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The relationship between environmental regulation and firm productivity has been widely debated but inconsistencies in findings across different studies. Using detailed firm-level micro-data from 2000 to 2007, this paper employs difference-in-difference combined with matching based on entropy balancing method to explore the effect of environmental regulation on firm total factor productivity (TFP) in pulp and paper industry in China. Our main findings are as following: Firstly, stricter environmental regulation, as represented by the Wastewater Discharge Standards for Pulp and Paper Industry in Shandong province, increases firm TFP significantly. Moreover, the coefficients of interest are robust to multiple robustness checks. Secondly, dynamic effects estimates reveal that when faced with this phase-in environmental regulation, firms take the foreseeably increasing strictness into account from the very beginning and prefer to take one-step adjustment to reach full compliance. Thirdly, potential mechanism analysis finds that the positive effect mainly comes from the improvement of resource allocation efficiency within firms. Fourthly, the heterogeneity test indicates that the effect of environmental regulation on firm TFP is heterogeneous across firms with different sizes, ages, ownerships, capital intensity, and export status. Finally, this paper provides convincing and insightful evidence that environmental regulation has the potential to achieve the dual goals of environmental sustainability and economic growth and is thus of broader significance for understanding the enforcement of environmental regulation in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent integration of digital technology and financial services has given rise to the newly emerging modality of digital finance. However, does digital finance improve the efficiency of financial services while influencing the investment behavior of brick-andmortar businesses? With the help of the data about Chinese listed companies, this paper uses multiple regression analysis, instrumental variables, and other methods to empirically test whether and how digital finance affects the financial asset allocation decisions of brick-and-mortar enterprises. The findings suggest that digital finance has a galvanizing effect on financial asset allocation. However, this effect mainly stems from the fact that firms allocate more illiquid financial assets and has a dampening effect on liquid financial assets. Path analysis shows that easing financing constraints is a causal pathway through which digital finance dampens firms’ liquid financial asset allocation. Moreover, rising risk exposure levels partially mediate the stimulus of digital finance, motivating firms to allocate illiquid financial assets. This paper contributes to the research on the economic consequences of digital finance and provides policy recommendations on how digital finance can better serve the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several research efforts were dedicated to analysing the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on gross domestic product (GDP) and employment in the host economies. The variations in the conclusions signal that other variables influence and moderate the effects of FDI on GDP and employment. Institutional elements receive limited research attention, despite their influence on the host economies. This paper investigates the moderating role of institutional elements in the FDI-host economies on FDI’s effects on GDP and employment with China and India as case studies. The approach utilises three principal methodologies. The first methodology presents an in-depth analysis of China and India, highlighting selected institutional elements with the potential to influence FDI’s effects. The second methodology confirms the presence of a positive correlation between FDI and GDP and a negative correlation between FDI and employment-to-population ratio (EPR) in both China and India. The FDI, GDP purchasing power parity per capita, and EPR datasets are extracted from the World Bank – DataBank World Development Indicators to ensure the consistency of the data. The results of the quantitative analysis validate the qualitative analysis. The qualitative analysis confirms the moderating role of the selected institutional elements with variations in direction and strength. Significant variations in FDI’s effects on GDP and employment are strongly related to variations in the institutions of governance. The institutions of governance include the functionality of the state organs, the efficiency of the legal system and enforcement of the rule of law, and the quality of implementation of FDI-supportive policies. The findings aim to increase the absorption of the positive effects of FDI on GDP and employment in the respective countries. The research is a cornerstone of in-depth future research into the following areas: the role of selective FDI and constructive conditional FDI policies, the functionality of judicial authority controls, and FDI favourable exchange rates and interest rates policies. The novelty and contribution of the paper lie in its comprehensive exploration of the moderating role of institutional elements on the effects of FDI on GDP and employment in host economies, with a specific focus on China and India. The paper contributes significantly to the academic literature on FDI and economic development by emphasising the importance of institutional factors and providing actionable insights for policymakers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic globalization and green development have become the consensus of all countries in the world. The importance of FDI, carbon emissions and green total factor productivity is self-evident. This study analyses the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP and the role of carbon emissions in FDI inflows and green TFP. The empirical analysis employed kernel density estimation, OLS, mediation effect model, and panel quantile regression methods using China's provincial panel data spanning over 2001–2019. The facts show that China's carbon emissions have been reduced because of environmental regulations and green TFP is still rising in fluctuation. The results from OLS and mediation effect model indicate that the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP present an asymmetric inverted U-shape and FDI influences green TFP by changing carbon emissions. The panel quantile regression results also show that FDI has a stronger impact on green TFP in less developed regions. This paper believes that the introduction of FDI should be appropriate and should be accompanied by corresponding environmental regulations, in order to promote green TFP in countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders in hospitality and tourism industries are involved in many decision-making scenarios. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods have been widely used in hospitality and tourism industries. Although some articles summarised the applications of MCDM models in hospitality and tourism industries, they ignored the fuzziness of individual cognition in an uncertain environment. In addition, these surveys lacked a comprehensive overview from the perspective of bibliometrics analysis and content analysis regarding the whole hospitality and tourism industries. To analyse the applications of fuzzy MCDM methods in hospitality and tourism industries and further explore future research directions, this article reviews 85 selected papers published from 1997 to 2022 regarding fuzzy MCDM models applied in hospitality and tourism industries. Through analysing the results of bibliometric analysis, methodologies and applications, we found that analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and TOPSIS methods are the most widely used MCDM methods, and tourism evaluation, hotel evaluation and selection, tourism destination evaluation and selection are the most attractive research issues in hospitality and tourism industries. Finally, future research directions are proposed from three aspects. This article provides insights for researchers and practitioners who have interest in fuzzy MCDM models in hospitality and tourism industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends previous research to investigate the determinants of the operating performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) backed by private equity (PE). The paper is based on a sample of 208 unique private equity-backed firms operating at the European level. A multivariate linear regression model is estimated, in which the private equity-backed firms’ operating performance—as measured by ROA, Revenues/Total Assets, and EBIT/Total Assets—is a function of a variety of factors. These include whether or not the firm is an SME, the presence of family shareholders, and various features specific to the expertise of the private equity investor, as well as the industry, country, and years covered. The analysis is limited to private equity deals that occurred in the European Region between 2005 and 2017. According to the results, the effectiveness of private equity in improving the operating performance of target companies in the three years post-investment is impacted by whether or not the backed firm is an SME. This research paper aims to further existing publications on the link between the involvement of the private equity investor and the status of the backed firm as an SME. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of salience on nominal and real yield curves by introducing the salience effect in the Piazzesi and Schneider model (hereafter PS). We construct the salience values based on the expected consumption growth using U.S. data. We find that salience values are negatively correlated with the expected consumption growth rates. Based on U.S. data from 1960q1 to 2020q4, we find that the salience model can generate upward nominal and real yield curves within reasonable risk aversion coefficients (less than 10), as well as well-fitted average yields with actual data. The salience model compensates for the PS or recursive preference model’s inability to generate an upward nominal or real yield curve within reasonable risk aversion. Furthermore, we provide empirical support for model implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of business performance has a substantial impact on improving the internal management and economic performance of companies. By analysing the previous literature, this paper chooses to measure the factors affecting business performance at four levels, including R&D investment intensity, human capital, patents, and brand value. The purpose of the study is to find out whether these selected factors work equally well for small and medium-sized enterprises. The sample size was 846 Chinese small and medium enterprises from different industries. The firm performance indicators were ROA and ROE. The data has been collected through National Equities Exchange and Quotations platforms based on updated annual reports in 2019. Finally, a stepwise descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression were conducted and predicted the tendency of business performance. The analysis provided the linear combination of four independent variables (R&D, human capital, patents, and brand value) which are significantly related to the dependent variable (business performance). In conclusion, we found that there is a positive impact of patents and brand value on business performance. In detail, we concluded that only production and highly educated personnel show a positive influence. For R&D intensity, there is no strong connection could be observed. In practical terms, this paper allows SME firms to appreciate the importance of human capital, patents, and brand value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to assess the non-linearities between the ESG activities and firm performance in case of an emerging market. China is identified as a case study for the present examination. Even though this research objective has been explored by past researcher, the evidence presented in literature is not conclusive. The paper hypothesizes that such conflicting or inconclusive results can potentially be attributed to wrong modeling, datasets that include both developing and the developed markets, and the prevalent endogeneity issue in corporate governance literature. For the purpose of this paper, the author uses the dynamic panel approach of First difference and the System Generalized Method of Moments. The findings from the analysis of 232 Chinese listed firm show a positive association between ESG activities and the firm performance. However, the relationship is nonlinear. In other words, the relationship between ESG activities and the firm performance is inverted U-shaped. This indicates the relationship is positive up to a certain threshold and once the ESG activities cross that threshold it start to have negative effect. The key insight from this research is that the firm has to find their threshold of ESG activities to gain maximum benefits from such activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Internet infrastructure construction on enterprise transformation and upgrading and the underlying mechanisms using a progressive double difference model based on a quasi-natural experiment of the Chinese government's "broadband China" policy by matching A-share listed companies and city panel data from 2008–2019 in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The conclusions show that the "broadband China" policy can significantly promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises in pilot cities. However, its effect shows a diminishing marginal contribution, and the policy is more effective for traditional manufacturing industries during the implementation period. Enhancing human capital and reducing internal transaction costs are two important channels for Internet infrastructure construction to help enterprises transform and upgrade. Combined with the life cycle theory, we find that the "broadband China" policy has the most significant impact on changing and upgrading enterprises in the growth and maturity stages, especially those in the manufacturing industry, but not those in the maturity and decline stages of the service industry. Finally, a series of robustness tests using Monte Carlo simulation, entropy balance method, and instrumental variables method, excluding other factors, show that the findings are still robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2000 to 2019, this paper searches the number of patent applications related to urban artificial intelligence from five dimensions: algorithm, data, computing power, application scenario and related technology. Combining the two perspectives of industrial upgrading and rationalization, we analyze the internal influence theory of the research topic from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. The results show that artificial intelligence is not only conducive to industrial upgrading, but also significantly inhibit the deviation of industrial structure from equilibrium, which is conducive to industrial rationalization. In addition, the conclusion of this paper is still valid after a series of robustness tests, such as eliminating the samples of central cities, winsorize treatment and instrumental variables method. Through the heterogeneity test, it is found that the promoting effect of artificial intelligence on industrial upgrading is more obvious in big cities and cities with high level of industrial upgrading. The internal mechanism test results show that artificial intelligence promotes industrial upgrading by promoting technological innovation. In cities with a high degree of marketization and Internet development, the role of artificial intelligence in promoting industrial upgrading can be strengthened. The research conclusions of this paper will be conducive to accelerating the development of artificial intelligence to promote industrial upgrading, and provide a useful reference for realizing high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several authors have highlighted the importance of family firms in the worldwide generation of wealth, wellbeing, and employment. Recently, the importance of family firms has resulted in the proliferation of many academic works in prestigious journals. Hence, studying their development and evolution is deemed necessary. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of the literature on family firms to show the research trends and guide researchers in their work; it is conducted using a detailed and systematic study of the scientific production of papers on family firms published in the Web of Science (WoS) between 1975 and May 2020. Its contributions are as follows. First, it consolidates family firms as an area of research, which reflects on several papers focusing on this topic (1990 papers published in the WoS database, 55982 total citations). Second, it finds that family firm research has mainly developed in the last few years. Third, it discovers that Kellermanns and Chrisman are the most relevant authors in this field. Fourth, it suggests that the most influential journal is Family Business Review. Fifth, it finds that that the Mississippi State University is the most renowned family firm research institution. Sixth, it discovers that the United States has the highest production in the field. Finally, the bibliometric map identifies four clusters, the most relevant being the family firm theory and its evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, previous studies believed that the export market of enterprises was homogeneous. There is no difference in each export market, which is obviously inconsistent with the actual trade situation. This paper divides the export market of enterprises into main export market and secondary export market according to the export status, explores the export changes of enterprises to the main export market and secondary export market respectively when the temporary trade barriers of the main export market to the trade exporting country are raised. This paper focuses on the impact of the main export market on the anti-dumping degree, countervailing level and the improvement of trade safeguard measures on the export conversion of enterprises between the main and secondary markets. The research shows that the increase of the anti-dumping degree of the main market against the trade exporting countries will lead to the higher probability of role exchange between the main and secondary markets; The countervailing level of the main market against the trade exporting countries rises, and the export of enterprises is more likely to turn to the secondary market; The greater the trade safeguard measures in the main market, the more likely the secondary market will become the main market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of the digital transformation of agriculture and China’s ‘dual-carbon’ strategy for agriculture is new momentum for developing agriculture, reducing rural income inequality, and improving the subjective well-being of farm households. This paper uses data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, 2016, and 2018 to examine the impact of internet use on rural income inequality at the household level. The results show that internet use can significantly reduce rural income inequality by enhancing information availability and farm households’ nonfarm employment level. The results of a heterogeneity analysis reveal that the internet is more conducive to improving the income inequality of rural burdened families and families in Western China. Further analysis shows that improving income inequality can enhance the subjective wellbeing of farmer households. Accelerating the construction of digital villages, building internet skills cultivation systems, and focusing on the utility of internet use among vulnerable rural groups can reduce rural income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derived from the viewpoint put forward by Joseph Alois Schumpeter in 1912, financial innovation (FI) has made great achievements, mainly reflected in the innovations of organisation system, management, financial market, financial business and instruments, and financial technology, etc. Based on the existing publications in the field of FI, this paper conducts a comprehensive analysis and discussion. Firstly, according to the Web of Science (WoS), 1,341 publications are obtained. Considering the foundational characteristics, citation structure and cooperation relationship of publications, the bibliometric analysis results are presented at the levels of countries/regions, institutions, authors and publications, respectively. Then, this paper investigates some deep researches, including the burst detection analysis, co-occurrence analysis and timeline analysis. Finally, combining the analysis results with the current financial environment and the influential event (i.e., COVID-19), this paper further discusses the current challenges and future possible extension trends. Accordingly, a relatively throughout perspective for the FI documents is provided, which will help the scholars interested in this area conduct deep research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective identification of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) is key to preventing and resolving systemic financial risks; thus, it is of great research significance for emerging countries to supervise SIFIs and manage systemic financial risks. Since traditional research on identifying SIFIs does not consider emerging machine learning models, it is difficult to properly fit the characteristics of actual financial institutions' asset distribution. This paper proposes a new method for measuring SIFIs, integrating the PSO-SVM model into the Copula-CoVaR model. This new PSO-SVM-Copula-CoVaR model is meant to evaluate China's SIFIs based on the publicly traded price data of Chinese listed financial institutions. The empirical results show that, compared with the traditional parameter method (GARCH model) and the nonparametric method (kernel density estimation), the marginal distribution estimation method using the PSO-SVM method can better fit the distribution of an institution's financial asset return sequence. That is, the model proposed in this paper helps regulatory authorities improve the list of SIFIs more reasonably and implement effective regulatory measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of climate and neutrality, governments of many countries have introduced plastic restrictions. Enterprises often introduce pro-environmental services with certain force to the market. Does a good intention always have a good result? Despite good intentions, most pro-environmental services require extra effort (financial, physical, mental, etc.) from the participants. This will inevitably bring negative impact on some customers' repurchase intention. How to mitigate its negative consequences is worthy of academic attention. Previous studies show that sense of guilt motivates individuals to take prosocial actions to relieve or counteract temporary negative emotions. This paper analyzed and explained the affective mechanism of this phenomenon through two between-subject experiments. The results showed that: (1) High-autonomy effort (different from low-autonomy effort) can significantly release the sense of reactive guilt hence promote repurchase intention; (2) Low-autonomy effort (different from high-autonomy effort) will reduce people's perceived pleasure hence suppress repurchase intention; (3) Choice diversification can improve the perceived autonomy of individuals with low actual autonomy and compensate for the lack of actual autonomy, thus weakening the negative impact of low autonomous effort on perceived pleasure, and ultimately promoting people's