Abstract/Summary

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become an increasingly influential programme and is boosting the flow of trade, investment and cooperation between China and the rest of the world. This study shows how this index can be employed to rank Chinese provinces and cities along the BRI. Hence, the government policy makers - both central and municipal authorities – will be able to use our intelligent index ranking framework to dynamically monitor the developments, and, if required, redirect trillion-dollar stimulus package and other resources to those areas that can better achieve the economic development goals. This research will explore the following questions: how does innovation index correlate with its major factors including fundamental environment, investment, outcome and connectivity & cooperation? The BRIII is developed and constructed based on multiple data processing methods including indicators’ normalization, weights assessment for 18 provinces or municipalities included in the BRI. The entropy method is employed to composite BRIII according to the construction equation of comprehensive index method. With a time-series of nine-year weight calculations, 15 indicators are assessed each year and the information is used to revise the weights within this BRIII index framework using a DE-BP neural network algorithm. Based on the successful application of BRIII, another two major evaluation projects of China Central government – SRSDI, RCDIIM are also constructed later for its similarity to that of BRIII. For this reason, this study is not only designed to provide the first empirical evidence on BRIII, which in turn helps to rank the effectiveness and efficiency of government investment on technology and policies (e.g., decreasing tax deductions on R&D) while improving the quality of microstructure of economy (output and performance), but also helps to build the reusable intelligent framework for a good overall sense of fairness purpose in the long run.