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The digital economy has become a driving force in the rapid development of the global economy and the promotion of export trade. Pivotal in its advent, the digital transformation of enterprises utilizes cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies to provide an impetus for evolution and transformation in various industries and fields. in enhancing quality and efficiency. This has been critical for enhancing both quality and efficiency in enterprises based in the People's Republic of China. Through the available data on its listed enterprises, this paper measures their digital transformation through a textual analysis and examines how this transformation influences their export product quality. We then explore the possible mechanisms at work in this influence from the perspective of enterprise heterogeneity. The results find that: (1) Digital transformation significantly enhances the export product quality in an enterprises, and the empirical findings still hold after a series of robustness tests; (2) Further mechanism analysis reveals that the digital transformation can positively affect export product quality through the two mechanisms of process productivity (φ), the ability to produce output using fewer variable inputs, and product productivity (ξ), the ability to produce quality with fewer fixed outlays; (3) In terms of enterprise heterogeneity, the impact of digital transformation on export product quality is significant for enterprises engaged in general trade or high-tech industries and those with strong corporate governance. In terms of heterogeneity in digital transformation of enterprise and the regional digital infrastructure level, the higher the level of digital transformation and regional digital infrastructure, the greater the impact of digital transformation on export product quality. This paper has practical implications for public policies that offer vital aid to enterprises as they seek digital transformation to remain sync with the digital economy, upgrade their product quality, and drive the sustainable, high-quality, and healthy development of their nation's economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Brucellosis, as a serious zoonotic infectious disease, has been recognized as a re-emerging disease in the developing countries worldwide. In china, the incidence of brucellosis is increasing each year, seriously threatening the health of humans as well as animal populations. Despite a quite number of diagnostic methods currently being used for brucellosis, innovative technologies are still needed for its rapid and accurate diagnosis, especially in area where traditional diagnostic is unavailable., Methodology/principal Findings: In this study, a total of 22 B cell linear epitopes were predicted from five Brucella outer membrane proteins (OMPs) using an immunoinformatic approach. These epitopes were then chemically synthesized, and with the method of indirect ELISA (iELISA), each of them displayed a certain degree of capability in identifying human brucellosis positive sera. Subsequently, a fusion protein consisting of the 22 predicted epitopes was prokaryotically expressed and used as diagnostic antigen in a newly established brucellosis testing method, nano-ZnO modified paper-based ELISA (nano-p-ELISA). According to the verifying test using a collection of sera collected from brucellosis and non-brucellosis patients, the sensitivity and specificity of multiepitope based nano-p-ELISA were 92.38% and 98.35% respectively. The positive predictive value was 98.26% and the negative predictive value was 91.67%. The multiepitope based fusion protein also displayed significantly higher specificity than Brucella lipopolysaccharide (LPS) antigen., Conclusions: B cell epitopes are important candidates for serologically testing brucellosis. Multiepitope fusion protein based nano-p-ELISA displayed significantly sensitivity and specificity compared to Brucella LPS antigen. The strategy applied in this study will be helpful to develop rapid and accurate diagnostic method for brucellosis in human as well as animal populations., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Mountain areas provide essential resources for a significant proportion of the Earth's population. This study presents the development of mountain research between 1900 and 2019 based on peer-reviewed articles in English listed in Web of ScienceTM (WOS). We analyzed the number of publications over time, journals and scientific categories, frequent topics, and geographical distributions based on 40 mountain ranges and authors' countries as well as institutional contributions. From 1900–2019, 195k ±10% mountain research papers were published; over 50% from 2010–2019. While papers were published in more than 1000 different journals, indicating a wide range of disciplines engaged in mountain research, 94% of the papers were assigned to "Science & Technology", only <5% to "Social Sciences" and "Arts & Humanities". The most papers were written by researchers in the USA, followed by China. The number of papers per area or capita showed high variability across the investigated mountain ranges. Thus, geographically and disciplinarily more balanced research activities and better accessibility of knowledge about mountain regions are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demographic structure is an important factor influencing the development of the services industry. As the country with the world's most serious aging problem, China's service industry structure is likely to undergo profound changes in response to the rapid demographic transition. Therefore, this paper examines the effect of population aging on the development of the service industry in the context of China's accelerating population aging. The study found that: (1) Population aging has a significant "inverted U" effect on the development of the services industry. (2) The impact of population aging on the development of the service industry has obvious regional and industry heterogeneity. The study of regional heterogeneity found that population aging in economically developed regions has a more obvious effect on the development of the service industry than in economically less developed regions. Industry heterogeneity studies found that population aging has an obvious promotional effect on the development of medical and other rigid demand industries, while the effect on other non-rigid demand industries is not significant. (3) The threshold effect test found that when the degree of population aging exceeds the threshold, the stimulating effect of population aging on the development of the services industry is no longer significant. The research in this paper provides useful insights into the likely response to changes in the industrial structure of the services industry, and offers some implications for countries with similar demographic profiles to China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preprints, versions of scientific manuscripts that precede peer review, are growing in popularity. They offer an opportunity to democratize and accelerate research, as they have no publication costs or a lengthy peer review process. Preprints are often later published in peer-reviewed venues, but these publications and the original preprints are frequently not linked in any way. To this end, we developed a tool, PreprintMatch, to find matches between preprints and their corresponding published papers, if they exist. This tool outperforms existing techniques to match preprints and papers, both on matching performance and speed. PreprintMatch was applied to search for matches between preprints (from bioRxiv and medRxiv), and PubMed. The preliminary nature of preprints offers a unique perspective into scientific projects at a relatively early stage, and with better matching between preprint and paper, we explored questions related to research inequity. We found that preprints from low income countries are published as peer-reviewed papers at a lower rate than high income countries (39.6% and 61.1%, respectively), and our data is consistent with previous work that cite a lack of resources, lack of stability, and policy choices to explain this discrepancy. Preprints from low income countries were also found to be published quicker (178 vs 203 days) and with less title, abstract, and author similarity to the published version compared to high income countries. Low income countries add more authors from the preprint to the published version than high income countries (0.42 authors vs 0.32, respectively), a practice that is significantly more frequent in China compared to similar countries. Finally, we find that some publishers publish work with authors from lower income countries more frequently than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of China's manufacturing industry has received global attention. However, research on the distribution pattern, changes, and driving forces of the manufacturing industry has been limited by the accessibility of data. This study proposes a method for classifying based on natural language processing. A case study was conducted employing this method, hotspot detection and driving force analysis, wherein the driving forces industrial development during the "13th Five-Year plan" period in Jiangsu province were determined. The main conclusions of the empirical case study are as follows. 1) Through the acquisition of Amap's point-of-interest (POI, a special point location that commonly used in modern automotive navigation systems.) data, an industry type classification algorithm based on the natural language processing of POI names is proposed, with Jiangsu Province serving as an example. The empirical test shows that the accuracy was 95%, and the kappa coefficient was 0.872. 