repurchase intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the golden 20 years of the Chinese leather industry as an example, this paper adopts a spatial panel model to accurately portray the characteristics of spatial evolution and the trend of development of agglomeration of the leather industry. This paper further systematically identifies the key driving factors of leather industry agglomeration, taking into account the time effect, spatial effect, and spatio-temporal effect at the same time. The results show that China's leather industry shows a shift from coastal areas to diffusion to inland areas. In terms of influencing factors, resource endowment and economic externality are the key force leading the agglomeration of leather industry. In addition, according to the results of group regression, it is found that innovation capacity and environmental regulation have become the main driving forces affecting the development of leather industry. Therefore, the government should carry out global planning according to the spatial pattern and transfer path of leather industry agglomeration. Based on the deep-level driving mechanism of industrial pattern evolution, specific industrial measures should be formulate to realize the development and promotion of leather industry in the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines whether certain macrofinancial indicators can be used for early detection of recessions. Analysing a sample of small open economies from Central and Eastern European Union, we first identify the most important indicators used for early detection of recessions, and then test the validity of the selection by using the signal method and multivariate probit regressions. Our results imply that the most effective predictors of upcoming recessions are the slope of the yield curve, current account balance to GDP ratio, real estate price index, self-financing ratio of commercial banks, nominal effective exchange rate, global exports and LIBOR rate. Using the Mann-Whitney U Test, we also find that foreign indicators emit earlier signals of incoming recessions in analysed countries than domestic ones. This type of research is important because of the various stakeholders that base their decisions on the signals provided by these indicators. Primarily, these are various government agencies that participate in monetary and fiscal policy making. Early warning of an impending recession allows economic policy makers to take corrective action to avoid a recession or to significantly mitigate its effects, while unreliable indicators may lead to adoption of unnecessary measures with adverse effects on the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of association between board diversity and the firm performance is the subject of many studies. However, the empirical results presented in the extant literature are inconclusive at best. The inconclusive empirical results could be due to several factors and one of them could be that the relationship is contingent on some key factors. Given the rising trend of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) activities, in this paper the relationship between board diversity and the firm performance is tested in the context of ESG activities. The subject of examination in this study is the listed Chinese firms. The sample period spans for 6 years and is collected from 2014 to 2019. This work uses a dynamic approach to modelling relationships. The generalised method of moments (GMM) is used in a two-step system. An endogeneity-free estimate may be achieved by using this strategy. We can learn a great deal from these hypotheses. There is a positive and substantial correlation between board diversity and the firm's success, which suggests that diverse boards are beneficial to businesses. Both ESG activities and a positive coefficient on company performance are significant. This shows investors appreciate companies that are involved in ESG activities because they see this as an investment that pays off. Last but not least, the report shows that board diversity has a negative and considerable impact on ESG efforts. According to the results, board diversity and ESG efforts are not necessary for a company's success. According to the data, board diversity is not particularly beneficial in the context of significant ESG initiatives. Board diversity really hurts a company's success when it engages in high ESG activities. The study also discusses the work's policy ramifications. Finally, the work lays out a clear path for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article seeks to identify the reasons why some articles are more cited than others, with a specific focus on the recent and innovative research area of the sharing economy. To determine how characteristics of the research drive citations, we carry out a systematic analysis of articles published from 2012 to 2018 in high-impact social science journals. Comparative analyses were conducted to visualise what features relate to higher citations. The results show that citations vary depending on the approach, field, unit of analysis, and the data analyses used in the research. Our contributions will be useful both for authors when deciding the type of analysis to undertake and the journal to which to send their papers, as well as for editors setting editorial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of modern scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, the development of digital finance is conducive to improving the ecological environment and the energy total factor productivity (TFP). In this paper, DEA cross-efficiency model is used to measure the energy TFP, and moment estimation method is used to empirically test the influence and heterogeneity of digital finance on energy TFP, and then the intermediary model is constructed to study and analyze the influence mechanism based on the sample data of 30 provinces in the Chinese Mainland from 2011 to 2018. The following research findings are obtained. First, the development of digital finance has played a significant role in improving energy TFP. Second, spatial heterogeneity exists in the process of digital finance affecting energy TFP improvement, that is, digital finance has a more obvious improvement effect on the energy TFP in central and western China than in eastern China. Third, digital finance can affect energy TFP through technological innovation; that is, the improvement of regional technological innovation is an important transmission mechanism for digital finance to affect energy TFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The booming development of digital technology has promoted economic growth and a new round of growth in the income levels of residents. However, the uneven development of digital technology and the existence of the digital divide have led to the fact that urban and rural residents do not enjoy the dividends of income growth brought by digital technology equally. This paper analyzes the relationship between digital technology and the urban-rural income gap and finds that the development of digital technology will narrow the urban-rural income gap, but it shows a non-linear "inverted U-shaped" trend. At the same time, the current level of digital technology is still low and has not yet crossed the inflection point of the "inverted U-shaped" curve. With the continued development of digital technology at its current level, the urban-rural income gap will further widen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blind-box consumption, a phenomenon sweeping through the retail market in China, is the process of buying an unlabelled box containing assorted and random novelty gifts from different retailers. Despite the intensity of its emergence, the extent of research on the phenomenon from a marketing perspective has been scarce. This paper identifies factors likely influencing Chinese consumers participating in blend-box consumption. These factors include brand familiarity emotional