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Applying the social network analysis (SNA) approach, this paper investigates the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on urban housing prices from the perspective of network accessibility. Based on a sample of 285 cities in China over 2009–2017, we find a positive effect of HSR network accessibility on urban housing prices. An increase in HSR network accessibility (i.e., degree point or closeness centrality) by one standard deviation causes about a 10.3% increase in average housing prices. Evidence also suggests that this effect varies across regions and housing types. Our results are robust to different model specifications and alternative measures of HSR accessibility. The findings offer insights into the space–time economic laws with important policy implications regarding spatial disparities and regional economic convergence in China.

This study conducted the first extensive and comprehensive investigation of the whole-scale sedimentary antibiotic concentration, possible drivers, environmental fate, and potential ecological risks in the Yangtze River. Totally, 20 antibiotics were detected in the sediments. Results revealed that the order of antibiotic abundance in sediment was fluoroquinolonestetracyclinesmacrolidessulfonamidesamphenicols. The total antibiotic concentrations were 0.10-134.4 ng/g (mean: 11.88 ng/g). Of these, fluoroquinolones and tetracyclines were the two dominant antibiotic categories. The dominant occurrence of fluoroquinolones and tetracyclines in sediments suggested that the distribution coefficient (

Plastic surfaces in the environment are a comparatively new niche for microbial colonization, also known as the "plastisphere". However, our understanding of the core and occasional bacterial taxa in the plastisphere is limited. Here, environmental plastic, water, and sediment samples were collected from 10 sites in a plateau river (Lhasa River, China) in September of 2019. The composition and spatial turnover of core and occasional bacterial taxa in the plastisphere were revealed via 16S rRNA gene sequencing and compared with water and sediment. The results indicated that deterministic processes dominated the habitat specialization that shaped the formation of core and occasional taxa in the plastisphere, water, and sediment of the Lhasa River because the decline in zeta diversity in the plastisphere, water, and sediment was more fitted to a power-law form rather than an exponential form. Proteobacteria (65.9%), Bacteroidetes (16.0%), and Cyanobacteria (11.7%) dominated the plastic core taxa. Core taxa rather than occasional taxa in the plastisphere had a lower (21.7%) proportion of OTUs and a higher (81.7%) proportion of average relative abundance than water and sediment, which were dominant in plastic bacterial communities. The spatial turnover of core and occasional bacterial taxa in the plastisphere was governed by abiotic as well as biotic factors. Specifically, the spatial turnover of core taxa in the plastisphere with high connectivity but low functional redundancy was easily affected by geographical distance, altitude, and heavy metals. Furthermore, strong drug resistance was found in the spatially persistent core taxa in the plastisphere. This study provides empirical support for the spatial turnover (species variation) and potential ecological mechanisms of bacterial communities in the plastisphere from river ecosystems.

This paper reports Pb isotopes in different fractions following the three step BCR and 1 M HCl extractions on river sediments from lower reaches of the Xiangjiang river in China, and highlights the importance of Pb isotopes in heavy metal contamination assessment. Lead concentrations and Pb isotopes in bulk sediments and sediment fractions (leachates and residues) from the river were analysed using ICP-MS techniques. Results showed that sediments were highly enriched with Pb with enrichment factors5.5, while Pb in sediments was dominated by reducible and residual Pb fractions, residing mainly in Fe-oxide and silicate minerals. Pb isotopes in sediments was characterized by radiogenic Pb produced from the decay of uranium and thorium with

The total concentrations of Cd in bulk sediments and those of the BCR sequential extraction fractions of sediments from inlets of the Four Rivers that feed Dongting Lake were determined using ICP-MS techniques. The results suggested that Cd was heterogeneously distributed in the inlet sediments of the rivers, with the highest degree of enrichment in sediments from the Xiangjiang River. The Cd anomaly was defined as Cd enrichment in sediments with an EF (enrichment factor)10.0, and it was identified in the inlet sediments of the Xiangjiang River. Cd in the sediments was dominated by acid-soluble Cd at a proportion of 23.9-69.8 (%) compared to its total concentrations in the sediments. The inlet sediments of the Four Rivers were contaminated with Cd, with the highest degree of contamination in the inlet sediments of the Xiangjiang River. The Cd contamination as well as the Cd anomaly in the sediments were closely related to the industrial activities (e.g. smelting and refining for ore minerals) in the areas, and Cd contamination at high levels may represent an ecological risk for the lake watershed. Cd contamination of the inlet sediments may also impact the lake basin sediments and is harmful to the lake ecological system, particularly for sediments of the Xiangjiang River. Therefore, it is essential to control and treat Cd contamination in the inlet sediments for ecological environmental protection of lake watersheds.