2) The seven types of manufacturing industries including the pulp and paper (PP) industry, metallurgical chemical (MC) industry, pharmaceutical manufacturing (PM) industry, machinery and electronics (ME) industry, wood furniture (WF) industry, textile clothing (TC) industry, and agricultural and food product processing (AF) industry are drawn through a 1 km× 1km projection grid. The evolution map of the spatial pattern and the density field hotspots are also drawn. 3) After analyzing the driving forces of the changes in the number of manufacturing industries mentioned above, we found that manufacturing base, distance from town, population, GDP per capita, distance from the railway station were the significant driving factors of changes in the manufacturing industries mentioned above. The results of this research can help guide the development of manufacturing industries, maximize the advantages of regional factors and conditions, and provide insight into how the spatial layout of the manufacturing industry could be optimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, digital transformation is having various impacts on enterprises around the world, including the green innovation. However, the current literature on the relationship between digitalization and green innovation in enterprises is scarce. What is the relationship between them, and whether heterogeneous environmental regulation has mediating effects, are questions that are worth exploring. Using a sample of listed manufacturing enterprises in China, this paper empirically tests the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation. The results show that: (1) Digital transformation has a significant positive impact on green innovation, including green innovation output and green innovation capability. (2) Diverse environmental regulation may have mediating effects of digital transformation's influence on green innovation. (3) After a number of robustness tests, the conclusions are still valid. This paper can provide a reference for developing green development strategies for manufacturing enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs a unique data set to analyze the trading behavior of wealthy individual investors across Mainland China and their impact on Chinese stock markets' tail risk. Results show that the wealthy individual investors' trading behavior can explain Chinese stock markets' tail risk, and the daily investment portfolios based on the network density of wealthy individual investors have significant excess returns. This paper also investigates the determinants of wealthy individual investors' trading behavior with the social network method and the spatial econometric model, and reveals that wealthy individuals benefit from the spillover effect of their trading behavior through the investor networks. The results of this paper not only reveal micro evidence for the formation mechanism of asset prices, but also provide insight into the behavior of wealthy individual investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Three Rural Issues", encompass challenges related to agriculture, farmer, and rural area, which hold significant importance in driving comprehensive rural revitalization efforts in China. Farmer entrepreneurship, as a crucial means to enhance productivity, create job opportunities, and increase residents' income, has gradually become a key driving force in promoting rural revitalization in the new stage of development in China. With the rapid development of rural e-commerce, farmer entrepreneurship has encountered new opportunities. This study utilizes the 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data and employs a structural equation model (SEM) to analyze the direct impact of rural e-commerce participation on farmer entrepreneurial behavior, considering factors such as human capital, social capital, and network infrastructure. This study further explores the indirect effects and mechanisms of e-commerce participation as a mediating variable and analyzes the impact and mechanisms on agricultural entrepreneurship behavior. The findings are as follows: (1) E-commerce participation significantly promotes farmer entrepreneurial behavior; (2) E-commerce participation as a mediating variable has a positive indirect effect on the relationship between social trust, network infrastructure, human capital, and farmer entrepreneurial behavior; (3) E-commerce participation has a significant positive influence on farmer entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector, and farmers with higher levels of network infrastructure and human capital have a higher probability of choosing agricultural entrepreneurship under the influence of e-commerce participation. Finally, this study provides policy recommendations in terms of infrastructure construction, entrepreneurial policy environment, and education level, aiming to optimize the situation of farmer entrepreneurship and contribute to the comprehensive promotion of rural revitalization.Overall, the research in this paper effectively combines theory and empirical evidence to outline the direct and indirect impact mechanisms of rural e-commerce participation on farmers' entrepreneurial behavior and agriculture-related entrepreneurial behavior and to test the effects of their impacts. First, most of the existing literature deals with farmers in individual sample areas, while the sample selected in this paper is farmers in the whole country, which is relatively more generalizable; second, most of the previous studies explore the level of e-commerce in the inter-provincial or county areas, while this paper expands the empirical study of rural e-commerce on the entrepreneurial behavior of farmers and the micro-period of agricultural entrepreneurial behavior, and focuses on the impacts of the e-commerce activities of farmers on their entrepreneurial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of urbanization has brought new challenges to the ecological environment, and the promotion of green technology innovation and development is widely recognized as an essential method to achieve cities' economic benefits and environmental protection. This paper examines whether the new urbanization pilot policies (NUP) increase green technology innovation (GTI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This paper examines the impact of new urbanization on GTI by analyzing data from 285 cities in China between 2010 and 2021, using the multi-period DID model with the implementation of NUP as an exogenous policy shock. The study results indicate that NUP significantly affects GTI, and the conclusion still holds after the parallel trend test, placebo test, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the NUP significantly enhances GTI in low environmental pollution, non-resource-based, Medium-sized, and Central Region cities. The test of moderating effect shows that NUP has a "linkage effect" with the government's environmental attention, financial investment in innovation, and regional talent pooling. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for promoting NUP and sustainable development of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the digital economy, which takes information technology and data as the key elements, is booming and has become an important force in promoting the economic growth of various countries. In order to explore the current dynamic trend of China's digital economy development and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality economic development, this paper measures the digital economic development index of 30 cities in China from the three dimensions of digital infrastructure, digital industry, and digital integration, uses panel data of 30 cities in China from 2015 to 2019 to construct an econometric model for empirical analysis, and verifies the mediating effect of technological progress between the digital economy and high-quality economic development. The results show that (1) The development level of China's digital economy is increasing year by year, that the growth of digital infrastructure is obvious, and that the development of the digital industry is relatively slow. (2) Digital infrastructure, digital industry and digital integration all have significant positive effects on regional total factor productivity, and the influence coefficients are 0.2452, 0.0773 and 0.3458 respectively. (3) Regarding the transmission mechanism from the digital economy to the high-quality economic development, the study finds that the mediating effect of technological progress is 0.1527, of which the mediating effect of technological progress in the eastern, northeast, central and western regions is 1.70%, 9.25%, 28.89% and 21.22% respectively. (4) From the perspective of spatial distribution, the development level of the digital economy in the eastern region is much higher than that in other non-eastern regions, and the development of digital economy in the eastern region has a higher marginal contribution rate to the improvement of the total factor productivity. This study can provide a theoretical basis and practical support for the government to formulate policies for the development of the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International attention on the environmental impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is increasing, but little is known internationally about the large corpus of Chinese BRI environmental research. We present the first systematic review of the Chinese and English-language BRI environmental research, supported with text mining and sentiment analysis. We found that the research is dominated by Chinese authors writing about BRI routes within China in Chinese, even though concerns around BRI are largely about impacts and benefits within host countries, and