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AbstractThis study investigates the correlation between government environmental reporting and tourism development. The former is measured as the percentage of the words in the sentences in which the environmental terms are located in government work reports, which reflects the government’s environmental agenda. The analysis reveals that environmental reporting exerts an inverted U-shaped curve impact on tourism development. Such an impact is mediated by economic pressure and environmental pollution, while the economic level and tourism resource endowment act as moderators. Specifically, economic growth pressure and tourism resource endowment enhance the curve’s steepness and shift the curves’ inflection points to the left and right, respectively. Additionally, the study confirms a spatial spillover effect of environmental reporting on tourism development but with limited economic significance. These findings provide insights into the nonlinear link between environmental reporting and tourism development and offer valuable implications for both theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the necessary and sufficient influence of the innovation environment, which incorporates various innovation variables, on IGTFP from a configurational standpoint. This paper utilizes fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis and necessary condition analysis methodologies. A total of 11 models are found to be driven by the innovation environment for IGTFP. Technological output is necessary for IGTFP and thus a fundamental factor in various models. The effects of wages and human capital on IGTFP are also relatively significant. Longitudinally, there is no consistent innovation environment-driven model. This paper reveals the intricate associations between the innovation ecosystem and IGTFP while elucidating the mechanism of variable effects on IGTFP influenced by varying spatio-temporal environments, which significantly amplifies current comprehension of the mean effect link between the two. Concurrently, the article furnishes methodological direction for subsequent investigation into the complexity of the relationships between relevant variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green development, considering economic and environmental performance, has received increased attention globally. Moreover, the significant economic and environmental impacts of tourism are widely accepted by scholars. However, the nexus of tourism and green development is still unclear. To fill this gap, this study examines the effects of tourism on green development performance measured as green total factor productivity and the influence mechanisms. China's 308 cities' panel data between 2005 and 2019 provide empirical evidence. The results demonstrate an inverted U-shaped relationship between tourism and green total factor productivity, which is substantiated via various rigorous robustness tests. The key drivers of green total factor productivity change in cities include tourism-induced technological innovation, industrial structure optimisation, and environmental enhancement. Besides, the nexus of tourism and GTFP varies significantly across different socio-economic development regions. The positive relationship exists in relatively developed areas, while less-developed western China still keeps inverted U-shaped links between tourism and GTFP. The U-shaped relationship exists in central and northeastern China. The article is the first to systematically explore the impact of tourism on green development while revealing several potential mechanisms, thus significantly contributing to the literature on green development and sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper examines the various channels through which the tourism ecosystem can affect green development, utilizing a configurational approach to identify underlying mechanisms. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and necessary condition analysis are employed. The findings reveal that tourism does not act as either a necessary component or bottleneck to green development. Four models of tourism-driven high green development are identified including migration-based, growth-based, government-led tourism-driven, and government-led non-tourism-driven. Additionally, the causal relationship between tourism and green development is apparent primarily in less economically-developed regions. The study affirms the asymmetric causal impact of tourism on green development and presents a systematic and in-depth understanding of the asymmetric multivariate pathways that tourism can use to promote green development. These findings represent a significant contribution to the current literature and offer new perspectives for the field of sustainable tourism research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the persisting interest in the nexus of tourism and income inequality, the relationships between tourism and urban income inequality remain unknown. In the past few decades, tourism, urbanization, and urban income inequality are all prominent social and economic phenomena in China. This study investigates such relationships and the underlying influence mechanism of urbanization based on provincial panel data in China between 1995 and 2019. The results show that tourism significantly increases urban income inequality. Moreover, there exists a Kuznets curve between tourism and urban income inequality. When the ratio of tourism revenue to GDP reaches the value of 0.416, the positive influence of tourism on urban income inequality reaches its maximum. Most of China's provinces currently face the positive influence of tourism on urban income inequality. Besides, urbanization partially mediates tourism's effects on urban income inequality. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that in high-urbanization, high-income, and low economic levels regions, tourism increases urban income inequality to a greater extent. This article enriches the knowledge of the association between tourism and income distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the impact of economic growth pressure on carbon emissions based on panel data from China's 277 cities. Moreover, the article analyzes the underlying influence mechanisms as well as regional heterogeneity. The results demonstrate that economic growth pressure significantly increases carbon emissions. Technological innovation and foreign trade constitute the channels through which economic growth pressure affects carbon emissions, but the mediating mechanism of industrial structure upgrading does not exist. Concretely, economic growth pressure increases carbon emissions by reducing technological innovation and foreign trade. In Western China, economic growth pressure has the highest impact on carbon emissions. In central and western China, economic growth pressure has a significant positive effect on carbon emissions. On the contrary, the effect of economic growth pressure on carbon emissions is significantly negative in Eastern China. In Northeast China, the positive effect of economic growth pressure on carbon emissions is statistically insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comparatively analyzes the sufficiency and necessity of tourism's influence on economic growth in different cities from a systematic configurational perspective. Two important time points in China's tourism development, 2010 and 2019, are also considered in this paper to explore whether the impact of tourism on urban economic growth is temporally heterogeneous. The results demonstrate that tourism is not necessary for urban economic growth. However, the dependence on the tourism economy plays an important role in several urban economic growth patterns. Only one tourism-driven economic growth pattern exists, where tourism drives economic growth led by investment, and this pattern did not change significantly from 2010 to 2019. A tourism-driven low economic growth model also suggests that a high dependence on tourism leads to low economic growth. Two tourism-constrained low economic growth patterns exist: investment–industrial structure tourism-constrained and investment–innovation tourism-constrained. These two patterns indicate that economic growth rates are difficult to increase if the tourism economy is underdeveloped. In addition, tourism-driven or -constrained economic growth patterns have specific spatial clustering characteristics. This paper argues that tourism should actively seek foreign capital utilization and fixed asset investment, and also constantly reduce its independence and blur its industrial boundaries to better integrate or link with other industries to play its economic growth role. Furthermore, city policymakers should be fully aware of their own (tourism) resource endowment and the internal and external environment changes to choose a suitable economic growth model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence that strengthening the synergy among agriculture, industry, and the service industry is an effective rural poverty reduction strategy. Using China's provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019, we employ a coupling model to measure this synergy and to apply an empirical analysis methodology to examine its impact on rural poverty. The results indicate that the synergy among agriculture, industry, and the service industry results in a significant decrease in rural poverty. The poverty reduction effect is greatest in western China. The growth of the rural economy and the increase in rural households' business income are the main channels by which synergy plays its role in reducing poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions trading schemes (ETS) area is a leading climate policy instrument worldwide and have been widely discussed and researched. However, few studies to date focus on the nexus of ETS and income inequality, an important socioeconomic phenomenon. To fill this gap, taking China as an example, this paper discusses the influence of ETS on income inequality and its dynamic changes using a time-varying differences-in-difference model combined with a propensity score matching approach. The results demonstrate that China's pilot ETS has contributed to reducing income inequality. Various robustness tests support this conclusion. Moreover, the strength of ETS's contribution to reduction in income inequality gradually increases over time. We further analyze the mediating effects of carbon intensity, energy consumption, industrial structure, and technological innovation. ETS reduces income inequality by reducing coal consumption. The regional heterogeneity analysis shows that, unlike in other regions, ETS has a positive impact on income inequality (i.e. it increases it) in the eastern region in China due to its optimized energy structure and relatively complete, open, and flexible economy system. The paper discusses the above findings and their policy implications. It is also designed to promote research on ETS and to diversify research perspectives of income inequality from both theoretical and practical aspects. Evidence from China's pilot experience with ETS shows that it contributes significantly to balancing income distribution and alleviating the increasingly acute social conflicts caused by income inequality. This provides new theoretical and decision support for the promotion of ETS in the future. The energy revolution driven by ETS promotes income redistribution, which is conducive to income equality. Governments should enforce the constraints of ETS on power generation companies; guide capital to invest more in the non-thermal power industry, especially the renewable energy power sectors; and guide and regulate the income distribution in new power sectors. Governments' revenue from ETS can and should be used to further redistribution of income and to reduce income inequality. A higher number of free quotas and a lower carbon price could be imposed on low-profit or labor-intensive industries to reduce their emission costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article estimates the impact of tourism on the nighttime economy drawing on panel data between 2005 and 2019 for Chinese 280 cities. Both tourist arrivals and tourism revenue have significant negative effects on nighttime economic development. Various rigorous robustness tests confirm the validity of this finding. In particular, the effect of tourist arrivals on the nighttime economy is significantly positive in Eastern and Western China and the period 2005-2009. On the contrary, tourism revenue still affects the nighttime economy negatively for different subsamples. Moreover, regional socioeconomic variables significantly weaken the negative effect of tourism on the nighttime economy. This paper is the first study of investigating the effects of tourism on the nighttime economy