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As a fundamental factor driving economic growth, natural capital plays a key role in sustainable development. This paper incorporates various economic growth proxy variables into the MRW model and uses the BMA method to tackle the uncertainty issue of the model. Based on China's provincial-level panel data, this paper examines the impact of renewable natural capital and non-renewable natural capital on the country's economic growth and then carries out multiple mechanism analysis with the CART algorithm. The main findings are: 1 Natural capital has a significant deep impact on China's economic growth in models incorporating proximate and fundamental theories, and the direction of natural capital's impact varies with proxy indicators, which shows a significant 'Curse' effect of dependence and a 'Blessing' effect of abundance. This panoramic perspective can reconcile the serious disagreement on 'Resource Curse' among the literature. 2 The effects of renewable natural capital are in line with the 'Resource neutral' hypothesis, while nonrenewable natural capital has a stronger impact on economic growth in terms of both the 'Curse' effect of dependence and the 'Blessing' effect of abundance, and the overall effect on economic growth depends on patterns of resource use. 3 Under high physical capital accumulation, natural capital has a more fundamental impact on economic growth, and the 'Blessing' effect of abundance has been significantly enhanced. Based on their resource endowments and economic development levels, all provinces should reinvest natural resource rents in national wealth to mitigate the 'Resource Curse' through effective protection of natural capital and compensation from reinvestment. This is a reasonable way to embark on a win-win sustainable development path of economic development and ecological civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration in the prevention and control of water resource disasters is an important part of the prevention and cooperation of international river conflicts. It is also an important means to promote the de-securitization of water resources. Taking the Ili River and Lancang-Mekong River, two typical transboundary rivers in China, as the objects of analysis, this paper identifies the deficiencies in disaster early warning and emergency management of transboundary rivers in China from the perspectives of breadth, depth, and closeness. The main existing problems are summarized as follows: (J) There is no mature collaborative management mechanism for water resource disasters within the basin with an integrated platform to share data, predict disasters, formulate strategies, and communicate information. © Due to the lack of an efficient two-way disclosure system, there is little information sharing among the basin countries. © Special funds for water resource cooperation in the basin are far from enough, and they are characterized as scattered, small in amount, and intermittent. Accordingly, this paper proposes four principles for collaborative management over transboundary river disasters: information sharing, equal consultation, no significant harm, and integrated planning. Furthermore, a mechanism for disaster early warning and emergency cooperative management over transboundary rivers is proposed, including a special fund for basin water resource cooperation, an information sharing system, a disaster risk assessment system, and an emergency management decision system. Safeguard measures to support the operation of the management mechanism are put forward, including joint construction of water conservancy projects, technical assistance, interest compensation, legal system construction, fund establishment, disaster insurance, and so on. The mechanism proposed in this paper can not only make up for the deficiencies of the existing management mechanism framework of transboundary rivers in China, but also provide a reference for the implementation of disaster early warning and emergency management of other transboundary rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategic deployment of building a comprehensive socialist modern state has put forward new requirements for the green and low-carbon transformation of China's economic and social development. As the core subject of promoting this process, the incentive mechanism for enterprises to practice environmental protection and emission reduction and take on green responsibilities has become a hot topic of social and academic attention. This paper examined the impact of the implementation of the low-carbon city pilot policy on the quality of environmental, social and governance (ESG) of listed companies using the staggered difference-in-differences model based on microdata of Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2021 as a representative low carbon transition policy and a quasi-natural experiment. The findings were as follows: 1 The low-carbon city pilot policy implemented in China since 2010 significantly improved the ESG quality of listed companies. The policy resulted in an average increase of 27.42% in the ESG index of listed companies in pilot cities. This result held after a series of robustness tests, including controlling for other policy interferences, propensity score matching, and placebo tests. 2 Under the influence of this policy, pressure from government regulation and public opinion supervision became a crucial driver for companies to autonomously enhance their ESG quality. 3 Green financial support helped alleviate corporate financing constraints and promoted green technological innovation, serving as an important mechanism for improving corporate ESG quality under the low-carbon transformation policy. Among these mechanisms, green technological innovation exhibited a trend toward both quantity and quality improvement. Innovation in energy-saving green technologies played a more significant role in enhancing corporate ESG quality in the context of the low-carbon city pilot policy. This study demonstrates that China's low-carbon city pilot policy not only promoted regional green and low-carbon transformation at the macro level but also encouraged enterprises to embrace the concept of low-carbon transformation and undertake responsibilities for sustainable and green development at the micro level. While enriching and supplementing the research on factors influencing corporate ESG quality, this study also provides theoretical and decision-making support for China's achievement of its 'dual carbon' goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recycling carbon tax revenue is a significant part of the design of a nation's carbon tax system. The impact of different recycling principles on the socio-economy and carbon emission reduction varies greatly. Under the background of China's goal of reaching peak carbon emissions, this paper designed three carbon tax recycling principles based on the goal of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), including recycling principles based on output ratio, export ratio, and carbon intensity. A recursively dynamic CGE model was developed in this study to evaluate the economic effects of these three carbon tax recycling principles based on tax neutrality under China's goal of reaching peak carbon emissions. Carbon tax recycling measures could mitigate the economic losses caused by carbon tax, and the results could be greatly affected according to different recycling principles. The results showed that: 1 The recycling principle based on output ratio could reduce economic losses and improve households' social welfare. 2 China's carbon intensity in 2030 could be reduced by more than 65% compared with that in 2005, and the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption could reach 25% using the recycling principle based on carbon intensity, but the economic loss mitigation effect of the recycling measures based on this principle was small. 3 Adopting the recycling principle based on export ratio would narrow the competitive gap between China and foreign countries, and the exports of high-carbon-intensity goods would not increase under this principle. 4 According to principles based on output ratio and export ratio, the NDC goal of non-fossil energy accounting for about 25% of primary energy consumption by 2030 could not be achieved, and only the NDC goal of reducing carbon emissions per unit of GDP by more than 65% compared with that of 2005 could be achieved. In brief, as an essential policy tool to achieve China's goal of reaching peak carbon emissions, the carbon tax should be implemented as soon as possible. At the same time, according to China's national conditions, a targeted choice of carbon tax recycling principle is needed. The role of the carbon tax in the process of achieving the goal of Nationally Determined Contributions should be fully utilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realization of common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of modernization with Chinese characteristics. New infrastructure development is a new engine for general and balanced economic growth in the digital economy era and plays an important role in achieving high-quality and inclusive economic growth. This study innovatively incorporated new infrastructure development into the theoretical analysis framework of common prosperity. Based on the data of 30 provincial-level samples from 2011 to 2020 and using the entropy weight method and coupled coordination model, this paper measured the level index of new infrastructure development and that of common prosperity. On this basis, the paper empirically examined the influence mechanism of new infrastructure development on common prosperity, the process of marketization, and the moderating role of rural human capital investment. The results showed that, overall, new infrastructure development significantly promoted common prosperity. Regionally, the new infrastructure development promoted the common prosperity of China' s southern region but had an obvious inhibitory effect on its northern region. Although new infrastructure was divided into different categories, fusion infrastructure, innovation infrastructure, and information infrastructure all promoted common prosperity to different degrees, but in terms of impact coefficient, fusion infrastructure, information infrastructure, and innovation infrastructure all declined in turn, as a matter of fact. The marketization process, rural health, education and training, and the migration of human capital investments all contributed to strengthening the role of new infrastructure development in promoting common prosperity. This study not only helps to clarify the theoretical correlation between new infrastructure development and common prosperity and enrich the sustainable or inclusive assessment framework of new infrastructure development from the perspective of common prosperity, but also helps to coordinate the goals and tasks of new infrastructure development and common prosperity for governments at all levels and relevant departments in practice and provides empirical evidence and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the integrated regional development of the Yangtze River Delta has become a national strategy of China, the scope of regional integration has expanded and regional economic geography has changed, which has a profound impact on regional environmental governance. Based on the 3D analysis framework of new economic geography, this paper used the 3D analysis framework of new economic geography to study the impact of regional market segmentation, density, distance, and other economic and geographical factors on urban environmental governance in the Yangtze River Delta. Based on the panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2003 to 2019, this paper used the relative price method to calculate the market segmentation index of the cities in the delta, built a comprehensive evaluation index system for environmental governance, and used the global entropy weight method to measure the urban environmental governance index. The empirical research mainly drew the following conclusions: ① The level of urban environmental governance in the Yangtze River Delta was on the rise, and there were obvious regional differences in environmental governance. These regional differences mainly came from the gap between provincial administrative regions, but the regional gap showed a trend of convergence as a whole. ② Judging from the impact of economic and geographical factors on urban environmental governance in the Yangtze River Delta, market segmentation had a significant negative impact on urban environmental governance. After using instrumental variables to alleviate endogenous biases, market segmentation had a greater negative effect on urban environmental governance. The relationship between environmental governance and economic density, as well as between environmental governance quality and population density, showed an inverted U-shaped relationship. The improvement of traffic accessibility was conducive to improving urban environmental governance. The geographical distance from the regional central city had a significant negative impact on urban environmental governance. Robustness tests were carried out from different perspectives, and the above research conclusions still held. ③ Environmental governance had positive spatial autocorrelation. The spatial spillover effect of economic geographical factors such as market segmentation, economic density, and population density on the environmental governance of surrounding cities was just opposite to its impact on local environmental governance. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the unified large market construction and market integration in the Yangtze River Delta, enhance the accessibility of transportation between cities in the delta, control the economic density and population density of cities, prevent environmental governance risks caused by excessive economic density and population density, build a long-term synergistic mechanism, and promote the coordinated improvement of urban environmental governance in the delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A good eco-environment is the fairest public product and most beneficial to people' s livelihood and well-being. Everyone has the right to enjoy a safe and healthy living environment; however, it is undeniable that environmental inequality has been a longterm problem. How to achieve efficiency and equity in environmental governance is an important issue to be further explored. Previous studies have mostly discussed the influencing factors of environmental inequality from the perspectives of race and income level, but few studies have explored the impact of policy instruments and their mixes on environmental inequality. To make up for this deficiency, this paper used the Williamson coefficient to measure the environmental inequality coefficient of 25 provinces and regions from 2003 to 2019, based on the data of SO2 emissions from 278 prefecture-level cities, and empirically examined the complex relationship between policy instruments and environmental inequality with the fixed effect panel model and the threshold effect model. It was found that: ① The overall provincial environmental inequality in China showed a trend of slowly decreasing and then rising, and there was obvious regional heterogeneity between the eastern, central, and western regions. In addition, there existed a mismatch phenomenon of improving environmental quality and increasing inequality. Therefore, how to improve the environmental welfare of the minority has become the focus of environmental governance. ② Command-and-control policy instruments alleviated provincial environmental inequality to some extent due to their focus on fairness and public demands, while market-based policy instruments significantly aggregated provincial environmental inequality due to their features of pursuing governance efficiency. ③ The higher the level of pollution and innovation, the better for command-and-control policy instruments to alleviate provincial environmental inequality. Market-based policy instruments would aggravate environmental inequality at a low level of pollution and a high level of innovation. Based on the above conclusions, this paper proposes that environmental governance should be promoted and environmental inequality should be alleviated in such aspects as paying attention to the equity of pollution distribution, designing reasonable policy mixes, and finding differentiated governance paths. This study has important implications for selecting policy instruments, improving policy-making ability, and eliminating environmental inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core of low-carbon development lies in reducing carbon sources and increasing carbon sinks, and the construction of free trade zones (FTZs), as an experimental field for China' s comprehensively deepening reforms, is of great significance to urban lowcarbon development. Based on the panel data from 288 cities in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper first comprehensively evaluated the carbon neutrality levels of cities from two aspects: carbon emission and sequestration. Then, it used the multi-period difference-indifferences method and the spatial Durbin model to explore the 'low carbon effect' of the establishment of FTZs. The results showed that: the establishment of FTZs had a significant impact on the low-carbon development of the cities where they were located. Specifically, the establishment of FTZs could drive urban low-carbon development from within the cities by improving their digitization and resource allocation efficiency. At the same time, increased government attention to green development enhanced the carbon emission disincentive and boosted carbon uptake facilitation, fostering a more robust urban low-carbon development. Moreover, the carbon emission suppression effect, carbon absorption promotion effect, and carbon neutral effect of establishing the FTZs varied according to the batches of the establishment, city location, and city characteristics. The 'low-carbon effect' of the first two batches of FTZs, the region south of the Qinling-Huaihe River, and the cities with a higher degree of openness were more pronounced overall. Furthermore, the establishment of the FTZs also had a certain spatial spillover effect on urban low-carbon development. Based on these findings, the paper suggests prioritizing top-level design, exerting comparative advantages, and promoting the low-carbon development benchmark area in a gradient manner. Acceleration of trade facilitation and digital financial reform, promotion of the digital transformation of traditional industries with advantages, and encouragement of digital and low-carbon deep integration are also recommended. The introduction of highquality foreign investment should be combined with the improvement of the effectiveness of supervision and services to improve the efficiency of resource allocation. The study proposes leveraging digital platforms and free trade alliances to maximize the FTZs' catalytic effects. Overall, this study offers significant theoretical and practical insights for enhancing the construction of the FTZs, promoting urban low-carbon development, and advancing towards the goal of carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 12th Five-Year Plan, large-scale and long-term haze pollution has become a major bottleneck restricting China ’s high-quality development and ecological civilization construction. Facing the pressures of economic development and environmental governance, innovation, and technological progress is a win-win choice for China to achieve economic growth and improve air quality. Based on patent stock and PM2.5 concentration data of 282 prefecture-level cities from 2004 to 2019, this paper constructed two instrumental variables, namely, administrative protection of intellectual property rights and public innovation environment and analyzed the effects and mechanisms of innovation on haze pollution by the two-stage least square method. The study found that the use of air flow coefficient, temperature inversion days, and rainfall could effectively control the spatial diffusion of haze, and both green innovation and non-green innovation can significantly reduce haze pollution. It was found that, after adding instrumental variables, the invention patent and utility-model patent were the most effective in haze treatment, and the haze control effect of non-green patents exceeded that of green patents. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the haze control effect of the patent stock in the eastern and central cities was relatively strong, and the effect of innovation to curb haze was strengthened after 2012. Furthermore, in cities with abundant human capital and a high degree of marketization, innovation was more conducive to reducing PM2.5. The test on the intermediate mechanism showed that green patents could achieve haze management front-end prevention and end treatment through industrial green transformation and energy efficiency improvement, while non-green patents could play a role through allot efficiency improvement mechanisms. The above conclusions are still valid after a series of robustness tests, such as changing indicators and considering the spatial spillover effect of haze pollution. Based on the empirical results, this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations: local governments should strengthen the intellectual property protection system, promote more investment and incentive policies for green technology innovation, encourage high-quality innovation output at the ecological level, and improve urban air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming responsibility for emission reduction is an important part of participating in the global governance of climate change. Countries with a carbon neutrality target now cover about 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carrying out fairness evaluations of their carbon neutrality targets provide a strong basis for the global carbon inventory. In this paper, the target years of carbon neutrality for major countries and regions under the global target of 2 °C and 1.5 °C are studied using the burden sharing model. On this basis, this paper simulates the possible pathways of carbon neutrality and evaluates the ambition of emission reduction targets in terms of annual emission reduction, per capita emission, and cumulative per capita emission. The results show that, from the perspective of equity, most of the developing countries cannot meet the global goal of 1.5 °C. The United States and the European Union nations could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 by continuing their annual emission reductions under their existing NDC targets. However, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China's annual emission reduction rate from 2030 to 2050 will be 6.7%, and the annual amount of emission reduction accounts for 51% of the global amount under the 1.5 °C target. Meanwhile, China would become the main force behind global cumulative emissions in the following decades. Thus, the emission reduction pathways China chooses will have an important impact on global climate mitigation progress. Based on the above research conclusions, this paper proposes that developed countries and developing countries should explore bilateral or multilateral cooperation in technology and finance in the field of climate change. Under the great pressure to achieve carbon neutrality, China needs to carry out research on the overall emission reduction pathways as soon as possible and clarify the paths at the scale of sectors, industries, provinces, and time stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China' s economy is in the midst of a crucial transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development. Strengthening the rigid constraint of water resources and curbing the disorderly expansion of high water-consuming enterprises are crucial to alleviating structural overcapacity and realizing economic development transformation from a resource-driven to an innovation-driven mode. Based on the data of A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021, this paper explored the impact of the water resource 'fee-to-tax' policy on the over-investment of high water-consuming enterprises from the perspectives of free cash flow and technological innovation. The research results showed that levying a water resource tax could significantly inhibit the over-investment of high water-consuming enterprises, and the conclusion was still robust after a series of robustness tests (the parallel trend test, the placebo test, the PSM-DID, changing the measurement method of explained variables, excluding other policy influences, and the instrumental variable test). The mechanism analysis showed that levying a water resource tax could restrain over-investment by reducing the free cash flow of high water-consuming enterprises and stimulating technological innovation. At the same time, the restraining effect of water resource taxes on excessive investment in high water-consuming enterprises was more obvious in state-owned enterprises, enterprises with higher financing constraints, and those with higher water intensity. Based on the above conclusions, this paper holds that the water resource 'fee-to-tax' policy should be continuously improved, and the incentive mechanism of water resource tax should be improved while increasing the promotion of water consumption monitoring equipment. The flexibility of policy implementation should be strengthened, and different strategies should be adopted to guide high water-consuming enterprises with different operating conditions and investment cycles to change their production methods and investment behaviors. To implement the policy of 'giving priority to saving water' systematically, we should not only strengthen the water-saving supervision, but also raise the awareness of water users to save water voluntarily. By exploring the impact of water resource tax on the over-investment of high water-consuming enterprises, this paper attempts to deepen the understanding of the water resource 'fee-to-tax' policy, enrich the relevant literature in the field of resource regulation research, and provide a policy reference for realizing the coordinated development of economy, society, and resource carrying capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promotion policies of the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry have evolved over time along with its rapid development in China. The NEV market has advanced to a new level where it complies with international practices and fully accommodates competition. Studying the market implications of the NEV promotion policy adjustment is of significant theoretical and practical value given the subsidy withdrawal, technological advancement, and sales growth. Based on interrupted time series analysis, this paper used 60 monthly time points from January 2017 to December 2021 to construct a time-series data set. Taking promotion policy adjustment as a policy variable, this paper estimated the market effect disparities of promotion policies in major cities in China through counterfactual analysis, and the special phenomenon of NEV sales climbing caused by subsidy withdrawal was further analyzed. Furthermore, the study findings were verified by robustness and heterogeneity tests. The result showed that: 1 After several adjustments, the national NEV promotion policy achieved remarkable results in the first-tier and new first-tier cities and other developed areas in general. 2 The key factor to promote the NEV market was technological advancement, and the essence of subsidy withdrawal was to promote more rapid technological innovation among relevant enterprises by raising the threshold of subsidy technology and eliminating backward production capacity. It was the subsidy withdrawal that led to sales growth. 3 The policy of relaxing curbs on NEV purchases failed to significantly promote the sales of NEVs and did not seem to be unsustainable, so it should not be regarded as a key promotion policy in the future. It is suggested that the pertinent departments shift their promotion policies in favor of the user side, increase investment in NEV technology research and development, accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity through policies and regulations, adjust the license number plate support policy for new energy vehicles in due course, and further improve the double-credit policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low-carbon city pilot policy is an important way to promote corporate green innovation, and it is also an inevitable choice to achieve the goals of achieving peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. However, existing research on the impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on green innovation lacks depth, and literature focusing on micro-corporate level is insufficient. Therefore, it is difficult to provide an effective reference for corporate green transformation. Based on the panel data of 936 A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper took the low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment. The multistage dynamic difference-in-differences model and difference-in-difference-in-differences model were used to explore the impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on corporate green innovation and its heterogeneity in terms of enterprise size, property rights, and carbon emission industry. Furthermore, from the perspective of environmental responsibility and talent agglomeration, this paper discussed the transmission mechanism of this policy to promote corporate green innovation and determined the optimal path for the low-carbon city pilot policy to take. The research results showed that: ① The low-carbon city pilot policy effectively promoted corporate green innovation in the pilot areas. Compared with the green utility model patent innovation, the pilot policy had a more significant impact on green invention patent innovation. A series of robustness tests such as PSM-DID and the placebo test found that the conclusion was still valid. ② The impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on green innovation presented heterogeneity in terms of enterprise size, property rights, and carbon emission industry. This policy had a more significant policy impact on large-scale enterprises, and only had a positive impact on the utility model patent of state-owned enterprises but had a significant positive impact on the green innovation of non-state-owned enterprises to varying degrees. The low-carbon city pilot policy had a significant positive impact on the green innovation of enterprises in high-carbon industries but had a certain inhibitory effect on the green innovation of enterprises in low-carbon industries. ③ The main transmission mechanism of the low-carbon city pilot policy on the promotion of corporate green innovation was that the pilot policy enhanced the awareness of the environmental responsibility of enterprises by strengthening their management of environmental information disclosure, improving the level of their environmental protection investment, providing government support for their environmental protection, and inducing the effect of talent agglomeration by attracting talented people seeking employment and those who graduated from local universities as well as high-tech talents from enterprises. From the perspective of the transmission path effect, environmental responsibility played a greater role, followed by talent agglomeration. Therefore, the government should keep on expanding the scope of the lowcarbon pilot policy, give more financial and policy support to small and medium-sized technological private enterprises and green environmental protection enterprises, promote the