the volume of publications in English is recently catching up. Different disciplines and methods are well-represented across languages, apart from specific types of Chinese social science papers. The sentiments of academic research are largely neutral and less polarised than media discourse. We recommend that scientists and practitioners should pay more attention to BRI environmental impacts in developing countries and proactively engage local voices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regional networking strategy is widely implemented in China as a normative policy aimed at fostering cohesion and enhancing competitiveness. However, the empirical basis for this strategy remains relatively weak due to limitations in measurement methods and data availability. This paper establishes the urban networks by the enterprise investment data, and then accurately measures the network's external effects of each city by the method of MGWR model. The results show that: (1) Regional networking plays a significant role in urban development, although it is not the dominant factor. (2) The benefits of network connections may vary depending on the location and level of cities. (3) The major cities assume a pivotal role in the urban network. Based upon the aforementioned research conclusions, this paper presents strategic measures to enhance the network's external impacts, aiming to offer insights for other regions in formulating regional development strategies and establishing regional urban networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneously achieving economic development and environmental protection is a shared global challenge. While the positive effect of environmental regulations on protecting the environment has been widely recognized, the attention paid to low-carbon governance and corporate green transformation remains insufficient. Based on the two-stage least square regression model (2SLS) of instrumental variables, this paper utilizes panel data from China to identify the influence mechanism of government low-carbon governance on enterprise green development. It explores the effect of low-carbon governance on enterprise green development from the perspective of fiscal decentralization. The findings show that (1) Low-carbon governance significantly promotes corporate green development, primarily through improving industrial structure and technological innovation; (2) Low-carbon governance notably promotes the green development of private enterprises but has little effect on state-owned enterprises. There are also geographical differences, and the results are better in Eastern China than in the Central and Western parts of China; (3) Fiscal decentralization at both central and local levels inhibits the effect of low-carbon governance on driving corporate green development by causing a mismatch of human resources. Therefore, to promote corporate green development, low-carbon governance must prioritize green development, actively guide industrial structural upgrading and enterprise technological innovation, implement differentiated low-carbon governance measures tailored to different ownership enterprises, and optimize the assessment indicators for fiscal decentralization. This paper helps deepen the understanding of the relationship between government low-carbon governance and enterprise green development in developing countries. It can be used as a reference for government departments to formulate relevant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable agricultural economic development is the core task for achieving the objective of rural revitalization strategy in China, which cannot be separated from the support and guidance of fiscal policy, and agricultural industry integration is a key path for the fiscal promotion of sustainable agricultural economic development. This paper systematically examines the interaction mechanism between fiscal agricultural expenditures and sustainable agricultural economic development by using 31 provincial panel data in China from 2008 to 2020 and adopting a two-way fixed effect model, a panel quantile model, and a mediating effect model, respectively. The results show that the impact of fiscal agricultural expenditures on sustainable agricultural economic development is significantly positive, and appears a dynamic increasing trend with the agricultural development stage upgrading. Moreover, heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of fiscal agricultural expenditures is more obvious for the samples in the central region and with a high share of primary industry. Further, a mediating effect test finds that agricultural industry integration plays a mediating mechanism between fiscal agricultural expenditures and sustainable agricultural economic development. Therefore, this paper proposes constructing a long-term investment mechanism for fiscal agricultural expenditures, formulating differentiated fiscal support policies for agriculture, and prioritizing support for agricultural industry integration, which provides theoretical support and policy inspiration for promoting sustainable agricultural economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of China's economy and society, the innovation of grassroots social governance has become increasingly important. This paper constructs 35 grassroots social governance innovation samples. Using the TOE theoretical framework and a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this paper analyzes the joint effects and interactive relationships of multiple factors on grassroots social governance innovation performance from three dimensions: technology, organization, and environment. The research reveals that internal environmental openness is a necessary condition for achieving high innovation performance in grassroots social governance, and proposes four grouping models that affect the performance of grassroots social governance innovation. This paper explores the inner logic of grassroots social governance innovation from a histological perspective, and on this basis proposes an adaptive path to enhance the performance of grassroots social governance innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing uncertainty of urban security, urban resilience construction with risk awareness and bottom-line thinking has become essential for promoting sustainable urban development. This paper measures China's urban resilience development index (CRDI) based on 284 cities in China (except Tibet) using the entropy method from four dimensions: economic, social, environmental, and infrastructure, and analyzes it by combining coupling coordination degree and barrier factor analysis. We find that: (1) At the national level, CRDI and its sub-dimensions show an increasing trend in time, a decreasing spatial layout from coastal to inland, and a "high-high-low-low" clustering feature in space. (2) At the regional level, the CRDI is from high to low in the east, middle, and west order. The sub-dimensions are from high to low in the order of east, middle, and west for economic, social, and infrastructure resilience and from high to low in the order of east, west, and middle for environmental resilience. (3) To coupling coordination degree, the CRDI index coupling coordination is increasing in time trend but is still on the verge of dissonance. (4) Social resilience is the main obstacle factor. In the indicator layer, human resources, innovation, education, security, living, and environmental protection are the areas where CRDI coordinated development is the key to improvement. Based on the above empirical evidence, this paper proposes countermeasures to optimize urban resilience construction from four perspectives: economic, social, environmental, and infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, the implementation of an unbalanced enhancement strategy has led to severe resource misallocation, making the mitigation and rectification of this misallocation an urgent issue. This paper utilizes urban data from China between 2006 and 2020 to examine the impact of two-way foreign direct investment (FDI) on resource misallocation, as well as the pathways through which coordinated advancement of two-way FDI affects resource misallocation. After undergoing a series of robustness and endogeneity tests, the conclusion remains stable. Mechanism testing reveals that coordinated advancement of two-way FDI improves capital resource misallocation by enhancing the enhancement level of the financial industry, while exacerbating labor misallocation by increasing labor costs. This paper integrates the coordinated advancement of two-way FDI and resource misallocation into the same analytical framework, proposing policy recommendations to alleviate China's resource misallocation issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fulfilling corporate social responsibility (CSR) is crucial for society's sustainable development. Executives' academic experience significantly affects their awareness of social responsibility, value orientation, professional ability, and network resources. Thus, it is critical in CSR-related corporate decision-making. This paper explores the impact of executives' academic experience on the fulfillment of CSR. It focuses on non-financial, Special treatment enterprises (ST), and ST* enterprises listed in the A-share market from 2012 to 2021. It utilizes a fixed-effects analysis model to examine the relationship between executives' academic experience and CSR fulfillment. The CSR score and executives' academic experience were positively correlated. This paper also explores the intermediary role of compensation incentives and the moderating effect of marketization level. Both compensation incentives and the level of marketization positively moderated the relationship between executives' academic