In the human and economic development context, this study examines the relationship between human capital, life expectancy, labor force participation rate, and education level in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The World Bank’s 2001–2021 data are examined using a panel vector autoregressive model. The findings demonstrate the substantial influence of health expenditure from the prior period on present health expenditure. Though not significantly different, life expectancy and education levels from earlier periods also impact present health spending. A slight positive correlation exists between prior labor force involvement and present healthcare costs. An increase in current health expenditure supports an increase in life expectancy. Health expenditure in the previous period had a significant positive effect on education, although insignificant. Life expectancy in the previous period harms current education but is also insignificant. Education in the previous period significantly positively affects current education, indicating a sustained impact of education investment. Labor force participation in the previous period also positively affected education, although not significantly. The prior period’s health spending, life expectancy, and educational attainment impact the current labor force participation rate. The length of life has a significant favorable impact on entering the labor sector. Currently being in the job field has a good correlation with prior education as well. These findings support that higher education levels lead to higher labor force participation rates. Life expectancy, health care costs, education level, and prior work experience all influence current life expectancy. While prior life expectancy significantly influences current life expectancy, health expenditures have a negligible negative impact. Prior education positively impacts life expectancy but negatively impacts prior labor force engagement. These results reject the hypothesis that increasing life expectancy causes current health expenditure to increase.

Nowadays, urban ecosystems require major transformations aimed at addressing the current challenges of urbanization. In recent decades, policy makers have increasingly turned their attention to the smart city paradigm, recognizing its potential to promote positive changes. The smart city, through the conscious use of technologies and sustainability principles, allows for urban development. The scientific literature on smart cities as catalysts of public value continues to develop rapidly and there is a need to systematize its knowledge structure. Through a three-phase methodological approach, combining bibliometric, network and content analyses, this study provides a systematic review of the scientific literature in this field. The bibliometric results showed that public value is experiencing an evolutionary trend in smart cities, representing a challenging research topic for scholars. Network analysis of keyword co-occurrences identified five different clusters of related topics in the analyzed field. Content analysis revealed a strong focus on stakeholder engagement as a lever to co-create public value and a greater emphasis on social equity over technological innovation and environmental protection. Furthermore, it was observed that although environmental concerns were prioritized during the policy planning phase, their importance steadily decreased as the operational phases progressed.

This study aims to develop a robust prioritization model for municipal projects in the Holy Metropolitan Municipality (Makkah) to address the challenges of aligning short-term and long-term objectives. The research explores How multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques can prioritize municipal projects effectively while ensuring alignment with strategic goals and local needs. The methodology employs the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to ensure methodological rigor and data adequacy. Data were collected from key stakeholders, including municipal planners and community representatives, to enhance transparency and reliability. The model’s validity was assessed through latent factor analysis, confirming the relevance of identified criteria and factors. Results indicate that flood prevention projects are the highest priority (0.4246), followed by road projects (0.3532), park construction (0.1026), utility projects (0.0776), and digital transformation (0.0416). The study highlights that certain factors are critical for evaluating and prioritizing municipal projects. “Capacity and Demand” emerged as the most influential factor (0.5643), followed by “Strategic Alignment” (0.2013), “Project Interdependence” (0.1088), “Increasing Investment” (0.0950), and “Risk” (0.0306). These findings are significant as they offer a structured, data-driven approach to decision-making aligned with Saudi Vision 2030. The proposed model optimizes resource allocation and project selection, representing a pioneering effort to develop the first prioritization framework specifically tailored to Makkah’s unique municipal needs. Notably, this is the first study to establish a prioritization method specifically for Makkah’s municipal projects, providing valuable contributions to the field.

This study determines the efficiency and productivity of Mexico’s urban and rural municipalities in generating economic welfare between 1990 and 2020. It establishes the incidence of context and space on efficiency, using Data Envelopment Analysis, the Malmquist-Luenberger Metafrontier Productivity Index, and Nonparametric Regression. The results indicate that 4 of the 2456 municipalities analyzed were efficient, that productivity increased, and that context and space influenced efficiency. This highlights the need for policies that optimize resource utilization, enhance investment in education, stimulate local business development, encourage inter-municipal cooperation, reduce rural-urban disparities, and promote sustainability.

Localization is globally accepted as the strategy towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this article, we put forth the South Indian state of Kerala as a true executor of the localization of SDGs owing to her foundational framework of decentralized governance. We attempt to understand how the course of decentralization acts as a development trajectory and how it has paved the way for the effective assimilation of localization principles post-2015 by reviewing the state documents based on the framework propounded by the United Nations. We theorize that the well-established decentralization mechanism, with delegated institutions and functions thereof, encompasses overlapping mandates with the SDGs. Further, through the tools of development plan formulation, good governance, and community participation at decentralized levels, Kerala could easily adapt to localization, concocting output through innovative measures of convergence, monitoring, and incentivization carried out through the pre-existing platforms and processes. The article proves that constant and concerted efforts undertaken by Kerala through her meticulous and action-oriented decentralized system aided the localization of SDGs and provides an answer to the remarkable feat that the state has achieved through the consecutive four times achievements in the state scores of SDG India Index.

Tourist visits to a destination or attraction as a result of the destination being featured on television, video, or the cinema screen were the ones, that stimulated the creation and development of film tourism, which quickly established itself in global conditions. The main objective of the paper was focused on the identification and the perception of the conditions of film tourism development in Slovak republic. So far, a lot of film production has been realized in the country, but this potential has not yet been properly used for the creation of tourism products. Implementation of the study from a methodological point of view took place using several research methods. The pilot scientific abstraction of the issue was followed by the analysis of film conditions in the territory of Slovak Republic and their categorization. The given starting points were followed by the implementation of questionnaire research, the results of which were verified using several research methods such as Doornik-Hansen test, Kruskal-Wallis test. The results of the questionnaire research show a significant positive perception of the potential of filmmaking as a significant factor in the creation of new tourism products. At the same time, they identify key destinations that could potentially become objects of product realization. Due to the fact that this issue has not received adequate attention in domestic conditions, the study brings a new, more comprehensive view of the topic and emphasizes the power of the potential for further development.