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The rapid development of digital finance has effectively reduced financial challenges in rural regions and created new prospects for agricultural production. This article examines the impact of digital financial development on rice production in Sichuan Province using the 2011–2021 Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index and data from 20 prefecture-level cities, as well as a fixed effects model. The mechanism of action is also discussed. The findings reveal that the advancement of digital finance plays an important role in boosting the expansion of rice production, and that digital finance influences rice output by increasing farmers' willingness to participate in insurance and increasing the availability of credit. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that digital finance has a substantial effect on mountainous and economically poor areas. As a result, this article suggests that the breadth and depth of usage of rural digital finance, as well as the development of rural digital financial services in underdeveloped areas, should be expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of agricultural subsidies on grain production in major grain-producing regions. We use an empirical model and data from fixed observation points in rural areas collected by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2016–2017. Our findings show that agricultural subsidies in major grain-producing regions have significantly increased rural household grain yield. Furthermore, findings show that agricultural subsidies and the cost of fertilizer and pesticides for rural households have a mediating effect on grain production. In addition, the effect of agricultural subsidies varies by type: income subsidies have a greater promotion effect on grain production, whereas subsidies for purchasing agricultural machinery have no significant promotion effect on grain production. These findings show that agricultural subsidies promote grain production in China's major grain-producing regions, and have a mediating effect on different types of subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that credit is crucial for the adoption of new agricultural inputs and technologies in developing countries. Hence, the issue about how financial institutions select farmer applicants to give loans to is very important. We used primary data from 401 rural households to show what kinds of farmers can get credit from banks in Sudan. The probit model is used to examine the factors that determine both farmers' access to credit and the adoption of new inputs, and to show the nexus of credit accessibility and the adoption of new input through other factors. The main findings show that farming experience, the number of close friends, hire labor, cultivated land, irrigation, and extension services, are the factors that significantly determine farmers' credit accessibility from banks. Some of these determinants, such as cultivated land and irrigation, also influence the adoption of new inputs. There exists a strong correlation between credit accessibility from banks and the possibility of using new input. In addition, an IV probit model shows that farmers' use of chemical fertilizers and improved varieties directly influences the loan decision from banks. This means farmers' credit demand induced by the chance of using new input actually has been satisfied by the banks in Sudan. The comparison results show that, for the subsample, for the Farmer's Commercial Bank (FCB) the nexus between credit accessibility and the adoption of new inputs is stronger than that of the Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS). Therefore, this study recommended that the Sudan government should choose FCB as the lender of subsidized credit to increase the banks' contribution to the development of plant production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nutritional status plays an indispensable role in enhancing human capital and preventing the return to poverty. In the context of the three-child policy and the aging society in China, intergenerational care will inevitably become a core component of family support. Thus, this paper evaluates the impacts of intergenerational care behavior on nutritional intake in Chinese rural residents from the perspective of household consumption. The study's data is from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) (2010–2014), and, the fixed effect model and analyses are applied to achieve the study's objective. The results reveal that rural residents with intergenerational family care behavior have significantly higher food diversity. Thus, Chinese rural residents with intergenerational care consumed 22.4% more food. A possible mechanism is that intergenerational care improves young mothers' labor participation and income, thus optimizing their dietary structure. Moreover, there was heterogeneity concerning the nutrition intake among rural residents in different geographic and family net income groups. Finally, the robust check is consistent with the baseline regression results. In summary, governments should fully affirm the elderly contribution to families to give full play to the elderly family benefit maximization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the sample data of rural households in China's income survey (CHIP 2013), this paper divides the family structure into elite and incomplete families and analyzes the impact of family structure's heterogeneity on land transferred out. The Tobit and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models are applied to achieve the study's objectives. The results show that the elite family has a significant positive impact on the paid land subcontract area, while the incomplete family is not significant. After further refining the elite families, it is found that the influence of the families with the political status of Party members (non-grassroots cadres) on the land transfer area is more significant, while the influence of the families with the status of grassroots cadres on the land transfer area is less significant. Then, the formation mechanism of the difference between these two is discussed, which may be explained by the heterogeneity of their endowment structure, functions, and livelihood attributes. After a series of robustness tests, the results still show that elite families significantly positively impact the area of land transferred out. Finally, based on the differences in land transfer areas and the consequences of different resource