experience and CSR fulfillment. Meanwhile, the robustness results showed that the experimental findings still held after replacing the explained and explanatory variables. This paper contributes to the advancement of the Upper Echelons Theory and provides empirical evidence for the society's sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the impact of China's value-added tax (VAT) credit refunds policy on the enterprises' labor demand through a paradigm combining ex-ante analysis and ex-post test. By introducing the VAT credit refunds into the production-decision model of the enterprise, calibrating the parameters and conducting the dynamic effects tests using the data of Chinese A-share listed enterprises, this paper finds that the labor employment of the pilot enterprises exhibits a V-shaped fluctuation trend. In the initial implementation of the policy, due to the existence of layoff costs, iso-cost line of the enterprise bends, which results in that the enterprise with a capital-labor substitution elasticity greater than 1 will not reduce labor hiring, as it has already deployed labor force before the implementation of the policy. When the enterprise enter the next production cycle where the labor force can be freely allocated, the labor employment of the enterprise with a capital-labor elasticity of substitution greater than 1 will decline compared to that without the policy. In the long run, as output increases, the labor demand will recover. The results of ex-post test are consistent with that of the ex-ante analysis. Additionally, heterogeneity test reveals that the greater the elasticity of capital-labor substitution of the sub-industry is, the more severe the degree of the V-shaped fluctuation is. Following the implementation of the policy, the continuous increase in enterprise output and capital stock verifies the relevant transmission mechanism. This study provides a more detailed perspective for comprehensively understanding the impact of VAT credit refunds policy on employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing importance of the stock market, it is of great practical significance to accurately describe the systemic risk of the stock market and conduct more accurate early warning research on it. However, the existing research on the systemic risk of the stock market lacks multi-dimensional factors, and there is still room for improvement in the forecasting model. Therefore, to further measure the systemic risk profile of the Chinese stock market, establish a risk early warning system suitable for the Chinese stock market, and improve the risk management awareness of investors and regulators. This paper proposes a combination model of EEMD-LSTM, which can describe the complex nonlinear interaction. Firstly, 35 stock market systemic risk indicators are selected from the perspectives of macroeconomic operation, market cross-contagion and the stock market itself to build a comprehensive indicator system that conforms to the reality of China. Furthermore, based on TEI@I complex system methodology, an EEMD-LSTM model is proposed. The EEMD method is adopted to decompose the composite index sequence into intrinsic mode function components (IMF) of different scales and one trend term. Then the LSTM algorithm is used to predicted and model the decomposed sub-sequences. Finally, the forecast result of the composite index is obtained through integration. The empirical results show that the stock market systemic risk index constructed in this paper can effectively identify important risk events within the sample period. In addition, compared with the benchmark model, the EEMD-LSTM model constructed in this paper shows a stronger early warning ability for systemic financial risks in the stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fertility intentions, as a direct driver of fertility behavior, play an important role in the implementation of national fertility policy and population development. This study explored the influencing factors of college teachers' second child fertility intentions in Jinan, China on the basis of TPB. Methodology/Principal findings: Based on the theory of planned behavior, this paper employs basic characteristics analysis, difference analysis, and factor analysis related to the fertility intentions of the participants. Analysis found participants between 31 and 40 years old had the highest second child fertility intentions, and participants with a college-age first child had the lowest second child fertility intentions. Attitude and subjective norms had a positive impact on second child fertility intentions, and policy awareness had a positive impact on attitude, which indirectly affected second child fertility intentions. Subjective norms had the greatest influence on second child fertility intentions, followed by attitude, and policy awareness had the least influence on second child fertility intentions. Significance/Future research: The findings of this paper can enrich the theoretical research on fertility intentions, and also provide more optimal practical references for the formulation and propagation of China's fertility policy as well as the improvement of the division of family roles in China. Future research can further explore the impact of fertility policy on the fertility intentions of other groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government's environmental protection policy can significantly contribute to alleviating resource shortages and curbing environmental pollution, but the impact of various policy instruments implemented by the government on energy efficiency is unclear. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2021, this paper analyses the impact of environmental regulation and the industrial structure on energy efficiency from the perspective of resource taxes. The U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and energy efficiency and between the optimization of industrial structure can significantly improve energy efficiency, and the optimization of industrial structure is conducive to weakening the initial inhibitory effect of environmental regulation. In addition, the analysis of regional heterogeneity showed that the impact of environmental regulation was stronger in the central and western regions, while the impact of industrial structure was stronger in the eastern and western regions. The conclusions of this study can help to expand the understanding of the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial structure on energy efficiency, provide policy enlightenment for the realization of green development and high-quality development, and provide Chinese examples and experiences for developing countries to improve energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major product safety incidents often cause widespread concern among consumers, and these product safety incidents will stimulate consumers' psychology, change their risk perception, and affect the demand for products and services of risk consumers. The change in consumer demand will eventually lead to a change in firm innovation decisions. Using Chinese firm-level data, this paper employs the news reporting of the Bawang event as a quasi-natural experiment to study the impact of risk perception changes on innovation. The empirical results of this study show that increasing consumers' risk perception caused by the negative news coverage of defective products motivates firms to increase their innovation. The effects are heterogeneous, where firms with private ownership and in developed regions are more likely to increase innovation activities. This study suggests that the relationship between consumers' risk perception and firm innovation is primarily driven by market demand. Moreover, the positive effects of risk perception on innovation are more prominent for downstream firms and those having a smaller technological distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital rural construction is a key strategic direction to promote China's rural revitalization and alleviate global climate problems. In order to put forward feasible suggestions for the subsequent development and ensure the smooth development of digital village construction, how to reflect the development level of the digital village through scientific and reasonable comprehensive evaluation has become an urgent problem to be solved. This paper establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system through the Delphi method and principal component analysis method, then assigns weights to the evaluation indicators based on the improved CRITIC-G1 method, and then grades the development level of digital villages according to the extension matter element method. Finally, taking Jiangxi Province in China as an example, the overall development level of digital villages in Jiangxi Province is evaluated from the provincial level according to the proposed method. And put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. Results: Firstly, the development level of digital villages in Jiangxi Province is good, and there is a trend of excellent development level. Secondly, from different aspects of digital rural development, the digitalization of infrastructure, services, economy, and green production in Jiangxi Province is at a good level, and the digitalization of life has reached an excellent level. Thirdly, from the perspective of development trends, the digitization of infrastructure has a progressive trend towards an excellent level of development, while the digitization of services, economy and green production has signs of development regression. According to the analysis results, the relevant countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from four aspects: talent, capital, governance system and development planning. Other regions can evaluate