shareholding system reform, mergers, and reorganization of state-owned enterprises, and provide sustainable environmental regulation and assistance to high-carbon emission enterprises. They should also continuously enhance enterprises' environmental responsibility awareness and promote the effect of talent agglomeration to improve the level of green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the active promotion of the concept of common prosperity, farmland has once again become the focus of attention in political and academic circles, and many scholars have advocated the further visualization of the property value of farmland elements to increase farmers' income. To promote the coordinated development of China's food security and common prosperity strategies, this paper attempts to reveal the dilemma facing farmland capitalization. Theoretically, based on the factor allocation decision logic of full-time and part-time farmers, this paper proposed the dilemma of farmland capitalization between increasing food production and farm household income. We empirically constructed a model to measure farmland capitalization and characterized its degree in 27 provinces in China's mainland from 2004 to 2020. The study also provided empirical support for the theoretical analysis by using a threshold regression model and a mediating effect model based on 790 microsamples from typical provinces. The results found that: ① Farmland capitalization showed a trend of increasing year by year nationwide, with a spatial distribution pattern of spreading from the center to the surrounding areas, and the provinces with a higher degree of farmland capitalization were concentrated in the main grain-producing areas. ② The impact of farmland transfer prices on grain production had structural effects depending on the degree of farmland capitalization: In the moderate capitalization scenario (farmland capitalization≤1.011), farmland price increases promoted the expansion of food crop acreage; in the excessive capitalization scenario (farmland capitalization≥1.154), farmland price increases suppressed food crop acreage. ③ Farmland capitalization helped to meet farmers' psychological expectations on the value of farmland assets, and significantly increased farmers' income by promoting two paths: the outflow of farmland and off-farm employment. ④ Farmland capitalization in China was facing a dilemma between increasing food production and increasing farmers' income, which posed an important potential problem for national food security. The capitalization of farmland can not only improve the problem of insufficient property income in the income structure of farm households, but also promote the non-farm transfer of rural labor, but behind it is the fact that a large amount of farmland is 'nongrain.' In the future, the Chinese government should emphasize the production factor attributes of farmland, use policy tools to guide the rational return of farmland prices, improve the market for productive agricultural services, and prevent the risk of farmland over-capitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new era, adjusting the financial power relationship between the central and local governments and broadening the financial revenue channels of local governments are key to overcoming the weaknesses of rural living environment governance and building a long-term investment mechanism. Based on the typical facts of Chinese-style fiscal decentralization, this paper theoretically and systematically interpreted the internal impact logic of fiscal decentralization and official promotion incentives on rural living environment governance. Based on the inter-provincial panel data from 2007 to 2017, this study used the system GMM method to analyze the effects of the decentralization and autonomy of fiscal revenue and expenditure and the promotion incentives on rural living environment governance. The results showed that: ① Government fiscal revenue and expenditure decentralization had a significant positive effect on the centralized treatment of rural household waste and the popularization of sanitary toilets, and the impact on the centralized treatment of rural household waste was more significant. ② The promotion incentives of officials positively affected the centralized treatment of domestic garbage and sewage as well as the effective popularization of sanitary toilets in rural China by influencing the fiscal expenditure preferences of local governments, and all the reasons showed that the effect was greater under fiscal revenue decentralization. ③ In terms of joint influence, the influence coefficients of the interaction term on the centralized treatment of rural household garbage and sewage as well as the popularization of more sanitary toilets were significantly positive with sound robustness, indicating that the joint effect of the two terms had a positive regulating effect on the construction of rural infrastructure and the improvement of living conditions and the environment. In view of this, the paper argues that in the process of pursuing a Chinese path to modernization, it is necessary to further improve the relationship between central and local financial powers, optimize the distribution pattern of central and local financial powers and financial resources, expand the scale and proportion of local tax revenue, increase the investment in people's livelihood in rural living environment, gradually improve the performance evaluation mechanism of government officials, and strengthen the performance evaluation of the development of people's livelihood undertakings. It is also necessary to guide government officials in developing a scientific perspective on political achievements in order to provide an institutional guarantee for the construction of a livable, suitable, and beautiful countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has entered the stage of high-quality development, and the construction of new-type urbanization is an important approach for the realization of the country's high-quality economic development as well as reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. The existing literature has produced a number of fruitful research results on the economic and environmental effects of the transformation of urbanization. However, few studies have tested the effects of the new-type urbanization construction on energy efficiency and their mechanisms from the perspective of exogenous impact. Therefore, in the context of China's actual situation, this paper constructed a theoretical framework of 'technological progress－population agglomeration－urban expansion,' and then deeply explained how the comprehensive pilot policy for new-type urbanization affected energy efficiency. Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China, this paper made an innovative breakthrough from the existing empirical analyses by dividing energy efficiency into total-factor energy efficiency and green total-factor energy efficiency, choosing the comprehensive pilot policy for new-type urbanization as a quasinatural experiment, and using the difference-in-differences method to examine the mechanisms and impact of new-type urbanization on energy efficiency. The results showed that: ① After a series of robustness tests, the impact of the comprehensive pilot policy for newtype urbanization on total-factor energy efficiency and green total-factor energy efficiency was significantly negative, and the effect increased year by year. ② Mechanism analysis showed that new-type urbanization mainly hindered the improvement of energy efficiency by promoting technological progress, boosting population agglomeration, and stimulating urban expansion. ③ According to the analysis of the effect of the regional biased policy, the regionally biased policy leaning toward the central and western regions did not promote the energy-saving effect of new-type urbanization. ④ According to the analysis of the effect of urban agglomeration mode, joining an urban agglomeration helped enhance the effect of the new-type urbanization on energy efficiency. This study provides empirical evidence and policy implications for promoting China's new-type urbanization, avoiding unfavorable factors, and achieving a 'win-win' situation of the high-quality development of new-type urbanization and the improvement of energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon intensity is a measure of the amount of carbon emissions generated by a unit of added value in an economy. However, the existing carbon intensity index ignores the carbon emissions caused by the fixed asset depreciation in the production process, so it is not tenable to use it in the comparative study of carbon intensity between sectors. Based on this, this paper used China's competitive input-output table in 2020 to restore the fixed asset depreciation originally located in the value-added part of the table to the intermediate consumption of the final products of each sector and used the input-output analysis method to calculate the carbon emissions caused by the fixed asset depreciation of each sector, complete carbon emission intensity, and comprehensive effect coefficient. The results showed that: ① We should not ignore the carbon emissions caused by fixed asset depreciation, which accounted for 23.28% of the total carbon emissions of all industrial sectors and 34.44% of the tertiary industry sector. ② The ranking of high-carbon sectors was different based on different carbon intensity indexes and carbon emission indexes. Considering the dual control degree of carbon emission intensity as the main control degree and total carbon emission as the auxiliary control degree, this paper suggests that complete carbon intensity should be used as the assessment index of the whole industry sector in China. ③ The analysis of factors affecting the robustness of the conclusions of this paper showed that the total amount of depreciation of fixed assets remained relatively stable in each period, and that different settings of the fixed asset depreciation rate had little impact on the robustness of the conclusions of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavior related to the overseas market has become an important way for enterprises to actively acquire international resources in the context of the dual circulation development pattern. Based on corporate behavior related to the overseas market, this paper attempts to investigate whether enterprises can obtain the resources needed for green technology innovation and spur their willingness to engage in green technology innovation to break the bottleneck of domestic green technology innovation and construct a voluntary green technology innovation behavior pattern. It is of great significance to build a green technology innovation system under the new development pattern. This paper discussed the mechanism of corporate behavior related to the overseas market on their green technology innovation ability from quality and quantity dimensions by using the data obtained from the A-share listed companies in China's highpolluting industries from 2006 to 2019. The benchmark conclusion showed that corporate behavior related to the overseas market not only improved the quantity and quality of corporate green technology innovation but also improved their willingness to explore the intrinsic value of green technology innovation, which promoted enterprises to choose a substantive green technology innovation mode. The study also found that corporate behavior related to the overseas market had a certain lag in improving the quality of green technology innovation, but the influence was more far-reaching compared with the quantity of green technology innovation. The mechanism analysis showed that corporate green technology innovation increased mainly through the enhancement of environmental responsibility consciousness, while quality improvement occurred through the dual channels of the enhancement of environmental responsibility consciousness and technological level. In addition, the effect of corporate behavior related to the overseas market on green technology innovation was more significant in state-owned enterprises. Further analysis suggests that to maximize the promotion effect of corporate behavior related to the overseas market on green technology innovation, enterprises should make use of the complementary advantages of foreign technology resources to establish overseas affiliates of technology research to enhance the reverse technology spillover effect. Also, enterprises should be based on the domestic market and improve the participation rate of the domestic market to strengthen their sustainable competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China mentioned that China is facing tightening resource and environmental constraints, environmental pollution, and other issues, and the energy-consuming right trading policy is a key measure to promote green, circular, and low-carbon development in China. Under the dual consideration of ecological benefits and economic benefits, this paper took the pilot launch of energy-consuming trading as a quasi-natural experiment and used panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2009 to 2020 and the different-in-differences method to explore the impact of this policy on the optimization and upgrading of China's industrial structure. The study showed that: (J) The energy-consuming right trading policy could promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure, and the promotion effect on the upgrading of the industrial structure outweighed its adverse impact on the rationalization of the industrial structure, as evidenced by a series of robustness tests. © The mechanism analysis showed that the realization paths of industrial structure upgrading were the upgrading of technological innovation and that of energy consumption structure, and the policy suppressed the adverse impact on the rationalization of industrial structure by improving the input structure and output structure of some industrial sectors. © In addition, the pilot policy of energy-consuming rights had obvious regional heterogeneity for the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, which significantly promoted the upgrading of industrial structure in the central and western regions and the rationalization of industrial structure in the eastern regions. This study provides some policy references for the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure from the perspective of improving the energy-consuming right trading market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background that China has entered the middle-late stage of population urbanization, conducting a multi-dimensional exploration of its development pattern from a structural level under the superficial phenomenon of rapid urbanization is conducive to a clear identification and understanding of the internal mechanisms and rules of urbanization, the discovery of problems existing in the process of urbanization, and the proposal of rational response strategies. This paper mainly used the county-level data from China's sixth and seventh population censuses, taking the prefecture-level administrative region as the basic statistical unit, to comprehensively analyze the development pattern of China's population urbanization from 2010 to 2020 in terms of changes in the urban and rural populations, sources of urban population growth, and the spatial distribution of the urban population at the provincial and regional levels. The results showed that: (J) The increase in the population urbanization ratio was the result of the joint effect of changes in the urban and rural populations, and the contribution of urban population growth was slightly higher than that of rural population decline. © The migration of the rural population to cities was still the absolute main force driving urban population growth in China, followed by territorial adjustment growth and natural growth. © The spatial distribution of the urban population tended