value and speculative potential. Conceptual issues discussed include the role of emotions and cognition as forces underpinning shopping behavior. The paper also highlights the marketing strategy features that have successfully driven the blend-box consumption experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Croatia, the social security system is based on generational solidarity, i.e. payment of contributions, which is known as pay as you go (PAYG), but the balance of its functioning is permanently and significantly disturbed by long-term unfavourable demographic processes. Projections show that the worrying demographic situation will deteriorate even further and that, with low birth and fertility rates and negative natural growth, negative net migration will contribute to further depopulation. In addition, contributions directly burden labour, i.e. they increase labour costs for employers and reduce their competitiveness in the marketplace, affecting economic growth. The paper reviews empirical research on the impact of different tax structures on economic growth, the sublimated conclusion of which is that direct taxes have a negative effect on growth, while indirect taxes are neutral. The Croatian tax system, with VAT as the main factor in the tax structure, is focused on taxing consumption, but is also characterized by a high level of levies. In this paper, the authors use the vector autoregression model to analyse the relationship between economic growth and the changed tax structure of the Republic of Croatia, in which the role of indirect taxes would be more emphasized. Data in model are consist of different types of taxes, GDPpc, population growth, gross fixed capital formation, unemployment rate and cover the time period from 2004 to 2019. The authors prove that the reduction of the tax burden through direct taxes has positive economic, demographic and fiscal effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the implementation of Cleaner Production Standards at the industry level in China as a quasi-natural experiment, the impact of these standards on enterprises' exit behavior was empirically analyzed by using the Difference-in-Differences method. Results suggested that the implementation of Cleaner Production Standards reduced the probability of enterprises exiting the market. A parallel trend test, Propensity Score Matching (PSM), and the exclusion of other policy factors were then used to verify the robustness of this finding. The impact mechanism test showed that implementation of the standards reduced the probability of enterprises exiting the market through improving total factor productivity and promoting enterprise product innovation. The heterogeneity test revealed that, on the one hand, the implementation of Cleaner Production Standards can reduce the probability of R&D intensive industries and medium-sized enterprises exiting the market, and protect innovative and moderately sized enterprises. On the other hand, the implementation of Cleaner Production Standards can increase the probability of state-owned enterprises and small-scale enterprises exiting the market and optimize the allocation of resources among enterprises. This paper has important implications for China's future approach to environmental policy formulation as well as the optimization of domestic enterprise structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The response of energy firms to green credit policy is of great significance, which is related to the emission reduction effect of green finance and transformation of energy firms. This paper analyzes the impact of green credit policy on the growth of energy firms based on the data of Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2019. The empirical results show that green credit policy has significantly promoted the growth of energy firms. Further research shows that green credit policy promoted the growth of energy firms by reducing financing costs and promoting green innovation. Besides, the owned firms, big-scale firms and firms in central and eastern China are more susceptible to the impacts of the green credit policy. This study is relevant to the implementation of green credit policies and the promotion of the development and transformation of energy firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green bond market has significantly improved in recent years thanks to the development of financial instruments and the rising climate change concerns. Given this backdrop, this paper investigates the effects of returns in different financial markets, i.e. the United States Treasury Bonds, the Standard & Poor's stock market, the United States Dollar, Gold, Crude Oil, and Bitcoin on the Green Bond returns (the Standard & Poor's Green Bond Index) from September 17, 2014, to September 1, 2022. The results from the robust linear and machine learning estimators indicate that the returns of the United States Treasury Bonds and the United States Dollar are negatively related to the Green Bond returns. Meanwhile, Gold returns positively affect Green Bond returns. The quantile regression estimations of Machado–Santos Silva also show that these findings are valid in different quantiles. The paper also discusses policy implications related to climate change and the development of financial instruments to promote green investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the effects of interpersonal trust in business relations (proxied by trade credit) and institutional trust (proxied by firms' trust in courts) on firms' performance. The analysis is performed on a specific sample of 1298 firms in Western Balkan countries which are usually characterized by negative social capital that is considered to hinder economic and social development at all levels. The methodological approach is based on the propensity score matching method and the obtained results show that firms' perception of courts as fair, impartial and uncorrupted, is connected with lower costs and with positive expectations of an increase in sales in the upcoming period. On the other side, trade credit as a trust variable has a statistically significant and positive effect on firm productivity measured as sales per employee and on expectations of an increase in sales in the upcoming period. The paper contributes to the existing literature in terms of the choice of the post-socialist groups of countries for the analysis, the method that is used (treatment-effects estimation), and in terms of performing firm-level analysis of the effects of two types of trust on selected variables of firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing studies rarely reveal the reasons for the digital currency price fluctuation from the perspective of internal interaction and contagion. Therefore, to fill this research gap, this paper comprehensively adopts the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC-) GARCH model and wavelet coherence analysis (WTC) to reveal the internal correlation and formation reasons of digital currency price fluctuations. Our research has the following findings: (1) the price fluctuations of digital currency are highly related. Through the observation of the dynamic conditional correlation coefficient graph, it is found that the price fluctuations have a strong time-varying trend, manifested as a 'contagious' characteristic. (2) During the outbreak of COVID-19, most digital currencies have shown positive resonance in the short, medium, and long term, suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the correlation and contagion of digital currency price fluctuations. (3) In the short term, Bitcoin is the main 'contagious source' of digital currency price fluctuation. But in the medium and long term, Ethereum and Ripple, which are closely related to the real economy, have a greater impact and become the new 'contagious source'. Generally speaking, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple are the internal causes of instability in the digital currency