The Danjiangkou Reservoir is an important water source for the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China. The current anthropogenic pollution of this reservoir is a great public health concern. Therefore, the horizontal and vertical distributions of seven clinical antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and bacterial communities in the Danjiangkou Reservoir were investigated using qPCR and next-generation sequencing, respectively. The average relative abundance of ARGs was 3.01 × 10-4 to 1.90 × 10-3 and 4.66 × 10-4 to 1.85 × 10-3 in horizontal and vertical profiles, respectively. There was a significant difference in the vertical composition of ARGs, which was caused by different media (i.e. water column vs. sediment). No significant differences in the composition of ARGs were found in the horizontal profile. Proteobacteria was the most abundant phylum, followed by Actinobacteria in the Danjiangkou Reservoir. The beta diversity pattern of the microbial communities in the vertical profile was consistent with that of the ARGs. Moreover, a significant difference in the horizontal composition of the bacterial communities among these water columns was found. All of these factors have resulted in noticeably different co-occurrence patterns of ARGs and bacterial communities between water columns and surface sediment samples. ARGs were closely associated with Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi in the sediment samples, indicating potential anthropogenic pollution in the Danjiangkou Reservoir. Although there was no significant correlation between the occurrence of ARGs and 11 opportunistic pathogens, our results point to potential risks for the development of multi-resistant pathogens due to the simultaneous presence of ARGs and pathogens in the study area. These results provide a good basis for thorough ecological evaluation and remediation of the Danjiangkou Reservoir.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging contaminants in the environment and have been highlighted as a worldwide environmental and health concern. As important participants in the biogeochemical cycles, mangrove ecosystems are subject to various anthropogenic disturbances, and its microbiota may be affected by various contaminants such as ARGs. This study selected 13 transects of mangrove-covered areas in Hainan, China for sediment sample collection. The abundance and diversity of ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) were investigated using high-throughput quantitative polymerase chain reaction (HT-qPCR), and high-throughput sequencing was used to study microbial structure and diversity. A total of 179 ARGs belonging to 9 ARG types were detected in the study area, and the detection rates of vanXD and vatE-01 were 100%. The abundance of ARGs was 8.30 × 107–6.88 × 108 copies per g sediment (1.27 × 10−2–3.39 × 10−2 copies per 16S rRNA gene), which was higher than similar studies, and there were differences in the abundance of ARGs in these sampling transects. The multidrug resistance genes (MRGs) accounted for the highest proportion (69.0%), which indicates that the contamination of ARGs in the study area was very complicated. The ARGs significantly positively correlated with MGEs, which showed that the high level of ARGs was related to its self-enhancement. The dominant bacteria at the genus level were Desulfococcus, Clostridium, Rhodoplanes, Bacillus, Vibrio, Enterococcus, Sedimentibacter, Pseudoalteromonas, Paracoccus, Oscillospira, Mariprofundus, Sulfurimonas, Aminobacterium, and Novosphingobium. There was a significant positive correlation between 133 bacterial genera and some ARGs. Chthoniobacter, Flavisolibacter, Formivibrio, Kaistia, Moryella, MSBL3, Perlucidibaca, and Zhouia were the main potential hosts of ARGs in the sediments of Hainan mangrove area, and many of these bacteria are important participants in biogeochemical cycles. The results contribute to our understanding of the distribution and potential hosts of ARGs and provide a scientific basis for the protection and management of Hainan mangrove ecosystem.

This study attempts to reconcile the conflicting theoretical predictions regarding how government ownership affects bank capital behaviour. Using a unique Chinese bank dataset over 2006–2015 we find that government-owned banks have higher target capital ratios and adjust these ratios faster compared to private banks, supporting the ‘development/political’ view of the government’s role in banking. This effect is stronger for local government-owned and state enterprise-owned banks than for central government-owned banks. We also find that undercapitalized government-owned banks increase equity while undercapitalized foreign banks contract assets and liabilities as their respective main strategy to adjust their capital ratios.

This paper evaluates the investment efficiency of the new energy industry in China and investigates factors that explain variations in investment efficiency across firms and over time. Applying a four-stage semi-parametric DEA analysis framework to a sample of listed new energy firms over the period 2012-2015, we find that the overall investment efficiency of the new energy industry is relatively low, with an average total technical efficiency of 44%, pure technical efficiency of 48%, and scale efficiency of 90%. We also find that new energy firms’ investment efficiency is affected by both macroeconomic conditions and firm-specific characteristics. Our results are robust and have significant implications for policy makers and firm managers.