the development level of the digital village according to the evaluation model proposed in this paper so as to analyze the existing problems and put forward targeted solutions to promote the construction of the digital village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global digital wave has flourished in recent years, and the digital technology revolution has emerged. Digitalization plays an undeniable role in promoting modern economic and social development in multiple aspects such as economy, society, innovation, public services and sustainable development, China's digitalization application is also developing rapidly. In order to better measure the current situation of China's digitalization development level, this paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system of digitalization development from four dimensions of talents in the digital field, digital infrastructure construction, digitalization innovation ability and international competitiveness, and tests the index system. The entropy method is used to measure the level of digitalization development between China and the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other major developed countries in the world, and the coefficient of variation method, kernel density estimation and Dagum Gini coefficient method are used to analyze the temporal and spatial characteristics and regional differences of digitalization development level of seven countries. This paper makes a comparative analysis between China and major developed countries from the historical perspective of the evolution of the techno-economic paradigm. With a view to summarizing and exploring from it and drawing on the advanced experiences accumulated by the developed countries over a long period of time, so as to provide China with useful insights and bases for further enhancing its digitalization development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic policy uncertainty has had an important impact on trade and sustainable economic development. Especially in some specific industries, uncertainty has increased dramatically. The extant related literature mainly analyzes the nexus between uncertainty and trade across different industries and focuses less on a specific industry. Using Chinese customs data on HS 8-digit products over the period of 2000–2013, this paper first investigates the impact of both foreign economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and domestic intra-industry trade on China's mechanical and electrical product exports to 23 trading partners and applies pooled OLS regressions to conduct an empirical study. This paper finds that EPU has a significant inhibition effect on mechanical and electrical product exports; conversely, intra-industry trade can both significantly promote exports and alleviate the inhibition effect of EPU. In addition, the export impact of EPU varied with different trade patterns. It can significantly inhibit processing exports, while it has no effect on ordinary exports. The results of this paper indicate that in the context of increasing uncertainty, our findings could have far-reaching policy implications for China to build a new development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the relationship between regional logistics efficiency and economic development in 31 provinces of China and analyze their coupling coordination. To comprehensively evaluate the coordination between logistics and the economy, we introduced external indicators, such as carbon emissions, based on traditional evaluation indicators. We constructed an evaluation index system to coordinate regional logistics efficiency and economic development. The research approach used in this paper is the cross-DEA method, and data from 2010 to 2019 were selected for empirical calculation. The research findings indicate that Eastern and Northern regions of China show higher logistics efficiency, while Northwestern and Southwestern regions exhibit lower logistics efficiency. Coastal areas have relatively higher economic development levels compared to inland areas. Regarding the coupling coordination between logistics efficiency and economic development, different regions show temporal fluctuations and spatial disparities. Some regions demonstrate higher coordination between logistics efficiency and economic development, while others show lower coordination. Additionally, as the economy experiences rapid growth, logistics efficiency also improves, but the level of coordination varies among different provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depending on the trading modes, the effect of Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) on the manufacturing industry's position within the global value chain (GVC) may differ considerably. This paper examines the GVC position of China's manufacturing industry from 2003 to 2018, specifically focusing on the general trade and processing trade. Drawing upon this premise, this paper analyzes the effect and mechanism by which OFDI influences the GVC position of China's manufacturing industry. The result demonstrates that: (1) China's processing trade manufacturing industry has a much lower GVC position than general trade manufacturing industry. The GVC position of China's general trade manufacturing industry rose from 2.76 to 2.90 from 2003 to 2018, while processing trade manufacturing industry remained around 1.93. (2) OFDI boosts the GVC position of general trade manufacturing industry through facilitating reverse technology spillover, inducing industry structure upgrading, and enabling export scale expansion. (3) OFDI hinders the GVC position growth of processing trade manufacturing industry. The research findings offer theoretical backing for China to develop OFDI strategies that are tailored to different trading modes within the new framework of dual circulation. These strategies aim to facilitate the transformation and advancement of the manufacturing industry, as well as the growth of the GVC position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the application of industrial robot (IR) is an important module for China to build core competitiveness, and it is also the main grasp of global value chain participation (GVCP). Using China manufacturing industry panel data from 2006–2014, working from the perspective of product upgrading, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of IR applications on GVCP. The empirical results show that IR applications weaken China' incentives to participate in global value chains (GVCs); this weakening effect is reflected in both forward and backward participation in GVCs. On the one hand, the mediation effect test results indicate that the product upgrading effect brought about by IR applications can help China achieves the import substitution of intermediate inputs and uses local intermediate inputs to produce exports. These steps would reduce the backward participation in GVCs. On the other hand, the localization of manufacturing can result in China losing the opportunity to export intermediate inputs to other economies, thus reducing the forward participation of GVCs. Of course, due to sample limitations, the research conclusions of this article are only applicable to interpreting the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the green production efficiency (GPE) and spatial divergence of the hog breeding industry, with the aim of providing a foundation for the rational layout of hog breeding and promoting the industry's high-quality development. The paper uses the SBM model to estimate GPE in 29 provinces, cities, and districts of China from 2006 to 2019. Furthermore, it analyzes the spatial divergence of GPE and its driving factors using divergence indexes and the Geodetector. The results show that China's GPE of the hog breeding industry increased from 0.409 to 0.496 between 2006 and 2019. The highest efficiency occurred during the I-period, while the lowest efficiency was observed during the II-period. The highest efficiency was in the key development region, and the lowest efficiency was in the potential growth region. The spatial divergence of GPE in the hog breeding industry expanded, with labor input, non-point source pollution, resource endowment, and environmental load bearing being the main driving factors for the expansion in each period. The potential growth region had the largest spatial divergence, mainly affected by resource endowment. In contrast, the constrained development region had the smallest spatial divergence, mainly affected by resource endowment and pollutant emissions. The spatial divergence of moderate and key development regions was considerable, mainly affected by environmental investment, environmental load bearing, and pollutant emissions. Therefore, the key to improving the GPE of the hog breeding industry is to promote the adoption of advanced technology, such as labor-saving, material-saving, and emission reduction technologies. Moreover, several actions should be taken to reduce the spatial divergence among different regions, such as integrated breeding, clean standards, large-scale breeding, and high-end boutique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expounds the theoretical logic among digital inclusive finance, urbanization, and agricultural mechanization level, puts forward the research hypothesis, and then selects the county unbalanced panel data of 1309 counties in China from 2014 to 2020 based on the two-way fixed model with standard error clustering to county level and mediating effect model for empirical data regression analysis. Through baseline regression analysis, mediation effect analysis, and heterogeneity analysis, the findings of this paper are as follows. First, digital financial inclusion has a significant positive effect on the growth of agricultural