RESEARCHING THE ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN BORDER REGIONS BY CONSTRUCTING A COMPOSITE INDEX ON THE EXAMPLE OF RUSSIA, CHINA AND KAZAKHSTAN
Keywords:
environmental economics, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, environmental investments, economic damage, natural assets, environmental efficiency, resource efficiency, composite index, green economyAbstract
The concept of a green economy is widely popular and is the basis of sustainable development strategies in many developed and developing countries. However, there is little knowledge on how ‘green’ priorities are being integrated into regional and local development. The present research evaluates progress in the development of a green economy at the regional level by constructing a composite index (hereinafter CI) which allows to comprehensively characterize and consider the links and interactions between the economy and the environment in specific areas. The research substantiates the choice of 5 directions of assessment and 14 indicators, and an algorithm for assessing the CI is proposed. The CI was calculated for 9 regions of Russia, China and Kazakhstan, adjacent to the territory of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (formerly OBOR). The developed toolkit makes it possible to analyze the features of ecological and economic interaction in the regions, to rank them according to the degree of making the economies green.
