The rapid economic emergence of China is credited to be its products and economic complexity. Foreign direct investment, with its better-embedded knowhow and technology, is one of the main drivers for the higher economic complexity of China. By applying the ARDL and VECM approaches; this study confirms the long-run bidirectional and short-run unidirectional causal relationship between economic complexity and foreign direct investment. Besides, we include additional control variables such as institutional quality, information & communication technology, trade openness, per capita GDP, domestic investment, and human capital, which are found robust in our analysis.

China’s huge investment in the “belt and road initiative” (BRI) may have helped improve the economic level of participating countries, but it may also be accompanied by a substantial increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The BRI corridors aim to bring regional stability and prosperity. In such efforts, energy efficiency due to increased transport has been overlooked in the recent literature. This paper employed a data envelopment analysis of the slack-based measurement (SBM) for bad output to assess the transport energy efficiency of 19 countries under the BRI economic corridors. By using the most cited transport-related input variables, such as vehicles, labor, motor oil, jet fuel, and natural gas, this study first analyzes the transport energy efficiency by first assuming the output variables individually and then takes two years as a pre- and post-BRI case by considering the aggregated output model. The results show an increase in economic activity but a decline in transport energy efficiency in terms of consumption and emissions.

In this paper, for the first time, we investigate the relationship between infrastructure and sectoral distribution of FDI inflow in China. We use the Estimating Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) procedures of estimation. To unmask the shortcomings in the previous literature, we use a composite index of infrastructure with more than 30 indicators. The results show that there is a long-run relationship between sectoral FDI and infrastructure. A bidirectional causal relationship is confirmed by using VECM. However, we find unidirectional causality between the primary sector's FDI and infrastructure, and it is running from infrastructure to primary sector FDI. The inclusion of control variables, e.g., institutional quality, trade openness, and domestic investment, is robust in our analysis. The positive role of infrastructure in the sectoral distribution of FDI inflows is of utmost importance for policymakers and Chinese-government. Several policy implications are given in our study.

One of the goals of developing a transport corridor is to promote socio-economic development by improving connectivity and sustainable transport operations, which largely depends on the operational strategy. Trade-off policies can be important tools for gaining the competitive advantage of road transport corridors, and thus, help facilitate sustainable growth and welfare. This article uses a case-based approach to observe the trade-offs in the first phase of transport infrastructure development, and then, in the second stage, further explores the trade-off variables in the transport operations strategy under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The results from the three cases of the parallel route system of the CPEC indicate that trade-off is an easily understandable and applicable method, which can foresee the operational gains or compromises for significant welfare of the regions. The implications of the trade-off are two fold, first is the “importance” of the trade-off, which is related to its impact on operational competitiveness. The other is the “sensitivity” of the trade-off, in terms of the change that will be caused to one variable when changing the other. The trade-off concept can be used for several landlocked transport corridors to achieve a competitive edge in transit trade.

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This study seeks to investigate theimpactof China’sexchange rate onthe trade balance of 41 Sub‑aharan African countries for the period from 1994 to 2016. Using an augmented gravity model, the grouped and ungrouped results of the study confirm the elasticity and absorption approaches of the trade balance. Similarly, the robustness check, by dividing the sample period into two sub‑eriods (2005–016 and 1994–004), also confirms the elasticity and absorption approaches of the trade balance.