mechanization. Second, digital inclusive finance at the county level can also indirectly affect the growth of agricultural mechanization through urbanization. That is, agricultural mechanization has an intermediary effect between the financial agglomeration at the county level and the growth of farmers' income. Third, the impact of county-level digital financial inclusion on the growth of agricultural mechanization level is significantly heterogeneous, and the promoting effect is significant in areas with balanced grain production, national-level poor county or contiguous areas of dire poverty, and areas with a good foundation for digital financial inclusion. By analyzing digital inclusive finance, urbanization, and agricultural mechanization, this paper proposes targeted policy recommendations. First, the government can promote agricultural mechanization by developing digital financial inclusion. Second, the government should guide and accelerate the process of digital financial inclusion, promoting urbanization thereby amplifying the positive impact of digital financial inclusion on agricultural mechanization. Third, given the heterogeneity of the impact of digital financial inclusion on agricultural mechanization, local development should focus on developing different dimensions of digital financial inclusion according to specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The CONSORT Statement is a reporting guideline for authors when reporting randomized controlled trials (RCTs). It offers a standard way for authors to prepare RCT reports. It has been endorsed by many high-impact medical journals and by international editorial groups. This study was conducted to assess the endorsement of the CONSORT Statement by high-impact medical journals in China by reviewing their instructions for authors., Methodology/principal Findings: A total of 200 medical journals were selected according to the Chinese Science and Technology Journal Citation Reports, 195 of which publish clinical research papers. Their instructions for authors were reviewed and all texts mentioning the CONSORT Statement or CONSORT extension papers were extracted. Any mention of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URM) developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) or 'clinical trial registration' was also extracted. For journals endorsing the CONSORT Statement, their most recently published RCT reports were retrieved and evaluated to assess whether the journals have followed what the CONSORT Statement required. Out of the 195 medical journals publishing clinical research papers, only six (6/195, 3.08%) mentioned 'CONSORT' in their instructions for authors; out of the 200 medical journals surveyed, only 14 (14/200, 7.00%) mentioned 'ICMJE' or 'URM' in their instructions for authors, and another five journals stated in their instructions for authors that clinical trials should have trial registration numbers and that priority would be given to clinical trials which had been registered. Among the 62 RCT reports published in the six journals endorsing the CONSORT Statement, 20 (20/62, 32.26%) contained flow diagrams and only three (3/62, 4.84%) provided trial registration information., Conclusions/significance: Medical journals in China endorsing either the CONSORT Statement or the ICMJE's URM constituted a small percentage of the total; all of these journals used ambiguous language regarding what was expected of authors.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) bears the vital task of driving the growth of China's equipment manufacturing industry (EMI) intelligence as an advanced region. Fostering the transformation and upgrading of the EMI in the YRD and constructing a modern production mode is vital to developing and reforming China's manufacturing industry. This paper uses industrial robot data to assess the level of intelligence (LoI) in the EMI from 2016 to 2019. The OLS (ordinary least squares) model is used for the measurements, and the MQ (the modified contribution index) is used to estimate the degree of contribution from a host of variables. It is identified that the LoI is on the rise. However, excluding railways, aerospace, shipbuilding, and other transportation equipment manufacturing, the LoI is significantly higher than in other subsectors. It is also identified that technological innovation ability, human capital density, and enterprise cost pressure govern the industry's LoI. Moreover, while there is a difference in the main influencing factors in LoI within different industries, R&D investment, technological innovation ability, and enterprise cost pressure have the most significant impact across most equipment manufacturing sub-industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In implementing the equity incentive system, this paper delves into the listed enterprises' selection of equity incentive models. While previous research has extensively covered the effects, models, and influencing factors of equity incentives, there needs to be more in-depth literature focusing on the diverse incentive models and their impact on corporate performance. Notably, there needs to be more literature on considering entrepreneurial spirit as a mechanism. It aims to explore the relationship between executives' choices under different incentive models, the entrepreneurial spirit fostered by these models, and their combined impact on corporate performance. The findings reveal that adopting the restricted stock incentive model by listed enterprises implementing the equity incentive system significantly positively affects enterprise performance. Mechanistic tests show that when a company implements the restricted stock incentive model, executives prioritize maximizing their interests, leading them to embrace more risk in their investment decisions. This behavior, in turn, stimulates the adventurous spirit of executives, positively impacting enterprise performance, particularly pronounced in companies with more concentrated executive power. Moreover, executives may be more inclined to invest in high-risk, high-reward innovative projects, a behavior indicative of innovation and more prevalent in firms with higher research and development (R&D) investment. However, the limitation of this paper is that the study evaluates the operation of the equity incentive system in China by taking listed companies in China as an example, which is not necessarily suitable for foreign developed capitalist countries. This study contributes to the study of principal-agent problems by exploring the relationship between executives, entrepreneurship and firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green and low carbon reflect the high-quality development, while income distribution is an indicator of the balance of development. Is there a lack of fairness in the process of green and low carbon transition of enterprises? Using data from A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2016, this paper constructs a DID identification framework for controlling the endogeneity problem using the 2013 carbon trading policy pilot as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically test the impact of corporate low-carbon transformation on corporate labor income share in the context of carbon trading policy. The findings indicate that carbon trading policy decreases the labor income share of firms. In addition, we demonstrate that the low-carbon transition promotes labor productivity, suggesting that the Porter's hypothesis is confirmed in China, but the increase in labor wages is not in tandem with productivity growth, resulting in reduced labor income share. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of carbon trading policy on labor income share is mainly pronounced in larger firms, high technology firms and persistent incumbent firms. Collectively, these results are expected to accurately improve our understanding on the impact of low-carbon transformation of enterprises on income distribution and provide reference for the government to formulate industrial policies and distribution mechanisms under low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competition in the world has shifted from natural resources and capital resources to human resources. The human resources have become the real power source of the economic growth. Firstly, the price of human resources in China is calculated. Secondly, in order to measure the human resources quality adjustment index, the indicators system is constructed. Third, the Hedonic method is used to calculate the human resources "pure price" of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) in China. The "pure price" has no the factor of human resources quality. Lastly, comparing the price of human resources before and after quality adjustment. The results show that: first, the number of human resources in China increased continuously during 1995–2015 and decreased during 2016–2020. Second, the price of nominal human resources in China keeps rising. In 2020, the nominal price is 39,087 yuan per person which is 15.44 times as many as in 1995. Thirdly, after the quality adjustment, the price of human resources has decreased significantly. The multiple between the actual and nominal price of human resources is between 1.75 and 2.12. Fourthly, the province with high human resource quality adjustment index generally have high quality human resource level or quantity. Fifth, the top five provinces of actual human resource prices are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Tianjin, Zhejiang, the bottom five provinces are Guizhou, Yunnan, Henan, Xizang, Gansu. Finally, the paper puts forward some policy recommendations: Improving the data collection mechanism of human resources accounting to provide a basic guarantee for the accurate accounting of human resources. Improving the price of human resources in the central and western regions to attract the talents to transfer to the central and western regions. Enhancing the skills training of human resources to improve the quality of human resources in the western region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes an improved undesirable output DEA model to measure the eco-efficiency of cities in five major urban agglomerations in China during 2006–2020. It employs the Theil Index and Geodetector to investigate the spatial-temporal distribution differentiation characteristics and driving factors of urban eco-efficiency. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, the eco-efficiency of all urban agglomerations showed a fluctuating upward trend, but the eco-efficiency performance of different urban agglomerations in China shows a stratification characteristic. Specifically, the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration consistently ranks first in China, while the mean values of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration are lower than the national average. Secondly, the overall differences in the urban eco-efficiency of all sample cities show a consistently fluctuating downward trend. The factor that affects the level differences of eco-efficiency in different cities is the intra-regional differences. Last but not least, the top three factors affecting the spatial distribution difference of urban eco-efficiency in the whole sample are environmental pollution control investments, innovation level, and environmental infrastructure investments. In the end, this paper proposes that reducing the intra-regional differences is the primary task to achieve the coordinated improvement of urban eco-efficiency in urban agglomerations, and then puts forward some policy suggestions to improve eco-efficiency for the five major urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judicial improvement and trade structure optimization are important elements in achieving a high level of openness. This paper develops a theoretical framework on the impact of local protectionism on market integration and export technical complexity, and then empirically analyses the effect of judicial improvement on the technical complexity of urban product exports and its mechanism of action based on a quasi-natural experiment with the establishment of circuit courts. The study finds that the establishment of circuit courts significantly increases the technical complexity of product exports, and the findings remain valid after a series of robustness tests. Further analysis shows that the technology enhancement effect of the establishment of circuit courts is more pronounced in the group of cities with higher administrative levels, better location advantages, and less advanced rule of law. Mechanism Analysis shows that a superior institutional environment can have a two-sided effect on different types of firms. Overall, however, the productivity-enhancing effect of low-productivity firms exiting the market is lower than the productivity-reducing effect of higher-productivity firms' increased compliance costs, which in turn weakens the positive promotional effect of circuit courts. The above theoretical and empirical findings provide policy implications for maximizing the technology enhancement effect of the establishment of circuit courts on product exports, thereby promoting a high level of openness in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the unbalanced panel data of Chinese professional health insurance companies from 2011 to 2021, the paper constructs "PW+PCSE" model to empirically investigate the main factors affecting the commercial health insurance surrender in China from the company level. The results show that asset-liability ratio has a significant positive effect on health insurance surrender rate. The value preservation and appreciation rate of capital and R&D expenditure rate both have significant negative effects on health insurance surrender rate. These studies bring important enlightenment for domestic health insurance companies to avoid surrender risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the intensification of global economic competition, innovation has become one of the core elements of vigorous development in various regions. Improving the innovation ability of cross-regional central cities is the main factor influencing whether a region can achieve economic and social development. In this paper, an innovation primacy index system is designed according to the links of the innovation value chain, and the innovation advantages and empirical effects are comprehensively analyzed by using the point-to-point method, entropy weight method, gravity model and two-way fixed effect model. Based on the data of 8 cities in the core area of the Huaihai Economic Zone from 2010 to 2020 in China, Xuzhou's innovation primacy ranks first in the core area of the Huaihai Economic Zone, which accords with its status as the central city of the region. Its index has been rising, and its development trend is also good. However, the overall innovation ability of the core area of the Huaihai Economic Zone is unbalanced; the overall economic foundation is not solid enough. In terms of knowledge innovation, R&D innovation and industrial innovation, the industrialization level, around the activation of Xuzhou city vitality, enhances the Xuzhou innovation radiation drive, leading to a decrease in the Huaihai Economic Zone. Finally, some corresponding suggestions on innovation primacy have been proposed for the city of the Huaihai Economic Zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital economy has become a "new engine" that driving global economic growth. Nevertheless, numerous controversies persist regarding whether and how digital economy can facilitate the development of emerging industries. Thus, this paper investigates how digital economy affects creative industries development in China and whether innovation efficiency mediates this relationship. Drawing upon a panel data set containing 29 Chinese provinces from 2012 to 2019, an econometric model is constructed for empirical analysis. We find that digital economy significantly promotes creative industries development, and innovation efficiency plays a partial mediating role between digital economy and creative industries development. According to the influence mechanism, the digital economy of various regions could promote the creative industries development by improving the innovation efficiency. Finally, relevant suggestions were put forward from the expanding application paths, improving regional innovation efficiency, and creating an innovative environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's agricultural economy has been hindered by insufficient accumulation of agricultural capital and credit constraints. It is worth investigating whether China's county financial marketization reform policy can alleviate these constraints and promote high-quality development of the agricultural economy (HQDAE). This paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of county financial marketization reform on the HQDAE, based on county panel data. The focus is on the mechanism of county urbanization in the above relationship. The results show that county financial marketization has a significant non-linear impact on the HQDAE. Specifically, it has a 'U-shaped' impact on the overall growth of the agricultural economy and an inverted 'N-shaped' impact on the quality improvement of the agricultural economy. Secondly, the relationship between county financial marketization and the HQDAE is influenced by a threshold effect based on the level of county urbanization. As the level of county urbanization increases, the promoting effect of county financial marketization on HQDAE also increases significantly. Additionally, county financial marketization helps to promote county urbanization and accelerate urban-rural integration, which in turn leads to HQDAE. The research in this paper suggests that county-level local governments should promote a differentiated county financial system. In the early stages of financial market-oriented reform, the government should enhance the capacity of financial services in rural areas through tax breaks, policy incentives, and other measures to prevent financial leakage from agriculture. In the later stages of financial marketization reform, the government should strengthen financial supervision to prevent financial resources from being diverted from industry to capital. Moreover, to achieve the HQDAE, it is necessary to promote county financial market-oriented reform and accelerate the construction of county urbanization. This will help break the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas and promote the flow of financial capital, technology, and human capital from county cities to rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of information technology has created conducive conditions for the digital economy. The digital economy is regarded as a critical pathway for transforming traditional economic models. Green total factor productivity serves as an indicator for assessing the quality of economic development. During pivotal periods of economic transition, the digital economy and green total factor productivity have emerged as two prominent themes for achieving sustainable economic development. But the impact of digital economy on green total factor productivity is less discussed. Innovation environment refers to a confluence of conditions shaped by factors such as talent, funding, cultural atmosphere and government policies, all of which collectively support innovative activities within a region. The institutional environment encompasses the aggregate of economic, political, social, and legal