School of Business and Management Department of Economics 178 The Local Impacts of BRI Projects Supervisor: LIN Yatang / ECON Student: LI Ziyuan / ECOF Course: UROP1100, Summer This report documents the work involved in merging raster data on 7 development-economic, environmental, and geographical indicators onto a spatial dataset of 5km-by-5km grids in Africa. The number of years we merge for each variable ranges from 1998 to 2020 (the span differs slightly between variables). The report also details the retrieval of trade flow records between 24 African and 230 world countries-a total of 5520 pairings-from UN's Comtrade Database. We expect to download a total of over 20 million observations and are currently over half-way through. Our preparation work here allows us to have comprehensive data ready for analysis and a global grid associated with local variables of interest on which to designate BRI projects as geographical study units. The Local Impacts of BRI Projects Supervisor: LIN Yatang / ECON Student: WAN Yuet Lung / ECOF Course: UROP1100, Spring The Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2013 with the aim of enhancing regional integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth. In these 9 years, plenty of infrastructures were built and fostered the development of the local economy. The roads and railways constructed were significant symbols of the initiative, which represent the connectivity of the “silk road”. In this project, we have discovered the roads and railways constructed by the initiative in Africa. Also, we summarized the data in searching for the distribution of projects within the region. 139 routes are covered in this project, attributed to 31 different countries. The Local Impacts of BRI Projects Supervisor: LIN Yatang / ECON Student: ZHANG Han / ECOF Course: UROP2100, Fall Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has brought a tremendous impact on major regions. An increasing amount of research is centring on the environmental impact of BRI, given its unprecedented implementation in infrastructures. This article studies the two perspectives on the effect of BRI regarding green development and sustainability. Some research suggests BRI could accelerate the green development in its participating countries, while others raise concerns over its adverse environmental impact such as increased carbon emission. This article also suggests potential research areas once more detailed information on BRI projects are collected.
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