and the underlying moderating mechanisms, thus contributing significantly to the existing body of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of carbon emission trading (ETS) has been widely investigated. In contrast to the existing studies, this article explores for the first time the theoretical relationship between the ETS and industrial green total factor productivity (IGTFP) and tests it empirically. Furthermore, the article investigates the mediating mechanisms and possible regional heterogeneity of the influence of the ETS on IGTFP. To this end, a time-varying difference-in-differences technique is employed, drawing on panel data of 276 cities in China from 2005 to 2019. The results show that the ETS significantly and robustly increases IGTFP in pilot regions. Green technological innovation and industrial structure have a significant mediating effect on the nexus of the ETS and IGTFP. However, there exists no mediating mechanism of general technological innovation. In addition, economic development and energy consumption positively moderate the effect of the ETS on IGTFP, and industrial dependence negatively moderates such an effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of tourist attractions has become an important manifestation of local performance and the image of tourist destinations, as well as an important means for local governments to promote economic development. However, the causal relationship between tourist attractions and economic growth remains unclear. The article's main purpose is to explore the causal effect of tourist attractions on economic growth. To do so, a difference-in-differences model is employed based on China's city-level panel data from 2001 to 2019 involving 313 cities and 5947 observations. The results demonstrate that tourist attractions have a significant positive causal effect on China's economic growth. Such causality is significant only in the east and central regions. Highway density, urban disposable income per capita, and the share of the tertiary industry have significant moderating effects. The validity of the causal relationship is confirmed using various rigorous robustness tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism's relationship with income inequality is a hot spot in the academic community; however, few studies focus on how tourism shapes rural income inequality, despite its significant role in rural poverty alleviation. This article investigates the nonlinear effects of tourism on urban–rural income inequality and rural income inequality based on data from China's provincial regions over the period 1995–2018, using the dynamic panel data approach. This study further examines the regional heterogeneity of such effects. The results demonstrate that for the national sample, there exists a significant cubic curve relationship between domestic tourism and rural income inequality. However, inbound tourism's relationship with rural income inequality is not significant. Besides, there exists an N-shaped Kuznets curve between domestic or inbound tourism and urban–rural income inequality. The effects of tourism on rural income inequality and urban–rural income inequality vary significantly across the eastern, middle, and western regions. From east to middle to west, the significance of inbound tourism's influence on income inequality decreases gradually. This study also highlights some critical theoretical and practical implications. Unlike prior studies, this article builds the first comprehensive research framework consisting of tourism, rural income inequality, and urban–rural income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the mediating effect model to explore tourism's impact on rural income inequality and the underlying mechanism. For the first time, this article calculates the province-level rural Gini coefficients and Theil indexes to measure rural income inequality based on the income survey data of rural China. The results show that total tourism, domestic tourism and inbound tourism are all driving forces for increasing rural income inequality. The effects of total tourism and domestic tourism are statistically significant. Moreover, tourism significantly influences rural development represented by employment, education, income and consumption. Rural development significantly mediates tourism's effects on rural income inequality. The effects of tourism on rural income inequality vary significantly across different rural development levels. This article also proposes a series of targeted policy implications, which can better serve China's sustainable tourism and rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the relationship between tourism and gender equality using panel vector autoregression and vector error correction models estimated by the generalized method of moment. This methodology is based on panel data from 36 Asian countries between 2006 and 2019. The other three variables including the economy, employment, and education are also analyzed. The results show that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between tourism and gender equality. In the short run, tourism is not the Granger cause for gender equality; however, tourism significantly contributes to gender equality in all regions in the long run. Furthermore, a heterogeneous causality between tourism and gender equality is found across the regions. Tourism's positive effect on gender equality does not depend entirely on economic empowerment. All the economy, education and employment mostly contribute to realizing gender equality, but this contribution is not decisive. The findings and policy implications are finally discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the tourism economic dynamics under the carbon intensity target policy with macroeconomic uncertainty. Using a novel multi-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, this article presents the impulse responses of the tourism economy to productivity shocks and carbon intensity target shocks in terms of output, employment, and consumption. The results show that, generally, productivity shocks have positive effects while carbon intensity target shocks negatively affect the tourism aggregate economy. The reduced carbon intensity target offsets these positive effects as well as enlarging these negative effects. Furthermore, the effects of exogenous shocks vary significantly across tourism sectors. As a whole, tourism-related transport and