openness is a positive and significant predictor of growth, and (5) domestic credit negatively contributes to growth. Deductively, results evidence that tourism indicators are critical drivers of economic growth in upper middle-income countries. Overall, tourism receipts show the largest influence on FDI to spur the most appreciable impact on growth. Despite this, the fact that tourism indicators cannot completely eliminate the destructive impact of FDI on economic growth shows that tourism development policies should be based on a greener and sustainable ground, taking into account the effects of the coronavirus.

Energy intensity comes to the forefront in evaluating the efficiency of energy consumption in economic activities. While countries’ environmental policies, production techniques, and foreign trade frameworks have an impact on energy intensity, today the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and related factors on energy intensity has also begun to be examined. This research analyzes the influence of AI on energy intensity utilizing data from 2005 to 2022 for 27 European Union (EU) nations. An AI index was initially established via the PCA approach incorporating 15 AI‐related factors. The two‐stage system generalized method of moments (GMM) was employed to ascertain the impacts of the pertinent AI index, trade openness, industrial production, and governance factors on energy intensity. The results indicate that the prevalence of AI technologies, the degree of trade openness, and the level of industrial production enhance energy efficiency. Nonetheless, the regulatory quality (RQ) fails to convey a favorable impression about the assurance of energy efficiency. The findings underscore the necessity of incorporating AI into strategies aimed at enhancing energy efficiency in manufacturing processes for policymakers and stakeholders in industrial production.

This study investigates Spain's role in Portugal’s economic development and analyzes the assumption that Spain’s import from Portugal is the factor that increases Portugal’s per capita income the most. Apart from these reasons, there are several other motivations to focus on foreign trade between Spain and Portugal. The first is to examine the impact on Portugal of the increases in GDP, exports and imports of Spain, which is the major country and borders Portugal. Second, this study aims to test the growth spread. According to the test results, the economic growth of Spain positively affects the growth of Portugal in the long and short term. In addition, it was concluded that the share of imports has more positive effects than exports in the long run. It shows that the deviation in the variables according to the error correction term result converges to only 85 percent in the t period. The findings are also consistent with previous research supporting the economic integration arguments that emerged as a result of trade relations. In addition, in this direction, the economic and political meetings to be held between the two countries and the actions to be taken as a result of these meetings can create an environment where both countries can win.

Income distribution is defined as sharing income arising from the sale of products among persons, groups, or production factors in a country within specific periods. Income inequality is the wage gaps between persons, groups, or regions. Increasing income inequality is accepted as the primary problem of economies in terms of bringing along many problems. This is because the fair distribution has continued to remain on the agenda of economic policies. There are several methods in measuring the inequality in the distribution of income as well as this study utilized Theil index because of the sensitivity of related index to super and subgroups of the income distribution. Spain and Portugal, in this chapter, were accepted as a single county; Spain and Portugal (each) were accepted as the regions of this presumptive country. Under this assumption, the course of wages inequality in time was revealed by the inequality analysis that was performed for eight sub-sectors of the manufacturing sector of Spain and Portugal for the years between1995 and 2015.