to be dispersed, and the contribution of county-residing urban population changes to urbanization was slightly higher than that of urban population changes in urban areas. ® The urbanization ratio increase in the northeast region was mainly the result of the decrease in the rural population. Natural negative growth and net outflows occurred in the urban population. Moreover, most of this region experienced serious losses in the county-residing urban population. Accordingly, different levels of governments should promptly examine the structural characteristics of their urbanization in the past, continuously promote economic development, and improve public service supply based on the characteristics of their own natural conditions and conditions of urban population changes and distributions to formulate more targeted population urbanization strategies and to explore a sustainable population urbanization path that meets their own reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New urbanization plays an important role in China's regional economic growth and green transformation. In this stage of high-quality economic development, the effect of the government-led new urbanization policy on reducing pollution and carbon emissions needs to be verified. Based on the data of 180 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2020, this paper built a difference-indifferences model from the two dimensions of ' pollution' and ' carbon emission' to empirically test the effect of the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions in new urbanization and its influencing mechanisms. The results showed that: (J) The new urbanization construction had a significant effect of reducing pollution and carbon emissions, which was characterized by its annual increase. The conclusion was still robust after validity and robustness tests. © Based on the ' location-feature-scale' dimensional urban heterogeneity, the effect of the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions was more significant in the samples of eastern cities, non-resource-based cities, cities with high human capital, and larger cities. Quantile estimation results showed that this effect in the new urbanization construction was increasing marginally. © Mechanism analysis showed that the new urbanization construction could not only directly promote the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions, but also effectively promote this reduction by fostering the overall upgrading of industrial structure, service structure, and performance-based technological innovation. However, the impact of input-based technological innovation on this reduction was not obvious. This article offers new ideas for the next stage of regional pollution control in China. It is suggested that the government should promote the synergy between the new urbanization and the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions and release the dividends of the new urbanization in regional green development in a more effective way with the help of industrial structure upgrading and performance-based technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology is a vital technical path to realize the low-carbon transformation of the coal power industry as well as a key means to ensure the safe and stable operation of the future power system. However, the current development path of coupling coal power and CCUS technology is not clear, and there is room for the optimization of the corresponding policy mechanism. This paper quantitatively estimates the contribution of CCUS application in the coal power industry to China's low-carbon energy transition strategy, describes the future development path of coal power's CCUS industrialization from the spatio-temporal dimension, and further constructs a comprehensive supporting policy system framework. The results show that the development of coupling coal power and CCUS technology is technically and economically feasible, which can not only achieve deep decarbon-ization of the power system and bring significant output and employment dividends in the coal power industry, but also effectively control the average carbon price level of society. In terms of the temporal dimension, the development path of coal power's CCUS industrialization in the future should be divided into three stages: technology research, development, and demonstration (2021--2030), large-scale application (2030--2040), and commercial development (2040--2060). In terms of the spatial dimension, the technically and economically feasible regions for cluster development are the Ordos Basin, the Junggar Basin, the Bohai Bay Basin, etc. Constructing a comprehensive policy support system framework incorporating ' macro support, fiscal and tax finance, market mechanism, technology research, development, and demonstration, as well as management system' is conducive to realizing a large-scale CCUS application in the coal power industry. In the stage of technology research, development, and demonstration of coal power's CCUS application, more definitive incentive policies such as storage subsidies, compensation for power generation hours, and feed-in tariff subsidies should be implemented. When the project cost drops to a certain extent, there should be a gradual transition to market-based policy tools such as carbon trading and green electricity trading mechanisms, and green finance should also be promoted. Based on the relevant conclusions, some targeted policy suggestions are put forward to provide references for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of China's coal power industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a world consensus and a necessity for China. In the process of achieving a sustainable future, evaluating a country's sustainable development progress, understanding China's position in global sustainable development, and identifying the advantages and challenges of China's sustainable development are of great signif-icance for the world to understand China and for China to optimize its sustainable development system. Based on this, this paper took the Sustainable Development Reports issued by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network from 2015 to 2022 as the main carrier to explore the assessment and progress of global SDGs, and analyzed the effects of China's implementation of SDGs and the gap be-tween China and other countries in the world from the perspective of how China was viewed by the world in order to provide a possible path for improving China's sustainable development and to drive the sustainable development of the world. The results showed that, on a global scale, sustainable development had obvious regional and economic agglomeration characteristics, and the progress in realizing the SDGs was homogeneous to a certain extent. From a global perspective, China's sustainable development progress was relatively sta-ble and ranked at the uppermiddle level of the world. In 2022, China's SDG score was 72.4, ranking 56th among 163 countries. In particular, China made remarkable progress in achieving the ' No Poverty,' ' Quality Education,' and ' Responsible Consumption and Produc-tion' goals, and provided basic experience for the sustainable development of the world. The sustainable development goals of ' Life Be-low Water' and 'Life on Land' were prominent weaknesses in China's sustainable development, and there was a certain gap between China and other countries in the world. Further optimizing the assessment system for sustainable development, clarifying priorities for sustainable development, focusing on key regions and groups, and building global partnerships are inherent requirements for implement-ing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and building a more inclusive and sustainable development pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water resource shortages have become a national issue in China. Population growth and climate change tend to further aggravate this problem. Water rights trading is an economic means for alleviating the shortages and inefficient utilization of water resources and effectively promoting their optimal allocation. As the strategy choice of both parties of the trading directly affects the efficiency of water rights trading, this paper systematically analyzes the relevant parameters affecting the bilateral strategy choice of water rights trading based on the evolutionary game theory. First, given the impact of the market competition environment on the efficiency of water rights trading, this paper assumes that market competition is the major risk factor leading to the breakdown of negotiations; establishes the income matrix of both sides of water rights trading based on the bargaining model with the risk of breakdown; and analyzes the position, stability, and system evolution mechanism of the equilibrium point under different circumstances. Second, to emphasize the important influence of the initial strategy point on the equilibrium result of the evolutionary game, this paper describes the relative competition conditions according to the number of potential partners on both sides and further determines the initial strategy point of the game system. On this basis, the stability of the bilateral strategy choice is analyzed by using evolutionary game theory. Finally, the case of water rights trading between Zhongning City and Jingneng Power Plant is simulated and analyzed with the help of MATLAB. The results show that the trading water volume, the water resource utilization level of the transferee, and market competition have a significant impact on the transaction price, and: ① The efficiency of water rights trading will be affected when the demand of the transferee for water rights is too low and the water rights saved by the transferor cannot be effectively split. On the contrary, the sharp increase in the comprehensive compensation cost will directly raise the expected price of the transferor and will also affect the efficiency of the water rights trading. ② When the transaction price and other conditions are given, the water use efficiency of the transferee is directly proportional to the convergence speed of the water rights trading game system. ③ When the water use efficiency of the transferee of water rights is high, the price of water rights trading can be appropriately increased to realize the paid use of water resources and ensure the property income of the transferor of water rights. ④ When the transaction price and other conditions are given, the more participants in the water rights trading market, the more conducive it is to the conclusion of water rights trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the existing studies on government organizational structure focus on its economic functions but ignore the environmental aspect, which is especially important for developing countries. To fill the gaps, this paper identifies the effect of a flattening reform of government environmental monitoring and enforcement agencies on transboundary water pollution with the help of a quasi-natural experiment. We found that the flattening reform significantly improved transboundary water quality. Specifically, the reform increased DO concentration by about 7%, reduced COD concentration by about 2%, and reduced NH3-N concentration by about 4%. A series of robustness tests confirmed that the results were convincing. Further results showed that the mechanisms of the reform mainly included: ① the strengthening of the awareness of local governments in controlling transboundary pollution; ② the adjustment of personnel appointment powers that broke the collusion between local government officials and local environmental protection agencies, which effectively improved the environment at the border. In addition, the study found that the abatement effect existed only at urban borders, while there was no significant change in environmental quality at provincial borders, suggesting that the transfer of authority over environmental monitoring and enforcement to higher levels of government was one of the keys contributing to the effect of this reform. This paper reveals that the flattening reform of government environmental monitoring and enforcement agencies is more in line with China' s pollution characteristics and needs at this stage, and thus the government should appropriately strengthen the monitoring and enforcement capabilities of the central government or higher-level local governments. It is hoped that this study can enrich the research related to pollution control and the organizational structures of government and provide a reference for decision-makers to mitigate the transboundary pollution problem in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying the effects of expected economic growth targets and environmental constraint targets set by Chinese local governments at the beginning of the year on high-quality development can provide empirical evidence for optimizing expected target management, improving macro-control, and fulfilling governance efficiency in the new development stage to some extent. Therefore, based on the theory of economic growth accounting and the stochastic frontier model, this paper calculated the level of high-quality development at the urban level, extracted the economic growth targets and environmental constraint targets from the Report on the Work of the Government with text analysis, constructed instrumental variables based on the spatial weight matrix, and then discussed the effects of the expected development targets formulated by local governments on high-quality development, conditional heterogeneity, and mechanisms. The results showed that: ① Excessive economic growth targets were not conducive to high-quality development, while environmental constraints targets had a significant role in promoting it and could slow down the erosion effect of excessive economic growth targets on high-quality development. This conclusion still held after solving a series of robustness tests, such as the endogenous bias. ② Heterogeneity analysis found that, with the implementation of the ecological civilization concept, China' s economy could achieve a win-win situation of quantity increase and quality improvement. To better promote high-quality development, the target positioning of cities with good economic foundations should weaken economic increment and strengthen environmental constraints, and the growth targets and environmental constraints set by local governments should be endogenous to their own regional resource endowments and leave appropriate elastic spaces. ③ The mechanism test showed that improving the economic growth targets reduced the level of innovation and raised the amount of new investment in the region, which was not conducive to high-quality development. Environmental constraints could promote technological innovation and limit the blind expansion of new investment, thus promoting high-quality development. Based on the above research conclusions, this paper summarizes policy implications from the aspects of political performance evaluation, formulation of expected development targets, technological innovation, and green development to promote the synergy between economic growth and green development in China and the synchronization of expected target management and high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy conservation and low carbon action plan in the Top-10 000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises Program (T10000P) was an important policy underpinning for achieving the constrained targets of energy consumption and carbon emission reduction during the 12th Five Year Plan period, and is a representative large-scale national energy saving and emission reduction policy with Chinese characteristics. Green technology innovation (GTI) is an important driving force for green development and enterprises are the main participants of GTI. In view of the fact that T10000P is an exogenous shock and based on the green patent panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2004 to 2018, this paper employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method and the count data model to examine the impact of T10000P on GTI at the micro level. Moreover, this paper designed an intermediary effect model to study the mediating role of local governments in the process of T10000P affecting corporate GTI and conducted the triple difference model to study the heterogeneity of T10000P on corporate GTI. The study showed that: ① T10000P significantly promoted corporate GTI. ②Considering the excessive discretization and zero inflation of the data, the regression results of the count data model further supported the conclusion.