endowments, the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from the aspects of strengthening grassroots governance, legal awareness, and establishing and improving the protection mechanism of vulnerable rural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an agricultural society, the farmland is a major form of national wealth and an increase in farmland holding is a sign of wealth accumulation; whereas in an industrial society, the question of whether a rise in farmland holding also increases the wealth accumulation of farmers with the possible choice of being migrant workers is worth theoretical discussion and empirically testing. This article explores the issue of whether farmland tenancy affects household asset allocation in a rapid industrialization period. Using a sample of China's rural households with land contract rights, we employed propensity score matching (PSM) with a difference-in-difference (DID) approach to explore and estimate the impact of farmland tenancy on tenant household asset allocation and test the mechanism of farmland tenancy affecting household asset allocation. Four conclusions are drawn from our study. (1) There is a 'herd effect' in the household decision-making in participation in the farmland rental market and the tenancy of farmland. (2) Household asset choice behavior is adjusted in response to the farmland tenancy for the tenants, increasing the investment in durable goods assets. (3) There is heterogeneity in the effects on asset allocation between tenant households with different intensities in farmland tenancy, presenting relatively more substantial impacts on the change of asset allocation for tenant households with high intensity in the farmland rental market. The tenancy of farmland with high intensity has not only boosted tenants' wealth accumulation but has also increased the investment in agricultural assets and risky asset holdings (both incidence and the share of risky financial assets), while the tenancy of farmland with low intensity has not. Tenancy of farmland does not necessarily bring about an increase in the household's agricultural machinery investment, and only when the area of farmland tenancy reaches a certain scale threshold will households increase their investment in agricultural machinery. (4) The tenancy of farmland has had impact on household asset allocation through a substitution effect instead of an income effect. In general, even though agriculture is not so profitable compared to industry in China, the wealth effect of farmland holding remains significant. This study contributes to the research on household asset allocation from the perspective of farm operation model transition caused by farmland market participation, which helps enhance income and accumulate wealth of rural households in China as well as other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study intends to scrutinize the asymmetrical influence of economic growth, industrial production, CPI (consumer price index) and oil price on the trade deficit for the People's Republic of China's economy. The Toda–Yamamoto causality, non-linear ARDL method, and quarterly data for 1995Q1 to 2021Q4 have been utilized to investigate the results. The estimated results confirm the uni-directional causality and presence of non-linear co-integration among variables under discussion. However, bound test analysis also reveals the long-run asymmetrical association among TD (trade deficit), IP (industrial production), oil price, and GDP growth, but not the CPI (consumer price index). Further, long-run asymmetrical outcomes highlight that a decrease (increase) in industrial production and an increase (decrease) in oil price and GDP growth rate increase (decrease) the trade deficit. Short-run asymmetrical outcomes reveal a similar trend to the long run, but the impact of all variables in the short run is insignificant, which means that linkages between the trade deficit and the explanatory variables are a long-run phenomenon in People's Republic of China. Thus, in terms of policy, to reduce the trade deficit, it is necessary to focus on attaining standardized GDP growth, increasing industrial-sector production using advanced technology, and replacing oil-using energy sources with green technology (solar panels, wind farm energy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, Tibetan areas have generally high altitudes and abnormal climates, and many areas have faced a variety of risks such as food security, land degradation disasters, and diseases. The Tibetan region's economic development level is lower than that of the rest of China. Rural households and communities primarily rely on agricultural-related activities for a living, and their investment opportunities are limited due to unfavorable land and climate conditions. This study aims to investigate how to overcome such impacts by providing efficient strategies of green and sustainable planning through risk analysis and reasonable portfolio. By investigating the asset composition of 271 rural households in Tibetan area of Sichuan, the potential risks are analyzed by using the block diagram and investment portfolio to avoid risk is calculated and discussed by Markowitz model. The results show that the asset composition of rural households in ethnic area is unreasonable. Most of families highly prefer real assets, this may due to their risk attitudes and resistance capacities. From rural households' perspective, in order to adapt to suboptimal environmental conditions, rural households should diversify their livelihood strategies and make appropriate investment portfolios. Moreover, the research findings also provide useful strategy suggestions for green and sustainable development of people's livelihood planning in ethnic areas of China as the Tibetan region in Sichuan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this research was to determine the impact of renewable energy, alternative and nuclear energy, urbanization, energy use, and fossil fuel energy consumption on Romanian economic development. To investigate the relation between variables, we employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique in conjunction with FMOLS (Fully Modified Least Squares) and CCR (Canonical Cointegrating Regression). Long-run and short-run findings suggest that alternative and nuclear energy, as well as fossil fuel consumption, has a positive association with economic growth, but renewable energy, urbanization, and energy usage have an adversative relationship with economic growth. Similarly, FMOLS and CCR statistics indicate that