accommodation sectors are the most affected. In addition, different carbon intensity targets mean the different volatility and persistence of the effects of exogenous shocks. This study contributes to a better understanding of tourism economic dynamics under a specific emissions policy, thereby contributing to relevant decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognition of the correlation between the tourism industry and a town's spatial morphology, there is a dearth of rigorous empirical specifications to examine it. This study uses geographic information system (GIS) tools and space syntax analysis to explore whether the tourist hotel industry and a town's spatial morphology are consistent or if they have different spatial distributions. From a sample of Phoenix Ancient Town, China, our analysis shows the following results: First, there is a spatial correlation between the tourist hotel industry and urban spatial morphology, which is significantly related to tourist attraction distribution and traffic accessibility. Second, the spatial evolution of the tourist hotel industry and a town's spatial morphology shows different characteristics in different periods. Third, the impact of the tourist hotel industry on a town's spatial morphology is gradually decreasing as new business buildings arise. The analysis is theoretically important as it enriches the methodologies for analyzing the correlation between the tourist hotel industry and a town's spatial morphology. It is important for government planners as it provides useful information for formulating territorial spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the dynamic relationship between tourism, transport infrastructure, and income inequality using the novel panel data of China over 2000–2018. The results show the bidirectional Granger causality between highway and tourism and a unidirectional Granger causality running from railway to tourism for the national sample. Tourism significantly affects China's income inequality; however, this impact is minimal. Besides, tourism and transport infrastructure have a synergy effect on China's income inequality. Given the importance of tourism and transport infrastructure to economic growth in many developing countries, this study is conducive to broader debates over the role of transport infrastructure in tourism-induced inclusive growth in its policy implications for national development strategies and equitable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the economic impacts of China's emissions trading system (ETS), implemented in 2013, in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita GDP. The methodology drew on a difference-in-differences (DID) method using dynamic panel data for 30 provincial regions. The estimation results show that implementing an ETS policy has statistically significant negative effects on economic growth. When considering the additional control variables, these effects are still statistically significant. Furthermore, these negative impacts increase over time with respect to both GDP and per capita GDP. The counterfactual tests confirm the robustness of our DID estimation results. The specific influence mechanism of China's ETS policy was finally discussed. Our findings provide a quantitative decision-making support for popularizing ETS policy in China. Based on our DID model, empirical investigations of the ETS policy, especially concerning economic growth in other regions would produce prolific contributions to the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we for the first time applied the vector error correction model (VECM) Granger causality approach to investigate the short-run and long-run causal relationships among tourism, economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for 30 Chinese provinces over the period 2000–2017. The results implied that the analyzed variables became stationary at their first differences. The panel cointegration tests indicated the presence of a long-term equilibrium relationship among these four analyzed variables. Results from the VECM Granger causality tests suggested that the bidirectional short-term causalities were statistically confirmed between gross domestic product (GDP) and tourism. Additionally, we found that some unidirectional short-run causalities existed running from energy consumption to other analyzed variables and bidirectional long-run causalities existed between CO2 emissions and GDP, CO2 emissions and tourism, and GDP and tourism. Moreover, we also found the existence of unidirectional long-term causalities running from energy consumption to other analyzed variables. Based on these findings, we highlighted some key policy implications to develop China's sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the influence of tourism on changes in low-carbon performance. We additionally introduced economy, renewable energy use, and research and development investment as the antecedent conditions. The results show that the impact of tourism on low-carbon performance is diversified and non-linear. Tourism is not the necessary condition of high or weak low-carbon performance. We found three different low-carbon development models, namely the economy-led development in emerging economies, tourism-led development in developing countries, and innovation-led development in developed countries. We also found the causal asymmetry in the driving mechanism of low-carbon performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 21st century, accompanied by the tremendous achievements of China's economic growth is an increasingly severe income gap between the rich and the poor. Based on panel data from 2000 to 2018, this study systematically examined the relationship among transport infrastructure, economic growth, carbon emissions, and income inequality in China, using the panel vector autoregressive model estimated by the generalized method of moments. We further divided China into three regions to investigate the regional heterogeneity of these relationships. The results show a long‐run equilibrium relationship between transport infrastructure, economic growth, carbon emissions, and income inequality. Income inequality in the previous year significantly affects that in the current year positively. Whether at the national or regional level, economic growth affects income inequality negatively. For the national sample, the highway reduces income inequality, while the railway increases