③The conclusion was still robust after a series of robustness tests such as variable index change, placebo test, and post-matching regression. ④ The assessment constraint of T10000P on local governments affected the subsidies to the top-10 000 enterprises, which promoted their GTI level. ⑤ The GTI effect of T10000P had dynamic characteristics in time, marginal characteristics in innovation level, and heterogeneous characteristics in cooperate property rights: the effects were significant during the policy implementation period, but not significant when the policy phased out. Compared with the regions with low urban innovation index, the promotion effect of T10000P on cooperate GTI was more significant in the regions with high urban innovation index. Compared with private enterprises, the promotion effect of T10000P policy on cooperate GTI was more significant in state-owned enterprises. Based on these conclusions, policy design should be optimized to actively guide enterprises to improve the level of GTI. The green-oriented assessment system for local government should be improved. The environmental regulation and innovation incentive policies should be implemented according to enterprises' conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the analysis framework of the general equilibrium model of trade environment effect constructed by Copeland and Taylor, this paper explained the mechanism of the effects of coordinated development of two-way FDI on carbon emissions, and then based on the data of two-way FDI and carbon emissions in 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2020, the paper measured the carbon emission reduction effect of the coordinated development of two-way FDI in China by using the spatial panel model and moment estimation method generated by Han and Phillips and introduced the intermediary effect model to explore its impact mechanism. Moreover, the spatial spillover effect of the spatial model was investigated by applying partial differentiation. The study showed that: ① The coordinated development of China' s two-way FDI could significantly inhibit the improvement of the country' s carbon emission level. The spatial distribution and time path dependence of high and low carbon emission clusters were significant, and the results were still valid after robustness and endogenous tests. ② Heterogeneity analysis showed that coordinated development of two-way FDI in the eastern region had the most obvious carbon emission reduction effect, followed by the central region, while the regression results of the impact of the western region on carbon emissions were not significant. That was mainly related to the highest level of coordinated development of two-way FDI in the eastern region, followed by the central region, while the western region had been in a state of extreme imbalance. ③ The test result of the impact mechanism showed that coordinated development of two-way FDI, on the one hand, reduced carbon emissions by improving the capital-labor ratio, and on the other hand, had a positive impact on carbon emissions by promoting the expansion of industrial scale and the improvement of productive technology. However, under the combined effect of structural effect, scale effect, and technological effect, it ultimately had a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions. ④ The spatial spillover effect analysis found that the improvement in coordinated development of two-way FDI in China' s provinces inhibited not only the carbon emissions of their own regions, but also those of neighboring regions and even the whole country. In view of the above findings, we believe that we should do a good job of coordinating the development of two-way FDI, establish a long-term mechanism of coordinated regional economic development and joint pollution prevention and control, further tap the emission reduction effect of structural effects, and encourage and guide technological progress to focus on pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the issue of holistic ecological protection in a situation where various environmental factors intertwine, the Yangtze River Protection Law has established the orientation and concept of ecosystem integrity and the ecological space systematization. Based on the data of wetland resources before and after the promulgation of the Yangtze River Protection Law, this paper analyzes the inadaptability between the wetland property right system and the traditional property right system by using the methods of normative analysis, comparative analysis, and empirical analysis, and puts forward solutions. Constrained by the inherent structural defects of the traditional property right system, the wetland property right system has many problems in practice, such as system value deviation, system function dislocation, system implementation block, etc., but it has a new possibility of system improvement in the selection of basic principles, the allocation of internal powers, and the definition of legal relationship objects. This paper further proposes that China should clarify the basic position of ecological value in the wetland property right system, adjust the management mode of wetland property rights based on the integrity of the ecosystem, and improve the registration method of the wetland property right system for ecological space. The specific path of system optimization is as follows: first, the principle of ‘prioritizing ecological conservation and boosting green development’ should be established as the basic principle of the wetland property right system; second, the registration results of wetland property right confirmation and the ecological information of wetland property rights should be bound before being made public voluntarily; third, the boundary of natural resources and internal administrative responsibilities of wetland property rights should be planned as a whole; fourth, the wetland property right system should be institutionally connected with the ‘river chief system’; fifth, the information of wetland property rights should be linked to the performance assessment of leading officials; sixth, surveying and mapping indicators, subjects, and methods should be clearly defined in the wetland property right system and ‘landscape change standards’ should be introduced accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an essential factor of production in economic development, land is an important tool for local governments to boost economic growth. The goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality will push local governments to change the extensive mode of attracting high energy-consuming and high-pollution enterprises by transferring industrial land at low prices. The lowcarbon city pilot policy is important for China to achieve green and low-carbon economic transformation and sustainable development. This policy will inevitably influence the land transfer behavior of local governments in heavily polluting industries. Based on the panel data of 286 cities from 2007 to 2019, this paper took the low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and used the time-varying difference-in-differences method to empirically study the relationship between the pilot policy and the land transfer behavior of local governments. The results showed that: ① The implementation of the low-carbon city pilot policy significantly reduced the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries. The above conclusions still held after a series of robustness tests. ② The impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on land transfer in heavily polluting industries was affected by the intensity of environmental regulation of local governments and the tenure of officials. The stronger the intensity of environmental regulation in the pilot city became, the more the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries were reduced. When the tenure of the secretary of the municipal CPC committee in the pilot city was less than or equal to 3 years, the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries were significantly reduced. However, the age of the secretary of the municipal CPC committee had no significant impact on the land transfer in heavily polluting industries. ③ Heterogeneity analysis showed that non-resource-based cities, cities with high levels of economic development, and large cities displayed a higher reduction in the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries. Based on these, this paper puts forward suggestions from three aspects: we should further promote the low-carbon city pilot policy, add environmental objectives to the assessment system of officials to increase the constraints of environmental objectives, and formulate and implement environmental policies in accordance with local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has embarked on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to discuss how to achieve the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and basically realizing modernization together. Based on the statistical data of provincial carbon emissions and economic development characteristics from 1997 to 2019, this paper proposed an empirical model of systematic analysis using the improved Kaya‑GDIM model and the expanded economic growth model, with total energy consumption as the transmission variable. This paper also used the Mann Kendall trend test, the Tapiocarbon decoupling index, and other methods to study and judge provincial carbon emissions and economic development status. On this basis, we divided the provinces with similar characteristics into groups. Based on the comprehensive investigation of the characteristics of the driving factors of combined carbon emissions and economic growth among provinces, we proposed a matching coordinated realization scheme for the goals. The results showed that: ① According to the comprehensive judgment based on the multivariate index, 30 provinces could be divided into four categories. ② Provinces should choose the coordinated realization scheme according to the characteristics of their carbon emissions and economic development driving mechanisms. The leading demonstration group should focus on the deployment and R&D of high energy efficiency technology and the improvement of total factor productivity. The quality improvement group should focus on promoting the transformation of production factors from quantity to quality improvement. The quantity growth group should focus on improving the dilemma of insufficient quantities of physical and human capital. The structural transformation group should adhere to the energy transformation and ensure a fair transformation. ③ In recent years, the slowdown of economic growth has effectively alleviated the rapid increase of carbon emissions. However, there is still much room for improvement in relevant work. In the future, we must speed up the low carbon regulation capacity and promote the decoupling of economic growth from carbon emissions, which are key to the smooth realization of the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and basically realizing modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a new situation of a north-south gap in China' s regional economic development, which has attracted a great deal of attention. This study refers to the traditional natural geographical standard of China' s north-south division and the new changes in the spatial structure of its economic development and puts forward a new north-south division standard based on the Qinling-Huaihe Line as the north-south boundary. Nineteen urban agglomerations, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta, were selected as the study area. A new idea of north-south division was established based on the location of the central cities of the urban agglomerations in the north and south of the Qinling-Huaihe Line. On this basis, taking GDP and green total factor productivity as the total index and quality index to reflect the north-south economic development gap, this paper empirically studied the level of this gap from 2010 to 2019 by using the Theil index, analyzed the causes, and put for⁃ ward suggestions for realizing the coordinated development of China' s north and south regions. The research results showed that: ① The total economic output of the south and the north maintained a growth trend, and the total growth rate gradually declined. The to⁃ tal economic output of the south was higher than that of the north, and the north-south gap was expanding year by year. The quality and growth rate of economic development in both the north and the south fluctuated. The quality gap showed stage characteristics and a con⁃ vergence trend on the whole. ② The overall gap of the total economic development between the north and the south was larger than that of the quality of economic development. However, the overall gap in total economic development tended to narrow while the overall gap in quality tended to widen. The gap in economic aggregate in the south was higher than that in the north, and the gap in economic devel⁃ opment quality in the north was higher than that in the south. ③ The intra-urban agglomeration gap was the main contributor to the over⁃ all gap, followed by the inter-urban agglomeration gap and the north-south gap. ④ The formation process of the gap was the result of a combination of natural conditions, resource endowment, industrial structure, innovation level, market vitality, and other factors. ⑤ Focusing on the upgrading of industrial structure, the drive of scientific and technological innovation, human capital investment, and urban agglomeration cooperation, the paper puts forward suggestions for accelerating the coordinated development of China' s north and south regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing studies use household waste disposal efficiency to measure the effectiveness of household waste sorting, and there is a lack of effectiveness evaluation from the perspective of public participation. This study evaluated household waste sorting effectiveness based on the co-production theory, classified the waste sorting co-production effect into four grades, and proposed six policy drivers on the citizen side and government side. Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method, the study analyzed 19 cases of urban household waste sorting in central and eastern China, analyzed the necessity of policy factors, and explored the combination path of policy-driven factors for high-level waste sorting co-production. The results showed that, at the single-factor level, 'material rewards' and 'moral guidance' for the public, as well as 'performance evaluation' and 'credibility enhancement' for the government, were necessary policy drivers to achieve high-level waste sorting co-production. In addition, achieving the strongest waste sorting co-production required a combination of necessary policy measures on both the government side and the citizen side, i.e., the four necessary policy drivers were needed. When one of the necessary policy drivers was missing, 'strong' co-production was transformed into 'less strong' co-production. In addition, forceful measures and punishment on the citizen side and financial pressure on the government side had positive effects on achieving 'strong' co-production, and there were alternative relationships. This paper makes up for the theoretical evaluation mechanism of waste sorting effectiveness, and at the practical level, the findings of this study are helpful for local governments in China to develop effective policies and measures to promote active participation of citizens in waste sorting, and to realize the 'government-led, citizen-participatory' waste classification paradigm advocated by the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic agglomeration is an objective law that economic operations must follow to achieve an efficient state, and it is also an important driving force for China' s economy to transform from high-speed growth to high-quality development. Public health is a major event related to the national economy and the people' s livelihood, especially urban public health, which has long been the focus of all sectors of society. With the further promotion of economic agglomeration, the characteristics of urban public health in China are also undergoing profound transformation. It is an urgent and important research topic to explore whether and how the goal of 'going healthy in agglomeration' can be achieved from the perspective of urban scale. Based on the panel data of 283 cities in China from 2003 to 2020, this paper used the generalized spatial panel two-stage least squares method (GS2SLS) to explore the impact of economic agglomeration on urban public health and its mechanisms, and especially examined the heterogeneous impact of the coordinated and adaptive agglomeration mode and matching unbalanced agglomeration mode on urban public health. The research results showed that: ① There was a significant positive spatial effect of urban public health in China. While the public health of one city was constantly affecting neighboring cities, it was also increasingly affected by the same nature of neighboring cities. ② At the national level, the promoting effect of economic agglomeration on public health was far greater than the inhibition effect, which demonstrated significant promotion characteristics of economic agglomeration on urban public health, and realized the goal of 'going healthy in agglomeration.' ③ The heterogeneity analysis of regional and city levels showed that economic agglomeration still had a significant promoting effect on urban public health, but the promoting effect decreased from the eastern region to the central region to the western region, and from first-tier cities to second-tier cities to third-tier cities, which exactly corresponded to the spatial characteristics of economic agglomeration. Once again, it showed that the development path of 'going healthy in agglomeration' had practical feasibility. ④ Heterogeneity analysis of the agglomeration mode showed that the coordinated and adaptive agglomeration mode was more conducive to improving urban public health than the matching unbalanced agglomeration mode, and it was easier to achieve the win-win goal of economic growth and public health governance. ⑤ The mechanism test showed that economic agglomeration could improve urban public health in at least three ways: promoting income improvement, boosting ecological environment governance, and correcting the mismatch of public health resources. Therefore, to further improve China′s urban public health, we should build a collaborative and efficient public health linkage mechanism, consolidate and expand the foundation and scale of economic agglomeration, promote the transformation of economic agglomeration mode and quality change, and create a coordinated and balanced development pattern of economic agglomeration so as to fully release the health promotion effect of economic agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep decarbonization aims to achieve the profound transformation of energy systems through steeply reducing carbon intensity in all sectors of the economy, which is the only way to achieve the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. It is of great practical significance for China to clarify the research themes and identify the research evolution trend of deep decarbonization. We first analyzed the connotation and characteristics of deep decarbonization, based on which we deeply read the related academic literature and the frontier reports issued by international organizations and research institutions to make a systematic review of relevant research themes. Moreover, based on the identification results of research hotspots and research frontiers of deep decarbonization obtained by bibliometric analysis, we analyzed the evolution trend of deep decarbonization research. The research found that: ① Deep decarbonization is essentially to promote the deployment of carbon reduction, zero carbon, and negative carbon technologies to achieve the transition of the entire energy system from a high carbon emission type to a net-zero emission type through technological, social, and economic policy paths. Compared with normal decarbonization, the characteristics of coverage and path planning determine that deep decarbonization is a more advanced decarbonizing process. ② The research themes of deep decarbonization mainly fall into four categories: challenges faced by deep decarbonization, technological paths of deep decarbonization, policy research oriented to deep decarbonization, and cost and benefit evaluation of deep decarbonization. ③ The evolutionary trend of deep decarbonization research can be divided into two stages. In the initial stage (2015-2018), the framework, including subdivided research fields and research frontiers of deep decarbonization research, was initially formed. In the rapid development stage (2019-2021), more detailed emerging research topics were emerging in the field of deep decarbonization research, and scholars began to turn to new research perspectives. Finally, the implications of deep decarbonization research for China were proposed: In terms of research perspective, deep decarbonization research should be expanded to the micro-subject level and to research on issues such as decarbonization of the corporate value chain and corporate decarbonization potential assessment with an interdisciplinary perspective. In terms of research methods and paradigms, multidisciplinary research methods should be used to better develop comprehensive models supporting accurate decision-making. New paradigms such as big data, machine learning, and simulation can be explored in deep decarbonization research. In terms of research content, this paper suggests the expansion of the current research boundary of deep decarbonization through studying the incentive mechanisms, investment and financing mechanisms, identification of emerging technologies, construction of technology systems, and establishment of cost-benefit evaluation frameworks, models and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become a critical issue for ensuring the sustainable development of human society. In the future, countries with greater potential for carbon reduction and advanced carbon technologies will enjoy a more favorable position in global development. The struggle for leadership and influence in the global climate change arena will intensify between developed countries such as the United States and those in Europe, the main promoter of climate change policies, and developing countries such as China. The Chinese government' s climate strategies, including goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, are currently focused on finding ways to break the impasse in this climate game between major powers. Carbon tariff policies promoted by Europe and the United States have emerged as a powerful tool in this game. This paper employs a global multi-regional computable general equilibrium model to assess the economic and ecological impacts of the post-carbon tariff era on China. We consider eight possible scenarios based on the assumption that the European Union and the United States will impose carbon tariffs on imported products to meet global carbon reduction targets. The study finds that: ① The carbon tariff policies implemented by the United States and Europe have significant adverse effects on China' s GDP and welfare. Furthermore, these policies have a considerable detrimental impact on exports that are highly carbon-intensive, while their overall effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions remains limited. ② The carbon border tax policy, as applied by developed economies such as the United States and the European Union, does not have a clear effect on reducing carbon emissions and is a typical example of a 'harmful to others, unhelpful to oneself' behavior. ③ The Export Tax Rebate policy of China can to some extent alleviate the adverse impacts of the European and the United States Carbon Border Tax policies on the Chinese economy, while also potentially reducing China' s carbon emissions. ④ The Chinese government needs to be cautious in responding to the retaliatory measures of imposing carbon border taxes on Chinese imports, as they could cause more severe economic losses to China. The article proposes that China should take proactive measures to mitigate the negative impacts of carbon tariffs by implementing an export tax rebate policy. It also suggests guiding carbon-intensive export-oriented enterprises to proactively develop emission reduction plans and carbon footprint inventories, as well as enhancing clean energy technologies. In addition, China should actively achieve its 'dual carbon' goals, thereby avoiding economic suppression by developed economies such as Europe and the United States, who may use carbon tariffs as an excuse. The country should increase its R&D investment to improve its green image, while strengthening international cooperation on climate change governance and seeking a fair and just path towards reducing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is the spatial carrier and basic condition for guaranteeing regional development, and its regulation effects tend to affect the direction of long-term development and innovation potential of cities. This paper constructed an evaluation index system of land regulation in line with China' s national conditions from the perspective of the land system with Chinese characteristics. In addition, based on panel data for 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2019, this study used the spatial Durbin model and parallel multiple mediation model to empirically estimate the effects and mechanisms of land regulation and its spatial strategy interaction on city innovation. The results showed that: ① The impact of land regulation on city innovation was dynamic and multiplied. In terms of direct effects, land regulation and city innovation presented a typical U-shaped curve relationship with an inflection point of 4.833. Specifically, low-level land regulation significantly reduced city innovation, while high-level land regulation that exceeded the threshold could promote city innovation. ② Due to the strategic interactions of local governments, the impact of land regulation on city innovation had a significant spatial spillover effect. The relationship between adjacent urban land regulation and local city innovation followed a similar U-shaped curve to the direct effect. ③ In terms of indirect effects, the relationship between land regulation and local industrial structure showed an inverted U-shaped curve with an inflection point of 6.214. The spatial spillover effect of land regulation on industrial structures in neighboring cities had the same inverted U-shaped trend. During the study period, the level of land regulation in China had not reached the threshold, and the imbalance of the industrial structure inhibited city innovation. ④ There was an obvious Ushaped curve relationship between land regulation and local industrial agglomeration, and the inflection point value was 5.750. The spatial spillover effect was the same U-shaped trend. During the study period, industrial agglomeration promoted city innovation in China. ⑤ Land regulation had effects on urban innovation through industrial structure changes and industrial agglomeration. The relationship was affected by the multiple effects of mediating variables. Under the mediating effect, land regulation and city innovation showed a Ushaped direct relationship, and the inflection point value was 4.167. The promoting effect of land regulation on city innovation could be realized more quickly through the intermediary mechanism. In order to strengthen the supporting role of land regulation on city innovation, the scope and degree of land management and industrial guidance should be reasonably determined according to the land regulation threshold. At the same time, attention should be paid to spatial interaction and to the co-governance mode across the cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the entry of digital technology into government, enterprises, and society, China' s economic and social development is undergoing profound changes and transformations. The empowerment of digital technology has promoted the transformation and innovation of environmental governance models and methods, as well as the improvement of environmental regulatory efficiency. In this context, using the fixed effect model of panel data, the mediating effect model, and the spatial Durbin model, this paper empirically tested the substitution effect of the digital technology development level of 104 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2020 on the number of traditional labor environmental supervisions/inspections. This research found that: ① The application of digital technology in environmental governance could realize a 'substitution' of traditional labor supervisions, that is, with the improvement of digital technology at the local level, the frequency of the superiors' labor supervisions accepted locally would ultimately decrease. ② The 'substitution' effect of digital technology in labor supervision could be realized through the reduction of important pollutants. The application of digital technology affected the frequency of superiors' labor supervisions through the reduction effect of pollutants in the jurisdiction. ③ The 'substitution' effect of digital technology application on labor supervision showed an inverted U-shaped relationship that increased first and then decreased. The research results indicated that digital technology empowered environmental governance, greatly improving the issues of inadequate regulation, resource waste, and low efficiency and achieving improvements in regulatory efficiency and precision. This research suggests that in the digital era, enhancing the efficiency of environmental supervision requires strengthening the capacity of digital environmental supervision, promoting the scientific level of environmental supervision, continuously increasing the application of digital technology in the fields of production and regulation, promoting the transformation of industrial structure, enhancing the emission reduction effect of digital technology and the government' s ability to obtain pollution information, and utilizing the advantages of digital technology to expand the breadth and depth of public participation in environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green credit is an important financial tool to promote the transformation of the low-carbon economy. On the basis of clarifying the theoretical mechanism of the impact of green credit on carbon emission reduction, this paper used the fixed effect stochastic frontier model containing unexpected output to measure the total factor carbon productivity of 156 cities in China from 2000 to 2019 and empirically tested the carbon emission reduction effect of green credit and its mechanism from the three dimensions of productivity, intensity, and total amount. The research found that: ① Green credit development significantly improved total factor carbon productivity and reduced carbon emission intensity, but the average impact on total carbon emissions