alternative and nuclear energy and fossil fuel consumption have a favorable impact on economic development. Renewable energy consumption, urbanization, and energy use, on the other hand, revealed a negative connection with economic progress. Conservative solutions are necessary to implement appropriate policies to address energy consumption concerns in Romania in order to improve economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' cooperatives play an important role in enabling small farmers to integrate into modern agriculture. Based on the survey data of 7200 farmers in four provinces of China, this paper uses the multi-dimensional poverty measurement method and the instrumental variable method to reveal the transmission mechanism and multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect of farmers' cooperatives in deep poverty-stricken areas in China to realize joint agricultural empowerment through the supply chain. The results show that farmers' cooperatives play an important role in enhancing small farmers' financing, technology application, market sales, and rights decision-making. Every increase in the degree of interest connection between the two will help farmers reduce the multi-dimensional poverty level by 12.3%, and the mitigation effects on material poverty, ability poverty, and rights poverty are between 10% and 13%. Compared with agricultural cooperatives with weak organizational service capacity, cooperatives with high organizational service capacity have a more significant multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect on farmers, which leads to farmers obtaining financing and improving their ability and income. In addition, the difference in benefit coupling between agricultural cooperatives and farmers of different leading bodies also results in the heterogeneity of multi-dimensional poverty alleviation effects of farmers. To a certain extent, the supply chain is affected by the risk endowment of members, the supply chain's poverty alleviation performance is affected by members' supply chain's poverty alleviation performance, and there is a certain risk transfer and "distribution failure". Therefore, optimizing the benefit coupling structure and risk sharing mechanism between farmers' cooperatives and farmers has become an important way to break the pattern of "the strong are always strong" and "distribution failure" for supply chain members and farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the impact of off-farm employment on rural household agriculture credit fungibility (CF) using survey data collected from four regions in Ghana; however, the study paid more attention to agriculture credit received from different sources. By employing the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model, we solved the endogenous issue of off-farm employment. The econometrics model result revealed that off-farm employment negatively influences the household's probability of practicing agriculture CF. Our results discovered the importance of off-farm employment on agriculture CF and recommended policy implications capable of alleviating agriculture CF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how grain subsidy policy (GSP) in farmland transfer affects farmers' green production behavior (FGPB) for promoting green agricultural development and improving grain subsidy policy. In this study, we used the data of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS, 2015) and applied the Probit model to discover the impact and mechanism of the GSP on FGPB in farmland transfer. In addition, we also analyzed the mediating effect of farmers' credit constraints and the moderating effect of farmers' risk tolerance. The results show that, firstly, grain subsidy to the actual operator of the farmland generally promotes farmers' excessive fertilizer application behavior, while there is no significant effect on farmers' excessive pesticide application behavior. Secondly, the mediating effect of farmers' credit constraints on the impact of GSP on FGPB is not significant. Thirdly, farmers' risk tolerance plays a significant moderating effect in the impact of GSP on farmers' excessive fertilizer application behavior. Finally, GSP mainly promotes excessive fertilizer application behavior among farmers in Eastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In several rural areas of China, ecological public welfare work is an effective way to improve farmers' social participation. This job does not only increase farmers' income but also greatly improves their enthusiasm for ecological environment protection. Under the goal of carbon neutrality in peak carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, it is necessary to explore the impact of ecological public welfare jobs on the usage of Clean Energy (CE) in rural areas. Based on the data of 1100 farmers from Tibet areas in China, this paper applied the Ordered Probit model to explore the impact of ecological public welfare jobs on farmers' use of CE. The results are as follows: (1) Holding ecological public welfare jobs can raise farmers' willingness to use CE; (2) Holding ecological public welfare jobs can also promote farmers' use of CE by enhancing their ecological environment cognition and influencing their social behavior; (3) The impact of ecological public welfare work on CE use has regional and income heterogeneities. Firstly, this effect is smaller in mixed pastoral-farming areas than in agricultural and pastoral areas. Secondly, this effect is more obvious in low-income groups. Our study provided several policies aimed at improving rural and environmental development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments worldwide have introduced various tax mechanisms to foster enterprise innovation, which in turn affect enterprise performance. To promote the innovation level of domestic enterprises, China has adopted an innovation-driven strategy policy. Based on China's manufacturing company data from 2007 to 2017, this article constructs a mediating effect model to study the direct effect of tax incentives and government subsidies on enterprise performance and the mediating effect of innovation on enterprise performance. We use RIF regression to investigate the difference between the effect of industrial subsidies on promoting technological innovation and enterprise performance. The study finds that tax incentives and government subsidies encourage enterprise performance through innovation, with the mediating effect accounting for about 34.5% and 16.8%, respectively. Industrial subsidies play