market. Finally, based on the empirical conclusion, this paper proposes that the digital currency portfolio should be optimized to meet the investment demand; strengthen digital currency regulatory cooperation, and improve regulatory efficiency. Let the digital currency return to the 'currency' attribute and serve the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the impact of exchange rate changes on the trade balance of China and its major trading partners. In the past, many studies have been focussed on the linear effect of exchange rate change, but in this paper, a non-linear Autoregressive Distribution Lag (NARDL) model is proposed. Empirical results show that there are nonlinear and asymmetric effects on the trade balance of exchange rate. In particular, the effect of exchange rate appreciation on Sino-US trade balance is more significant than that of depreciation. A genuine devaluation of the domestic currency would improve the balance of the domestic trade. However, the opposite effect is found in the case of Sino-Japan and the Euro, and the depreciation of the currency will make the trade balance worse. These results provide a solid basis for understanding the relation of exchange rate variation and trade balance. In terms of economic reality, it is also a useful reference for adjusting exchange rate and commercial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are important carriers of enterprises non-financial information disclosure, which are inextricably related to the production efficiency and performance of enterprises. The objective of this paper is discovering the causal effect of the CSR mandatory disclosure policy and the total factor productivity (TFP) of enterprises. This paper uses the sharp regression discontinuity design based on the micro data of the enterprises to study the impact by taking China's mandatory disclosure policy in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment. This paper makes some contribution to the impact of mandatory CSR disclosure on enterprise TFP and the mechanism and heterogeneity of this impact. The research draws the following conclusions: First, the CSR mandatory disclosure can significantly improve the TFP of enterprises on the whole, and this effect has the characteristics of long-term and dynamic decline. Second, the mechanism of mandatory disclosure of CSR on TFP is through the mediating effect of R&D and innovation expenditures. Third, the heterogeneity of the impact of CSR mandatory disclosure on TFP is reflected in two aspects: industry and equity nature differences. These conclusions are strongly correlated with the contingent decision-making behaviour of enterprises and give some ideas to the policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational commitment gets significant attention from both scientists and practitioners alike since the 1950s. This interest is evident in the literature in the area of management and organizational behaviour, in an impressive number of studies exploring the nature, antecedents, and outcomes of organizational commitment. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the clarification of the relationship between employees' demographic characteristics and their organizational commitment, since research studies imply mainly inconsistent results about this relationship. The empirical research was carried out in Croatia. The research sample includes 304 employees. A self-developed questionnaire was used for data collection, specifically about gender, age, tenure, education, and marital status. In order to assess organizational commitment, the Organizational Commitment Scale was applied. Research results showed no differences in organizational commitment regarding the employees' gender or marital status, while the differences in employees' organizational commitment exist regarding employees' age, tenure in organization and education. Dwelling into these differences, this paper demonstrates that the level of organizational commitment varies according to different subcategories of each demographic characteristic. In addition, this paper explains the origin and possible reasons of differences in organizational commitment regarding the different subcategories of each demographic characteristic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflation expectations of firms affect their micro-decision-making behaviors and therefore impact the macro-economy. Thus, a deep understanding of how firms form inflation expectations benefits the achievement of central bank's policy objectives on macro-economic sustainability and development. In this paper, we focus on the inflation expectations of firms from surveys. Specifically, the Naïve Expectation, Adaptive Expectation, Rational Expectation, VAR, and Heterogeneous Static Expectation formation models are adopted to test the models being used by firms to form inflation expectations. Empirically, this paper reveals the heterogeneity between the formation mechanisms of households and firms. Then, empirical results reject the rational expectation hypothesis of firms' inflation expectations, which means that they are not perfectly rational. Finally, we find that the inflation perception is a non-negligible factor in forming firms' inflation expectations. Therefore, central banks' monetary policies that aiming to formulate firms' inflation perceptions can be a useful tool in regulating their inflation expectations, which are expected to benefit the stability of the macro-economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy uncertainties have always played a critical role in shaping economic outcomes, as evidenced by the recent sluggish economic growth in many countries. Green economic efficiency (GEE) is a comprehensive index to measure economic, social, and environmental development. This paper uses the slack-based measurement (SBM) directional distance function and Luenberger productivity indicator to measure the static GEE and dynamic green total factor productivity (GTFP) of China's urban agglomerations from 2003 to 2020 under constraints of resources and environment. In order to clarify the driving mechanisms of GEE and GTFP, this paper adds the factor of economic policy uncertainty (EPU). The results show that there is a positive correlation between EPU with GEE and GTFP. The possible reason is that the market mechanism plays a decisive role in improved GEE and GTFP. Therefore, policymakers should give better play to the government's macro-control role, and play the decisive role of the market mechanism in the environmental governance system to improve GEE and GTFP in a targeted manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new urbanization mode, smart cities provide a way to achieve the mutually beneficial situation of both economic development and environmental protection. As such, the question of whether and how smart-city construction can promote the high-quality development of urban economies is worth considering. By measuring the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 233 cities in China from 2004–2019, this paper adopts the national pilot smart cities of China as a quasi-experiment and constructs a time-varying DID model to explore the direct, dynamic, and heterogeneity influence of smart-city construction on GTFP. The results indicate the following: (1) Smart-city construction can significantly promote the urban GTFP, which is mainly caused by the progress of green technology, and the effect is robust after a series of robustness tests; (2) smart-city construction can contribute to GTFP improvement primarily through accelerating technological innovation, promoting industrial upgrading, and realizing resource allocation optimization; and (3) smart cities that are larger in scale, have a higher administrative rank, and lie in eastern regions have stronger positive effects on GTFP. This study aims to contribute to the promotion of urban sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is the assessment of the efficiency