was not significant. The above conclusions were still valid after a series of robustness tests and treatments of endogeneity problems. ② The carbon emission reduction effect of green credit was heterogeneous due to differences in regional location, resource endowment, and financial efficiency. In the central region, non-resource-based cities, and cities with higher financial efficiency, green credit had significant carbon reduction effects in both carbon productivity and carbon intensity dimensions, while green credit in the eastern region, resource-based cities, and cities with lower financial efficiency only reduced carbon intensity. ③ The stimulation of green innovation and the reduction of energy intensity were the most effective channels for green credit to reduce carbon emissions, whereas the mediating effect of the structural transformation channel was not yet significant. Green credit was more effective in promoting green innovation and generating positive spillovers in the green innovation channel. However, green credits were more effective in improving carbon emission efficiency in the energy intensity channel, but the role of supporting low-carbon technologies must be enhanced. ④ Environmental regulations had two moderating mechanisms, 'positive compensation' and 'negative offset,' for the carbon reduction effect of green credit. When the demand and supply of financial resources were low, strengthening environmental regulations would weaken the incentive effect of green credit on low-carbon economic transformation. The above conclusion not only provides a new research perspective and supplementary empirical evidence for understanding the environmental effects of green credit, but also provides a useful reference for further improving green credit policies and promoting the development of a low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saving energy resources and reducing energy intensity are crucial to promoting China' s major strategic goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, and are hence key to the promotion of green transformation and development in the new development stage. As an important practice, the policy of establishing pilot zones for green finance reform and innovations in China aims to promote green finance reform in depth, construct ecological civilization, and realize green economic transformation. Can the policy reduce energy intensity and contribute to energy conservation? What is its impact mechanism? There is a shortage of systematic analysis in academia on these issues. With panel data from Chinese cities from 2007 to 2020 and a generalized synthetic control method, this paper evaluated how the establishment of pilot zones for green finance reform and innovations affected energy intensity and analyzed its impact mechanisms. The results showed that: ① The implementation of the policy significantly reduced the energy intensity of the pilot zones, and the energy-saving effect exhibited 'policy first' and timeliness characteristics. ② The policy-induced energysaving effect was achieved by improving green innovation, easing financing constraints, optimizing industrial structure, and strengthening environmental governance. ③ The policy' s energy-saving effect was more remarkable in areas with better marketization and a higher education level. The findings suggest that the government should fully consider the differences in aspects such as institutional environment and resource endowment among varying regions, design distinct measures to attract more market players to participate in the green finance system oriented by energy efficiency improvement, energy structure transformation, and environmental governance, and create a much better market-oriented environment for green innovation and corporate financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further clarifies the major development goal of accelerating the transition to a model of green development. Improving carbon emission efficiency is undoubtedly a necessary way to achieve this goal. At present, with the pressing goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality and the tendency of the financial industry to be diverted out of the real economy, the high-quality development of the financial industry has become an objective need to improve carbon emission efficiency and promote the realization of the 'dual carbon' goals as scheduled. However, there are obvious differences in carbon emission efficiency and financial industry high-quality development between different regions, which makes it urgent to realize efficient collaboration between inter-regional carbon emission efficiency and high-quality development in the financial industry. This paper used the coupling coordination degree model, the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method, and the spatial Kernel density estimation method to measure the coupling coordination degree between China' s carbon emission efficiency and the high-quality development in the financial industry and to fully reveal its spatio-temporal evolution characteristics. The results showed that: ① The coupling coordination degree between carbon emission efficiency and high-quality development in the financial industry basically stabilized at the intermediate coordination level. The key to advancing this coupling coordination degree to a high-quality coordination level was to improve the level of high-quality development in the financial industry. The eastern region rose to a good coordination level. The western and central regions were stable at the intermediate coordination level. The northeastern region was mainly at the primary coordination level. ② The coupling coordination of carbon emission efficiency and high-quality development in the financial industry had a problem of spatial distribution imbalance. Inter-regional differences were the main source of spatial differences. The contribution rates of intra-regional differences and the intensity of transvariation to spatial differences were relatively low. ③ There was a multipolar differentiation phenomenon in the coupling coordination between carbon emission efficiency and high-quality development in the financial industry in the central region. The coupling coordination in both the western and northeast regions showed a polarization trend. ④ Under the condition of considering spatial factors and time span, most provinces and their neighboring provinces had a spatial connection between the coupling coordination of carbon emission efficiency and high-quality development of the financial industry. These findings are conducive to the promotion of the construction of a collaborative linkage pattern between inter-regional carbon emission efficiency and the high-quality development in the financial industry. They can serve as an important decision-making reference for realizing the overall transition to a model of green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water is the lifeblood of agriculture. Different from land resources, water resources can flow across regions. Based on the perspective of ‘physical water and virtual water’ flow and using the panel data of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China from 2004 to 2020, this paper used the dynamic spatial Durbin model to estimate the impact of regional grain trade on the pro⁃ portion of grain planting and that of rice, wheat, and corn in the context of inter-basin water transfer. The results showed that: ① For grain output areas, the impact of ‘physical water and virtual water’ flow decreased, the overall proportion of grain planting increased, and the proportion of corn planting among the grains decreased. It showed that the increase of water resource pressure in grain output areas played a greater role in promoting the induced technological change of grain production and strengthening the regional production division than limiting them, and there was a ‘paradox of irrigation efficiency’, that is, the progress of water-saving technology led to the increase of high water consumption crops. ② For grain input areas, the impact of ‘physical water and virtual water’ flow increased, the proportion of grain planting decreased, the proportion of short-term rice and corn planting increased, the proportion of rice (high water consumption crop) planting increased more, the proportion of long-term rice and corn planting decreased, and the proportion of corn (low water consumption crop) planting decreased more. It showed that the regional division of labor and strengthening of grain production reduced the proportion of grain planting in grain input areas, but the internal structure of grain was developing in the direction of more water consumption. ③ Under the current ‘physical water and virtual water’ flow, the grain input areas had a negative spatial spill⁃ over effect on the grain planting proportion in the output areas and the corn planting proportion among the grains, which showed that the reduction of water resource pressure in the grain input areas had a negative impact on the grain production in the grain output areas, and intensified the phenomenon of ‘paradox of irrigation efficiency’ in the internal structure of grain. The grain output areas had no significant impact on the grain planting proportion in the grain input areas. In the short term, the planting proportion of rice and corn was reduced, and the planting proportion of rice, a high water consuming crop, was reduced more, the planting proportion of rice and corn increased in the long term, and the planting proportion of corn, a low water consuming crop, increased more, indicating that the grain out⁃ put areas promoted the development of the internal structure of grain in the grain input areas in the direction of water saving. Finally, this paper puts forward the policy implications of implementing the overall management of ‘physical water and virtual water’, vigorously promoting the development of water-saving agriculture in grain output areas, and establishing regional grain virtual water compensation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental governance is an important issue in global public narratives and of salient local features. Using the theoretical framework of public values and based on the context of China in a new era, this paper conducts a systematic theoretical exploration and empirical analysis of environmental governance. The paper theoretically proposes that: ① The key to successful environmental governance lies in public value construction. ② China has two distinct ways to construct public values: one is done by local governments autonomously, and the other is completed by the central government in a top-down way. ③ The ultimate path of creating public values depends on the strategic triangle, that is, the combination of authorizing environment, strategic goals, and operational capability. To test the above arguments, this paper adopted the most-similar cases analysis approach and made a comparison between two most-similar cases in China, namely between City G in South China and City S in Central China. The empirical results positively supported the above propositions: ① Both cases had similar backgrounds but developed two distinct ways of public value creation. ② Before the intervention of Central Environmental Inspection (CEI), City G failed to create public values in environmental governance, due to the fierce conflicts among the local government, firms, and residents. However, the intervention of CEI fundamentally changed the arena and managed to create public values among the stakeholders by means of building a kind of indoctrination-oriented consensus. ③ As for the case of City S, a kind of public value was successfully created by the joint efforts of the local government, firms, and residents. ④ When local governments failed to create public values, the central government did not simply take their place and do it directly. Instead, it tried to change the incentive structure and value orientation of local governments by introducing a series of institutional innovations, which in turn led to a successful creation of public values at the local level. This paper’ s policy implications are to bring back public values and integrate them into environmental governance, build up a public value-oriented performance management system, and construct a mode of environmental governance with multiple-actor participation and interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource allocation efficiency is one of the most important themes of economic research, so research on environmental policy and resource allocation is an important aspect to evaluate the economic effects of environmental policies. This paper first briefly reviews the research context of the theory of resource reallocation and resource misallocation and then analyzes the conceptual implications and accounting methods of resource reallocation and resource misallocation. Secondly, this paper takes the theoretical assumptions and mechanisms of different models as the main line, systematically sorts out the relevant literature on the impact of environmental policies on resource reallocation and resource misallocation, summarizes and reviews relevant theoretical and empirical research, and puts forward the shortcomings of the research and future direction of expansion. Finally, this paper makes a brief comment on the research status of China’ s environmental policies and resource allocation and puts forward their research prospect. This paper finds that: ① From the perspective of resource reallocation, environmental policies affect the reallocation of resources across firms or within firms by changing the entry and exit conditions, inhibiting the degree of product market competition, and changing product mix. By distorting factor prices, these policies lead to the deviation of the equilibrium allocation of factors from the optimal allocation of firms, thereby causing resource misallocation. ② The conclusions on how the initial distortion affects the resource reallocation effect of environmental policies, or whether environmental policies can mitigate the resource misallocation caused by the initial distortion, differ de⁃ pending on the form of the initial distortion. ③ The existing literature on environmental policies and resource allocation is insufficient in terms of research perspectives, research methods, and research scenarios, and the research conclusions on the impact of environmental policies on resource allocation efficiency usually depend on the relevant assumptions and research scenarios of benchmark models. The theoretical analysis results and the degree of influence under different frameworks of benchmark models are different. This paper believes that, based on the Chinese scenario, theoretical breakthroughs in the measurement of the micro-mechanisms and effects of environmental policies affecting resource allocation, environmental policies and industrial transformation and upgrading, environmental policies and resource space mismatches, etc., may be a marginal contribution of China’ s research on development economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the gradual implementation of strategies to achieve the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, the heterogeneous performance of low-carbon technological progress driving carbon emission reduction in different situations has become an important basis for targeted technological carbon reduction. As an important special subject of national energy resource security and carbon emission reduction, whether resource-based cities can reach peak carbon emissions simultaneously is a key to the achievement of the ' dual carbon' goals. This paper reviewed the theoretical literature on low-carbon technology progress and carbon emissions in resource-based cities, and extracted the their driving mechanisms. Based on the panel data of 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper innovatively considered six undesirable outputs with resource-based city