a more obvious role in improving the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises. There is no significant difference in tax incentives on the performance of large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, government subsidies play an essential role in promoting the performance of large enterprises. Furthermore, with the increase in quantile, the impact of tax incentives and government subsidies on innovation is getting more extensive and more significant. Innovation has an increasing effect on enterprise performance, the effects of tax incentives on enterprise performance are becoming less and smaller, and the nexus of government subsidies and enterprise performance is generally unchanged. Therefore, implementing appropriate tax incentives and government subsidies for enterprise innovation is essential for improving enterprise performance, especially for high-tech enterprises. Enterprise size should not be used as a criterion for the government to implement tax incentives, although government subsidies tend to support large enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the long-term impact of public investments on irrigation and agricultural research and development along with other control variables, including physical capital, irrigated area, fertilizer consumption, level of mechanization, and CO2 emissions on China's agricultural output from 1986 to 2017. This study applied various econometric methods such as the ARDL bound-testing approach and Johansen co-integration procedure to determine the long-term co-integrating connection amid the variables. The empirical outcomes from the ARDL bound-testing method confirm a long-term co-integrating connection among the variables. The long-run results demonstrated that public investment in agricultural research and development and irrigation have a substantial positive effect on agricultural productivity. Furthermore, results revealed that physical capital and fertilizer consumption also have a significant positive effect on agricultural output; however, CO2 emissions have a substantial negative effect on agricultural production. These findings therefore suggest that the policy makers of China should initiate more effective policies to increase irrigation and agricultural research and development investments. Increasing irrigation and agricultural research and development investments will enhance agricultural productivity by ensuring food security in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to investigate the effects of global climate change (via temperature and rainfall) on cereal production in Sichuan over the 1978–2018 period, whether agricultural credit combining with technical progress (i.e., mechanical farming rate) mitigate the effect of climate change. The present study empirically analyzed the short-term and long-term interrelation among all the considered variables by using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The results of the ARDL bounds testing revealed that there is a long-term cointegration relationship between the variables. The findings showed that temperature significantly negatively affected cereal production, while rainfall significantly contributed to cereal production in the context of Sichuan province, China. Agricultural credit, especially in the long run, significantly improved cereal production, implying that agricultural credit is used to invest in climate mitigation technologies in cereal production. Findings further indicated that the mechanical farming rate significantly enhanced cereal production, indicating that technical progress has been playing a vital role. This study suggests that the policymakers should formulate more comprehensive agricultural policies to meet the financial needs of the agricultural sector and increase support for production technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty due to rising energy demand is a matter of global concern. Therefore, examination of the causes of energy poverty and development of effective solutions are urgent concerns. Using survey data on livelihood development in Tibetan farming and pastoral areas in 2019, this study applied logistic and ordinary least squares models to empirically investigate the factors that influence energy poverty in Tibet. We found that energy poverty is (1) unrelated to age, gender, education, marital status, political and village cadre experience, planting, or expenditures related to religious activities; (2) negatively correlated with migrant work, village status, household income, and traffic conditions; (3) positively correlated with employment, area, and breeding; and (4) both positively and negatively affected by family residence altitude. The results offer new insights and empirical evidence for the identification and elimination of energy poverty, improving livelihoods, and promoting rural revitalisation in Tibet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of agricultural cooperatives is extensively viewed as a necessary institutional arrangement that can help farmers in developing countries overcome the constraints that impede them from improving sustainable agricultural production and acquiring new marketing opportunities. Therefore, this study examines the determinants of cooperative membership and its impact on fish farm household income, using data collected from two regions in Ghana. An endogenous switching regression (ESR) model is utilized to address the potential sample selection bias issue. The results show that household heads' decisions to join cooperatives are affected by their access to credit, off-farm work, education level, and peer influence. Cooperative membership can increase both household and farm income by 28.54% and 34.75%, respectively. Moreover, we show that different groups of households' cooperative impacts on farm and household income are heterogeneous. Our findings highlight the importance of cooperative patronization and provide implications that can improve households' welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to investigate the short-run and long-run impact of formal credit (CR) and climate change (CC, via CO2 emissions) on agricultural production (AP) in Pakistan. In addition, other imperative control variables included in this study comprise technology factors (tractors (TRs) and tube wells (TWs), energy consumption (EC), and labor force (LF). This study used annual data covering the period 1983–2016. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is applied to explore the cointegration between the underlying variables and used the granger causality test under the vector error correction model (VECM) context to determine the direction of causality among the variables. The findings of the ARDL bounds-testing approach suggest that there is a long-term relationship among formal credit, climate change (CO2 emissions), technology factors (tractors and tube wells), energy consumption, labor force, and agricultural production. The empirical results reveal that formal credit, technology use (tractors), and labor force have a positive and significant impact on agricultural production in both the short-run and long-run. CO2 emissions have a positive impact on agricultural production but are not significant in either case. Finally, a unidirectional relationship is established from formal credit to agricultural production; labor force to agricultural production; and electricity consumption and technology factors (tractors and tube wells) to CO2 emissions. The recent study claims that formal institutions should guarantee the redeployment of their services/amenities to those who call for them acutely, with the purpose of boosting their approach to monetary credit facilities and empower farmers to further the resilience that will capitalize on post-fruitage enrichments. Finally, considering that climatic change is a widespread fact with regional community trajectories, perhaps the global community may provide reassurance for loaning to smallholder agriculturalists through central and commercial banks by protecting the moneys that banks lend to the agriculturalists towards supporting climatic change espousal strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a maiden empirical attempt to examine the long-run linkage between households' usage of energy and economic progression in Pakistan from the period of 1972–2017. The Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bounds testing method to co-integrate is employed to expose the causality dynamics between the variables such as households' electricity consumption, households' gas consumption, population growth, and per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Pakistan. The study adopted three renowned unit root approaches through the use of the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF), the Phillips-Perron (P-P), and Zivot-Andrews (Z&A) tests to check the stationarity of the variables, while the Johansen cointegration technique is also employed to assess the robustness of the long-run association. The validity of outcomes is also checked with casualty and variance decomposition. The estimated results reveal that, in both the short and long run, households' electricity and gas usage positively affect economic growth, while population growth in the long-run has a negative impact, but the short-run analysis has a positive impact on economic growth in Pakistan. Additionally, the Granger causality and variance decomposition confirm the robustness of outcomes and suggesting a long run association among the variables, and a unidirectional causal link running from three variables to economic growth of Pakistan in the short run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy consumption is a crucial factor to promote industrial sector contribution in an economy for its economic progression. Indeed, Pakistan is an emerging country, but recently adjoining with a very severe deficit of electricity sources. Hence, the industry value added growth leading to economic progression is also fronting inevitable challenges to promote the industry growth. The main objective of the study is to investigate the linkages between industrial sector oil, gas and electricity consumption, and renewable energy consumption with economic development in Pakistan. The findings display evidence of cointegration and a long-run relationship between the consumption of industrial energy and economic growth in Pakistan. The results showed that industrial electricity consumption and industrial gas consumption have a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth both in the long run and the short run in Pakistan. Industrial oil consumption negatively impacts economic growth in the long run, but positively and statistically significantly impacts economic growth in the short run in Pakistan. Moreover, indications through the vector error correction model (VECM) model confirmed bi-directional relationships of industrial sector oil consumption and economic growth in Pakistan. Furthermore, the uni-directional nexus instituted between economic growth to industrial electricity consumption, industrial gas consumption to industrial electricity consumption, and industrial oil consumption to industrial electricity consumption. The findings uncovered solid interconnections among the studied variables and suggested that the Pakistani government should build a robust policy to diminish the oil, gas, and fossil fuels consumption for electricity production, as a replacement to depend on solar, hydro, wind, and biomass energy sources in Pakistan. Consequently, the government should promote more gas concentrated projects, as these will alleviate the contests of gas dearth and provide it to the industry at cheap prices with ease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to examine the long-term effects of financial development, economic growth, energy consumption (electricity consumption in the agriculture sector), foreign direct investment (FDI), and population on the environmental quality in Pakistan during the period of 1980 to 2016. We use CO2 emissions from the agriculture sector as a proxy indicator for environmental quality. We employ various unit root tests (e.g., ADF, PP, ERS, KPSS) and structural break unit root tests (Z&A, CMR) to check the stationarity and structural break in the data series. Cointegration tests, i.e., Johansen, Engle-Granger, and ARDL cointegration approaches are used to ensure their robustness. Results showed that significant long-term cointegration exists among the variables. Findings also indicated that an increase in financial development and foreign direct investment (FDI) improves environmental quality, whereas the increase in economic growth and electricity consumption in the agriculture sector degrades environmental quality in Pakistan. Based on the findings, we suggest policymakers should provide a conducive environment for foreign investment. Moreover, it is also suggested that a reliance on fossil fuels be reduced and a transition to renewable energy sources be encouraged to decrease the environmental pollution in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]