Banks are the cornerstone of the financial system, especially in developing countries where capital markets are underdeveloped. The global financial crisis in 2007–2008 caused great turmoil in the banking sectors of the developed world with the clustered collapses of international financial giants in the advanced economies. However, there have been fewer bank failures in transitional and emerging economies and it is important to understand the role of the banking sector in developing countries and transitional and emerging economies. This chapter takes a comparative approach and puts Chinese banking into the context of the emerging economies. The importance of the banking systems in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (hereinafter the BRIC refers to Brazil Russia, India, and China and the BRICS includes South Africa) has been rising in the global banking marketplace, noticeably witnessed by the launch of the New Development Bank in 2015. Moreover, BRICS’ banking sectors have withstood the storm wave of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis without major bank failures. This chapter, in particular, examines the impact of bank risk-taking and market concentration on bank performance from the perspective of emerging economies. The rest of this chapter unfolds as follows. Section 4.1 reviews related literature on developing countries and transitional and emerging economies. Section 4.2 introduces the economies and the evolutionary background of the banking systems in BRICS. Section 4.3 outlines the research methodology—the output distance function approach—and describes data. Section 4.4 discusses empirical results, and Sect. 4.5 concludes.

This book presents a series of our studies on various aspects of the Chinese banking industry over the last 15 years. It starts from the economic and banking sector reform, which matches China’s long-term ambition to build a modern financial services industry. When we initially started our research on the Chinese banking industry, we encountered two important international events. The first was China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, forcing the authorities to gradually open up for international competition and inward foreign direct investment into the otherwise tightly controlled domestic financial market; and the second was the world financial crisis triggered by the US subprime crisis in 2007.

This paper examines the effects of corporate governance on bank performance in China over the period 1995-2008. Bank performance has improved significantly and the mean profit efficiency level is estimated at 61 per cent. The results suggest that differences in corporate governance have significant impacts on bank performance: banks with majority foreign ownership are most profitable while banks with majority state ownership are most unprofitable. We find no evidence that foreign minority ownership in domestic banks improves performance. Banks with more dispersed ownership are found to be more profit efficient.

China has accelerated banking reform since joining the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. Employing a stochastic distance function approach, this paper examines bank technical efficiency and differentiates the static, selection and dynamic governance effects on bank efficiency for the 11-year period 1995–2005. The results show that bank efficiency has improved. Joint-stock ownership is associated with better performance in terms of profitability than state ownership (static effect). Strong selection effects are found for both foreign acquisition and going public reform strategies. Foreign acquisition may benefit domestic banks by efficiency gains in the long run, but privatization via initial public offerings (IPOs) appears to have only some short-term effects.

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001, China was given 5 years to completely open up its banking market for international competition. Chinese banks have been renowned for their mounting nonperforming loans and low efficiency. Despite gradual reforms, the banking system is still dominated by state ownership and encapsulated monopolistic control. How to raise efficiency is a key to the survival and success of domestic banks, especially the state-owned commercial banks. Two important factors may be responsible for raising efficiency: ownership reform and hard budget constraints. This article uses a panel data of 22 banks over the period 1995 to 2001, and employs a stochastic frontier production function to investigate the effects of ownership structure and hard budget constraint on efficiency. Empirical results suggest that nonstate banks were 8–18% more efficient than state banks, and that banks facing a harder budget tend to perform better than those heavily capitalized by the ...

This paper examines the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in China’s miraculous growth during 1997-2012 and reports that 16% of the GDP growth is driven by the TFP growth, dominated by technological progress. The TFP growth varies significantly across regions and is positively influenced by human capital, innovations and import of machinery, and negatively affected by financial development and exports with little influence from FDI, infrastructure and market competition. It also reports tentative evidence for a weak spillover effect of FDI conditional on the level of financial development and a negative counteractive effect of import of machinery and human capital.

This paper investigates the relationship between market concentration, risk-taking, and bank performance using a unique dataset of the BRIC banks over the period 2003–2010. We find a negative association between market concentration and performance, in support of the “quiet life” hypothesis. We also find that banks taking a lower level of risks perform better, in favor of prudential practice. Moreover, the BRICs' banking sectors were all negatively affected by the 2007–2008 global financial crisis with China and Russia being the least and most affected, respectively. On average Chinese and Brazilian banks outperform Indian and Russian ones, indicating that China and Brazil have more favorable institutional infrastructure. These results are robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques. Our analysis may have important policy implications for bankers and regulators in the BRICs and other developing and transition countries.

China has accelerated and deepened bank reform since it joined the WTO in 2001. Employing a stochastic distance function, this paper investigates the technical efficiency of banks and examines the static, selection and dynamic effects of governance changes on bank efficiency in China for the period 1995-2005. Our results show that bank efficiency has been improved and state-owned banks still perform poorly except for a noticeable improvement from 2003. Strong selection effects are found from both the foreign acquisition and going-public reform strategies. Foreign acquisition may benefit bank efficiency in the long run, but going-public appears to have just some short run effects. One obvious policy implication is that foreign competition is beneficial to China 's on-going bank reform, and going-public is just a means to allow effective foreign competition.