characteristics to define the low-carbon technological progress of such cities, and used the DEA-Malmquist index model, STIRPAT model, and threshold model to clarify the current situation of low-carbon technological progress and carbon emissions in resource-based cities. The study also carried out a deep analysis of the driving relationship and threshold effect between low-carbon technological progress and carbon emission reduction, and compared and analyzed their multiple heterogeneity. The study found that during the sample period, the low-carbon technology progress of these 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities showed a phased upward trend, and that carbon emissions had obvious regional heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. The progress of low-carbon technology in resource-based cities had a certain inhibitory effect on carbon emissions and presented type heterogeneity, regional heterogeneity, and a double threshold effect. In different threshold ranges, the driving effects of low-carbon technology on carbon emission reduction effect and carbon emission reduction rebound effect were different. The driving effects of other seven control variables, such as gross domestic product, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, voluntary environmental regulation, industrial structure, energy consumption structure, and foreign direct investment, on carbon emissions were also different. Finally, based on the research conclusions, regarding different regional resource-based cities, different types of resource-based cities, and different levels of low-carbon technology progress in resource-based cities, policy recommendations related to low-carbon technology progress and carbon emission reduction are proposed in a targeted manner, aiming to promote the improvement of low-carbon technology progress in resource-based cities and the simultaneous achievement of carbon emission reduction targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China' s digital finance has developed rapidly, and its application scope continues to expand, which has a profound impact on people' s production and lifestyle and may affect carbon emissions. On the basis of a literature review, this paper firstly summarized the possible ways of impact of digital finance on carbon emissions and then illustrated the economic principles and impact mechanism of how digital finance affected carbon emissions by introducing digital finance and energy consumption into the production function and introducing the stock of carbon dioxide into the consumer utility function to improve Romer's endogenous economic growth model. The results of the theoretical analysis showed that the development of digital finance would affect carbon emissions by influencing the consumption concepts and behavior of residents, the mode of production activities, and the innovation efficiency of enterprises. Besides, the relationship between digital finance and carbon emissions represented an inverted U-shape, and the digital financial capacity required by the turning point of carbon emissions mainly depended on the existing energy consumption and technological innovation. Then, based on China' s provincial data, this paper analyzed the above inverted U-shape relationship empirically and tested the corresponding intermediary mechanism. The results showed that: (1) The impact of digital finance on carbon emissions could be decomposed into the effects of increasing production and those of saving energy. (2) Under the two comprehensive effects, carbon emissions increased first and then decreased with the development of digital finance, and this inverted U-shape relationship passed the endo-geneity and robustness tests. (3) There were significant structural differences in the impact of digital finance on carbon emissions in terms of breadth, depth, and degree of digitalization. (4) In addition, the results of the impact mechanism analysis also showed that the development of digital finance alleviated the pressure on the financing demand of enterprises, and the production scale under the traditional production mode was thus expanded and the carbon emissions increased, meaning that the impact brought by the development of digital finance was more reflected in the increase of carbon emissions with the expansion of output (yield increasing effect). However, as the development of digital finance deepened and digitalization played a cumulative role in the later stage, the innovation and emission reduction effects brought by the promotion of enterprise R&D and energy-saving technology patents significantly increased, which eventually led to the reduction of carbon emissions (energy saving effect) by reducing the carbon intensity. Based on this, the development of digital finance in China should shift from a mode emphasizing quantity to one emphasizing quality as soon as possible to provide precise support for the country' s low-carbon and energy-saving transformation, digital upgrading of enterprises, optimization of energy industry structures, new energy development and utilization, and continuous innovation of digital carbon financial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the global value chain (GVC) crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, using methods of risk analysis of input-output table and geopolitical deduction, and based on the latest datasets of carbon dioxide emissions and the world energy trade, this paper analyzes the global value chain risks and energy security issues from three dimensions: climate governance dilemma, the global value chain crisis, and energy security and energy transition. It then presumes changes in world energy trade and geopolitical evolution and assesses their impact on China. The main findings and viewpoints of this paper are as follows: (1) The brokage, fragmentation, cutoff, and even production stoppage of the global value chain have done huge damage to the world economy, and it is urgent to rebuild a safe, stable, resilient, and green global value chain in the post-COVID-19 era. (2) Due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the flow direction and volume of the world' s energy trade have changed greatly, and the energy supply chain has gradually formulated into five formulas: the ' Europe-U.S. supply chain,' the ' Eurasian supply chain,' the ' U.S., Japan, Australia, and India supply chain,' the ' OPEC supply chain,' and a ' new Europe supply chain.' Among them, the United States has increased rapidly its LNG exports to Europe, and Russia has significantly increased its energy exports to Asian countries, inducing a new ' Eurasian energy supply chain.' (3) The world' s energy geopolitics is evolving in such a way that the United States is strengthening its grip on Europe to jointly restrain Russia' s power and initiating a Asia-Pacific ' four-sided mechanism' to counter China' s rise. Consequently, energy security has been bound to geopolitics. (4) China should act as a geopolitical ' power of equilibrium' to avoid the increasing risk of a new Cold War or a ' quasi-Cold War' to ensure its own energy security, to promote its dual goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality actively and gradually, and to steadily follow the path of peaceful development. We conclude that: the ' dual carbon' goals set up a timetable for China' s transitions in terms of energy, economy, and development mode. At the same time, the strategy of 'decoupling with China' promoted by some countries gives China an opportunity instead and forces China to accelerate its industrial transition, trade upgrading, and optimization of economic structure, in order to build an upgraded version of the ' world factory' and fully realize a high-quality, green, sustainable development with a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of climate warming on world agricultural production and food security has become increasingly obvious. As an important source of carbon emissions and the carbon sink system, the green development of agriculture is one of the important ways to alleviate the crisis and achieve China' s goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. Exploiting the potential of agricultural carbon sinks and accurately calculating agricultural net carbon emissions are of great significance to promoting the green development of agriculture meeting the ' dual carbon' goals. Based on the dual characteristics of the agricultural carbon cycle, this paper sorted out the logical relationship between agricultural green development and the agricultural carbon cycle, incorporated the role of agricultural carbon sinks into the calculation framework of agricultural carbon emissions, and measured China' s agricultural net carbon emissions from 2000 to 2019 by time and region. The decoupling model of agricultural net carbon emissions from agricultural economic growth was constructed. The results of the study found that the total amount of carbon emissions from agricultural sources increased from 277.899 million t in 2000 to 308.383 1 million t in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 0.52%, but the agricultural carbon emission intensity showed a trend of continuous decline; the agricultural carbon sink increased from 99.539 9 million t in 2000 to 133.039 million t in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 1.46%, and the agricultural carbon sink resources were considerable. The intensity of agricultural carbon source emissions was higher in the west than in other regions and there was a clear gap with the eastern region. The total amount of agricultural carbon source emissions, carbon sinks, and net carbon emissions all showed a medium-high pattern. The decoupling relationship between agricultural economic growth and agricultural net carbon emissions was mainly manifested in two decoupling states: strong decoupling and weak decoupling. Nearly 50% of the provinces achieved the ideal strong decoupling state in terms of agricultural green development, while the remaining provinces were in a weak decoupling state, and the decoupling state was generally ideal. Finally, this paper puts forward targeted countermeasures and suggestions to promote the green development of agriculture and help achieve the ' dual carbon' goals: we should accurately locate the carbon source; ensure the ' double bottom line' of food security and pig production capacity under low-carbon agriculture; resolve the resource endowment differences between regions; explore the potential of the agricultural carbon trading market; create a new path for farmers to increase their income, maintain the strong and improve the weak; and strive to achieve the ' package' of strong decoupling in agriculture to help achieve the ' dual carbon' goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade and the environment are two grave concerns of sustainable development in the new development pattern of the Chinese economy. Reducing corporate pollution intensity (CPI) is an essential means of securing economic sustainability, energy conservation, and emissions reduction, and participating in global value chains (GVCs) is a key driver of CPI reduction. Based on the elucidation of the mechanism by which GVC position affects CPI through technological innovation, this paper used the matching data of the enterprise pollution discharge database, the customs import and export database, the enterprise patent database, and the industrial enterprise database from 2000 to 2014 to empirically test the impact of GVC position on CPI. Furthermore, the robustness of the core conclusions was further verified by using the data of listed companies and manufacturing sub-sectors from 2010 to 2019. The main conclusions were as follows: ① GVC position generally showed a positive environmental effect. GVC position could reduce the pollution emissions per unit of output value of enterprises. This core conclusion still held after robustness tests such as replacement of measurement indicators, replacement of sample data, and endogenous discussions. ② The results of the analysis of the mechanism of action showed that GVC position would reduce CPI through the output effect and technological innovation effect. ③ The results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that, under different corporate ownership types, technical levels, and regional characteristics, GVC position had a more obvious impact on improving the environmental effects of foreign-funded enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and enterprises in China’ s eastern region. ④ The research perspective of the article shifted from the micro-enterprise level to the meso-level industry level. The results of the dynamic decomposition of pollutant emission intensity at the industry level showed that the contribution of the resource reallocation effect to the reduction of industry pollution emission intensity was 55.39%, and it was an important channel for GVC position to pollution intensity. To this end, the study puts forward relevant policy suggestions from the aspects of implementing a more active opening strategy, enhancing the technological innovation capabilities of enterprises, and encouraging the coordinated development of multi-type enterprises and regional coordinated development, providing theoretical support and empirical evidence for promoting high-quality economic development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of theoretical and practical significance to study the impact of mixed-ownership reform, the core measure of stateowned enterprise (SOE) reform, on the green innovation of SOEs. Using the data of SOEs listed in the China A-share stock market from 2010 to 2019, this study empirically tested the impact, mechanisms, and heterogeneous impact of mixed-ownership reform on the green innovation of SOEs through a Propensity Score Matching+Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) model based on the shareholding ratio of non-state-owned shareholders among the top ten shareholders of state-owned enterprises. On this basis, this paper further explored the spillover effect of mixed-ownership reform on the green innovation of SOEs. The results showed that: ① Mixed-ownership reform could effectively promote the green innovation of SOEs. After using the placebo test and instrumental variable method to alleviate the endogenous problem and replacing the matching basis for the robustness test, the conclusion was still valid. ② The mechanism test showed that the improvement of corporate governance level and the knowledge spillover effect were important channels for mixed ownership reform to promote the green innovation of SOEs. The profit-seeking nature of non-state-owned shareholders might have a dampening effect on the green innovation of SOEs in mixed-ownership reform. ③ The heterogeneity analysis of industry characteristics showed that in competitive industries and environmental protection industries, mixed-ownership reform had a more obvious impact on promoting the green innovation of SOEs. ④ Although the mixed-ownership reform promoted the green innovation of SOEs, it was not the higher the better in terms of the proportion of non-state-owned shareholders. When non-state-owned shareholders accounted for 15% to 30%, the promotion effect on the green innovation of SOEs was most obvious. ⑤ The mixed-ownership reform had a spillover effect on the green innovation of unreformed SOEs, effectively promoting the substantive green innovation of these SOEs in the same industry. Therefore, the study proposes that the important role of mixed-ownership reform in green development should be fully recognized and the mixed-ownership reform of SOEs should be further promoted. We should promote the formation of a mutually balanced equity structure and rationally allocate the proportion of non-state-owned capital. At the same time, we should avoid the ‘one-size-fits-all’ mixed-ownership reform and adhere to the classification and stratification of orderly progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]