income inequality. For both the subsamples and the national sample, carbon emissions significantly increase income inequality and are the Granger test cause for income inequality. Furthermore, we discuss some of the possible mechanisms of these results. Our findings generate policy implications for reducing income inequality in regard to economic growth, transport infrastructure, and carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the impacts of the ETS on tourism-related CO2 emissions and carbon intensity using a difference-in-differences model. The results show that the ETS is conducive to reducing tourism-related CO2 emissions and tourism carbon intensity. Furthermore, those negative impacts will increase over time. From an empirical perspective, this study could theoretically provide a useful research framework for analyzing the effects of the ETS on tourism development. From a methodological point of view, the research process presented in this study could encourage the difference-in-differences model to be widely adopted in evaluating the impacts of relevant policies on tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current kind of isolated or reductionism research is incompetent to systematically manage the development of low-carbon tourism destination. This research takes Lhasa, a high-altitude tourist city, as the case study. In this study, we seek to establish a system dynamics model to explore the evolution characteristics of urban low-carbon tourism systems under different scenarios. Our results indicate that some decision parameters (such as the proportion of low-carbon investment, CO2 emissions per tourist, carbon intensity of other industries, CO2 emissions per resident, and travelling time) have the most significant impacts on the performance of low-carbon tourism system. Under the economic priority scenario, the environmental risks to low-carbon tourism system are controllable in the long run. The contribution of tourism development to the pollution levels is continuously increasing. The research process presented in this study could be applied to the systematic management of other low-carbon tourism cities and even larger-scale destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through questionnaires and interviews, we investigated the energy literacy characteristics of tourism peasant households in rural tourism destinations and distinguished the predictors of energy conservation behavior. The questionnaires show that the peasant households seem literate in energy; however, our interviews do not support this statement. There are significant correlations between energy knowledge, affect and behavior. Energy affect has the most remarkable impact on energy conservation behavior. These findings allow us to provide empirical evidence that attention must be poured into the energy as well as the low-carbon governance of extensive rural tourist destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon tax is among the hot topics in the Chinese scientific community. This study mainly investigates the economic impacts of the carbon tax on Chinese tourism industry under two scenarios: a single carbon tax and a carbon tax plus compensation, using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. The study examines the advancement of tourism economic change with respect to the output, employment, production price, and demand. Our main conclusions are that: (1) the impacts of carbon tax on different economic variables and different tourism sectors vary significantly, (2) the carbon tax has the greatest impacts on tourism demand, and has the smallest impacts on tourism production price, (3) a carbon tax with a compensation plan is conductive to improving the carbon tax performance, (4) the impacts of carbon tax decline in the long run. Our theoretical and practical proposals could highlight more effective practices to investigate the impacts of climate policies including carbon tax on the tourism economy in other territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A carbon tax policy has been advocated as an effective tool to develop low‐carbon economy in China. As one of the most influential and dynamic industries, Chinese tourism industry will foresee a new challenge under the carbon tax scenario. Given this background, this study explores the impacts of carbon tax on tourism development from the perspective of energy consumption by using computable general equilibrium modeling in China. Our findings clearly indicate that (a) the proportion of tourism energy consumption to national energy consumption in China will increase over time, (b) the impacts of carbon tax on China's tourism fossil energy consumption, electricity consumption, and energy intensity will become increasingly weak, (c) the impacts of a carbon tax on electricity use are greater than the impacts on fossil fuel consumption, and (d) the impacts of different carbon taxes on the levels of energy consumption and energy intensity will vary to a significant degree between the different tourism sectors. Our results are conducive to recognizing the changes of tourism energy consumption levels after levying a carbon tax. Furthermore, this paper also has a certain reference value to guide any relevant, subsequent studies in other destinations or economic sectors, worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of tourism development, decision‐makers are often confronted with multiple goals regarding the tourism economy, environment and society. Taking Tibet (China) as a case study, the current paper proposes an innovative methodology for quantifying the trade‐off between various tourism development goals, drawing on the Delphi method and goal programing. Our results indicate that Tibet's sustainable tourism development goals mainly consist of 10 subgoals and depend on nine decision‐making variables. Depending on whether the greatest priority is given to economic, social or environmental goals, the practical implications are markedly different. We further examine changes in the subgoals and decision variables under each priority scenario. Our results allow us to recognize the key objectives involved in sustainable tourism development. This study also provides a good research framework for weighing up the priority that should be assigned to different development goals and making relevant decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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