rules. Currently, there is little discussion on bringing innovation environment and institutional environment into the impact of digital economy on green total factor productivity. To fill the research gap, this paper adopts the Slack based measure-Directional distance function model and Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index to measure green total factor productivity in each region based on the panel data collected from 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2019. Generalized Method of Moments method is constructed to carry out an empirical study on the impact of digital economy on green total factor productivity. This paper constructs a panel threshold model with innovation environment and institutional environment as threshold variables. In further analysis, this paper employs panel quantile regression for the empirical analysis of the impact of the digital economy on green total factor productivity. Further analysis elucidates the evident disparities in the influence of the digital economy on green total factor productivity at various levels. The research results can provide a guide for discussing the green value of the digital economy and its role in fostering the development of a green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the digital revolution deepens, the digital economy (DE) is reshaping the global industrial structure (IS). This paper utilizes data from 280 Chinese cities between 2007 and 2020 to conduct an in-depth analysis of how DE propels the upgrading of IS and explores the role of human capital (HC) in this process. The research indicates that DE significantly fosters the optimization of IS. Additionally, it was discovered that the growth of HC plays a pivotal mediating role in this evolution, complementing existing research on the relationship between higher education and industrial upgrading. By adopting spatial econometric methods, this study unveils the spillover effects of DE in geographical space, identifying a positive influence on the industrial upgrading of surrounding regions. The paper also confirms the nonlinear characteristics of DE's impact on IS upgrading, which manifests as a pronounced inverted U-shaped trend, marking a novel discovery. Further findings suggest that in regions with more advanced artificial intelligence technologies, the impact of DE on industrial optimization is more significant, highlighting the role of regional disparities in the digital transformation. In conclusion, the paper proposes policy recommendations based on the research findings to facilitate the development of DE and the elevation of IS levels, thereby promoting high-quality economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of digital economy is a strategic choice to grasp the revolution of new science and technology and the new opportunities of industrial reform. The development of digital economy depends on the good support of policy and theoretical system. Therefore, the quantitative evaluation of policy texts provides the basis of decision-making and the suggestions of path optimization for the formulation and improvement of digital economy policy of China. By selecting the text of digital economy policy issued by China government, the paper constructs a quantitative evaluation model of digital economy policy using the methods of content analysis and text mining. The empirical research results show that the overall design evaluation of the selected policy is relatively reasonable. Six policies were evaluated as excellent and two as acceptable. In view of the problems such as lack of predictive policy in the policy type, lack of specific policy in the policy timeliness, imbalance in the use of policy guarantee, and lack of comprehensive coverage in the policy objectives, the paper puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving green innovation efficiency (GIE) is the key to achieve high-quality economic development in China, and the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important path choice to promote the GIE. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China, this paper explores the linear and nonlinear effects of FDI on GIE from both quantity and quality perspectives, and further analyzes the mediating role of environmental regulation level. The results show that: (1) From 2011 to 2020, the GIE of all provinces in China generally shows an upward trend. (2) The quantity and quality of FDI have a significant positive impact on the improvement of GIE in China's provinces, and this impact has regional heterogeneity. (3) The quantity and quality of FDI can promote the improvement of GIE in China through the level of environmental regulation (ER). (4) With the level of knowledge accumulation and GIE as the threshold variables, the quantity and quality of FDI have a single threshold effect on the GIE of China's provinces. The conclusions of this study provide some policy implications for local governments to make full use of FDI to perform green innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of green finance reform and innovation (GFRI) pilot zone is an important measure of the Chinese government to urge enterprises to develop green transformation. This paper explores the impact of pilot policies in the GFRI pilot zone on corporate environmental investment. Based on 819 A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2020, our staggered difference-in-differences (staggered DID) estimation documents revealed that enterprises in the GFRI pilot zone significantly increased the corporate environmental investment efficiency but reduced the scale of corporate environmental investment.This conclusion remained robust after Propensity Scores Matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID), replacing dependent variables, and shortening the time window. We contend that the increased research and development (R&D) expenditure and technological innovation are the potential mechanisms at work. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the establishment of GFRI improved the environmental investment efficiency of polluting enterprises but had no effect on green enterprises.Meanwhile, the effect of GFRI exhibited heterogeneity in the type of enterprise ownership. This paper evaluates the implementation effect of GFRI from the perspective of corporate environmental investment, and provides theoretical support and an empirical basis for green finance policy to serve China's green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the dynamic link between the development of COVID-19 pandemic and industry sector risk spillovers is crucial to explore the underlying mechanisms by which major public health events affect economic systems. This paper applies ElasticNet method proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012, 2014) to estimate the dynamic risk spillover indicators of 20 industrial sectors in China from 2016 to 2022, and systematically examines the impact of industry risk network fluctuations and the transmission path caused by COVID-19 shock. The findings reveal that risk spillovers of Chinese industries show a dynamic change of "decline-fluctuation-rebound" with the three phases of COVID-19 epidemic. At the beginning of the epidemic, machinery and equipment, paper and printing, tourism and hotels, media and information services, and agriculture were the exporters of epidemic risk, while materials, transportation equipment, commercial trade, health care, and environmental protection were the importers of epidemic risk; However, as the epidemic developed further, the direction and effect of risk transmission in the industry was reversed. Examining the network characteristics of the pair sectors, we found that under the epidemic shock, the positive risk spillover from tourism and hotels, culture, education and sports to consumer goods, finance, and energy industries was significantly increased, and finance and real estate industries were affected by the risk impact of more industries, while the number of industries affected by information technology and computer industry was significantly reduced. This paper shows that there is inter-industry risk transmission of the COVID-19 epidemic shock, and the risk transmission feeds back in a cycle between industries as the epidemic develops, driving the economy into a vicious circle. The role of the service sector in blocking the spread of negative shocks from the epidemic should be emphasized and brought into play to avoid increasing the overall economic vulnerability. This study will help to deepen the understanding of scholars and policy makers on the network transmission effects of the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the impact of executive compensation incentive on corporate innovation capability by dividing executive compensation incentive into short-term monetary incentive and long-term equity incentive. We also investigate the interaction between the two types of executive compensation incentive. Data are collected from China's agro-based companies during 2012–2019, and multiple regression analysis is utilized. The empirical results show that short-term monetary incentive has no impact on innovation capability, while long-term equity incentive stimulates innovation capability. Regarding company ownership, the impact of long-term equity incentive in state-owned enterprises is greater than that in private-owned enterprises. In addition, the complementary effect between short-term and long-term compensation incentive has a positive impact on innovation capability regardless of company ownership. The findings of this paper could help agribusiness managers to design the reasonable incentive system to incentivize corporate executives and enhance the capability of independent innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]