of oil companies operating in the Republic of Serbia. This paper presents the possibilities of applying non-parametric methods in researching the efficiency of oil companies in the Serbian market. In addition to the standard variables for measuring technical efficiency, the market share should be taken into account, because the oil market is an example of an imperfect competition market. By applying the quantitative-analytical method (Data Envelopment Analysis), obtained results show the development of the efficiency of oil companies in the relevant market, and indicate that the efficiency of oil companies improved during the analysed period. However, the results also indicate that there is still a problem of misallocation of resources. The reasons for this outcome are interesting and debatable for this industrial area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies reveal that the failure rate of innovation in enterprises is higher than expected. The reason for innovation failures is due to not only the customers' resistance towards innovation, subsequent changes and ignored factors that promote customer acceptance, but also the other disregarded factors that motivates the resistance towards innovation adaptation. The literature proved the customers' innovation resistance (CIR) consists of two categories. Passive innovation resistance (PIR) described as initial resistance behavior before evaluating the new product; and active innovation resistance (AIR) introduced as the resistant behavior after evaluating innovative products. However, few studies have investigated the simultaneous influence of both PIR and AIR, especially using the empirical methods. The main purposes of this study are (1) to construct a model that reflects on both PIR and AIR as two categories of CIR; (2) to provide empirical evidences to highlight the influences and correlation of PIR and AIR. The method used in this paper is partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) method to test our model and the hypotheses. The results from this research mainly indicate that (1) PIR is negatively influenced AIR; (2) PIR (including both cognitive and situational PIR) has negative effect on customers' innovation adoption intention (IAI) while (3) the correlation between AIR and IAI is opposite; (4) the degree of customers' IAI with high-perceived stimulation group and low-perceived stimulation group will reverse according to the changes of PIR and AIR. This paper is helpful for enterprises to improve their innovation success rate by analyzing users' resistance to innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for decomposition of changes in farm profitability with regards to structural, activity and intensity (efficiency) effects. The Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA) is adapted for isolation of the effects of profit margin, asset turnover, leverage, capital intensity and structure. The proposed approach complements the regression-based analysis as the IDA allows combining data from different levels of aggregation and taking the structural change into account. The Shapley value is applied to facilitate the decomposition. The proposed model is applied to the case of Greek farms for 2010–2017. Besides from the theoretical contribution to analysis of the farm profitability, this paper is first to evaluate the financial performance of Greek farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to unify various policy tools into the same econometric model framework has always been an important research issue. This paper clarifies the connotation of MEI policy's tool combination, scientifically identifies the actual impact of R&D subsidy tool, tax incentive tool, and their combination on SME innovation, and explores the best implementation strategy of MEI policy, by designing a reasonable and applicable policy identification framework. This paper confirms that R&D subsidy tool and tax incentive tool of MEI policy can form the obvious complementary effect in promoting substantive innovation of SMEs, but the mutually exclusive effect in promoting strategic innovation of SMEs. It is shown that the single tax incentive is the best implementation strategy of MEI policy to stimulate innovation for SMEs located in the central region, and the policy tool combination strategy is the best implementation scheme of MEI policy for SMEs located in the western region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable business performance is a rapidly growing field of research that encompasses both academia and business. The purpose of this study is to identify current and emerging research trends and provide a comprehensive map of the knowledge structure in the field of sustainable business performance, consistent with recent developments in bibliometric research. Therefore, this article offers a comprehensive bibliometric analysis based on the performance analysis and science mapping of the academic literature related to sustainable business performance published between 1996 and 2021 in 807 publications on the Web of Science. By using two powerful bibliometric visual software tools, VosViewer and CiteSpace, and by applying various bibliometric analyses such as co-citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence of keywords analysis, burst detection analysis, and timeline view analysis, this paper presents the fundamental characteristics of the body of knowledge in this research field, while identifying the most influential publications, institutions, source titles, countries, and authors, and the evolution of keywords these years. The paper concludes with a discussion of the most popular research topics and identification of emerging research pattern areas that should be on the future research agenda for researchers interested in sustainable business performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional cooperation represents a viable alternative to the ongoing process of globalization, in which countries can optimally respond to the changes in the external environment through regional integration, while a larger market size tends to provide better sales opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to identify common determinants of the impact of economic and trade cooperation on the convergence of the economies of the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). We attempt to define a conceptual framework for cooperation between post-Soviet countries with an emphasis on their diversity. In this article, we are using the extrapolation methods that involve the estimation of the parameters of approximating dependences with the ordinary least squares method (OLS) and its modifications as well as the exponential smoothing method. The main reason for conducting this study as well as the major value-added of this paper is in its focus on the regional cooperation of the post-Soviet countries with the assessment of its role on accelerating economic growth, while the main limitation of this study is its focus on predicting the values for one year only which is subjected to the lack of more recent data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the innovation patent data of 344 Chinese Global Exchange Market (GEM) listed companies from 2014 to 2018 is manually collected, and the effect of returnee technology executives (RTEs) on enterprise innovativeness is examined based on the empirical theory of the high ladder team. The study finds that RTEs promote enterprise innovation and that this effect persists after controlling for endogeneity and self-selection problems. By comparing the difference in the effect of RTEs on breakthrough innovation and non-breakthrough innovation, the study found that RTEs had a more significant role in promoting enterprise breakthrough innovation. Furthermore, through executive group analysis, it is found that Returnee Technology Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have more potently positive effect on promoting enterprise innovation especially breakthrough innovation and RTEs exert greater prominence in fostering innovation in companies across developed coastal areas. The research theoretically expands and deepens the investigation on the rapport between enterprise executive characteristics and innovation, highlights the importance of the human capital of overseas returnees in practice, and has a certain guiding significance for enterprise talent introduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balanced gender representation in local political life has been a subject of increasing interest to researchers. This paper, based on a unique database, analyses the representation of women in local representative and executive bodies and its impact on budget transparency (BT) in Croatian local governments. The panel analysis shows that a greater representation of women in local councils has a positive effect on the level of local government digital budgetary reporting. This is in line with gender literature settings and theories that explain BT, suggesting that the greater representation of women helps reduce information asymmetry, increase transparency, and promote government legitimacy. We do not find significant results in regard to women's representation in local executive functions. A particularly indicative policy implication suggests the aim of increasing the gender balance in local political spheres, especially when deciding on good governance practices and fiscal disclosure requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism service providers need to have expressive communication skills to be able to offer a better tourism product and create a pleasant tourist experience. To better understand, conceptualize, and achieve the multidimensional concept of communication skills, this paper aims to investigate the literature and propose a measurement scale adapted to the modern tourism workplace. Results, based on a literature review and questionnaire survey, show that five communication skill dimensions emerge: written, oral, listening, digital, and non-verbal communication skills. The paper's theoretical contribution is the systematization of the literature and the conceptualization of communication skills up to date, while its empirical contribution is based on the examination of collected data related to the validated scale measurement. The scale presented in this paper will assist future empirical research on communication skills required in the field of tourism. The paper will help generate novel research questions for identifying and analyzing acquired communication skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social media platforms have transformed into dynamic spaces for brand-consumer interaction, with commenting emerging as a strategic tool for brands to connect with their audience. This research study aims to examine what types of incentives trigger customers’ engagement in terms of commenting on different brand-related content types on social media. A total of 415 questionnaires were analyzed and a structural equation modeling approach was used to investigate the relationships among communal, self-interest, and reward incentives as independent variables and intentions to comment on commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle brand-related content on social media as dependent variables. The results reveal that communal and reward incentives positively influence intentions to engage in commenting on commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle content, whereas self-interest incentives negatively influence intentions to engage in commenting on the three types of analyzed brand-related content on social media. The paper focuses specifically on intentions to comment on different types of brand-related social media content rather than on contributing activities in general. The present study fills the research gaps, concerning the lack of analysis of the influence of different incentives on intentions to comment on different brand-related content types on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the interrelation between technological innovation (TI) and trade friction (TF) by applying the bootstrap rollingwindow full- and subsample Granger causality test from China in a sample from January 2002 to December 2021. Results show that the influence of TI on TF is twofold. On the one hand, TI is a push for TF. This finding is consistent with the ‘income effect’, which postulates that TI leads to more TF by affecting the income of other countries. On the other hand, TI has a negative influence on TF. This result confirms the ‘substitute effect’, implying that TI can benefit consumers by providing more high-quality and cheaper products. In turn, TF can hinder TI by reducing exporters’ profits. Based on these findings, governments should coordinate their efforts toward innovation and trade policies. At the same time, firms should master core technology and develop their high-performance products to avoid the risk of TF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In past years, the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) approaches have been extensively applied by researchers to the supplier evaluation and selection problem. Many of these studies were performed in an uncertain environment described by fuzzy sets. This study provides a review of applications of MADM approaches for evaluation and selection of suppliers in a fuzzy environment. To this aim, a total of 339 publications were examined, including papers in peer-reviewed journals and reputable conferences and also some book chapters over the period of 2001 to 2016. These publications were extracted from many online databases and classified in some categories and subcategories according to the MADM approaches, and then they were analysed based on the frequency of approaches, number of citations, year of publication, country of origin and publishing journals. The results of this study show that the AHP and TOPSIS methods are the most popular approaches. Moreover, China and Taiwan are the top countries in terms of number of publications and number of citations, respectively. The top three journals with highest number of publications were:Expert Systems with Applications,International Journal of Production ResearchandThe International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fund performance has been a hot topic in the financial research area, fair and correct evaluation of fund performance is of great significance for fund investors and companies. However, most of the relevant publications do not have any retrospective analysis of this topic in terms of knowledge domain to show its development trends and research concerns. To address this issue, two effective bibliometric tools namely Citespace II (The 5.3.R4 Edition) and SciMat are used to analyze the knowledge domain of this field in this paper. We have analyzed 979 articles related to fund performance from Web of Science between 1966 and 2019 (July), the analysis content includes the current status, collaboration network, co-citation network, and emerging trends of fund performance research, then we have derived the following desired conclusions: (1) In the last twenty years, there was a significant increase in the publication and citation numbers of fund performance research; especially, the relative research has become interdisciplinary and internationalized. (2) "Mutual Fund Performance", "Fund Return", "Investment Performance", and "Portfolio Selection" are the hottest topics in the fund performance research. (3) "Small Fund" and "Investor Reaction" are the two emerging trends in the fund performance research. To sum up, there are two main contributions in this paper: First, we provide a full bibliometric analysis about the fund performance research. Second, we make the further development of fund performance research easier and more clearly to show the directions to learn and study for beginners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]