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This paper studies how centralizing environmental administration affects air pollution in China. China launched a reform in 2016 to empower upper-level environmental protection bureaus to administer lower-level bureaus vertically through personnel control. Exploiting a stacked difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the reform significantly reduced air pollution. The effect was stronger in places where pollution was less likely to be affected by spillovers from other provinces, where local governments initially paid less attention to environmental protection, and where there was less economic importance. Further analysis shows that the reform reduced pollution by strengthening the pollution reduction incentives of local environmental officials, increasing the intensity of local environmental inspection, and promoting environmental compliance by polluting firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impact on air pollution of China's 2017 policy banning waste imports. We exploit a difference-in-differences strategy combining the time variation and cross-prefecture variation in waste imports before the policy change. We find that prefectures that imported waste in the prepolicy period experienced greater air quality improvements after the policy shock. This effect is stronger in regions with loose environmental regulations and poor waste utilization capacity. Further investigation shows that reductions in both the burning of unrecyclable waste and the level of industrial production are channels through which the waste import ban reduced air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining time variations, cross-province variations in policy intensity, and variations in pollution intensity across industries, we estimate the impact of environmental regulation on firm exports. We find that in more pollution-intensive industries, stricter environmental regulation reduces both the probability that a firm will export and the volume of exports. Heterogeneous tests show that the impact is smaller for SOE firms and for firms located in the central and western part of China. We also find that the reduced probability that a firm will export is driven by a decline in non-exporters entering the export market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of educational fee reduction reform on children’s school enrolment in rural China. Using data from Gansu Survey of Children and Families, we find that the reform did not have significant impacts on school enrolment of 9–12 year old children, while the reform had significant impacts on school enrolment of 13–16 year old children. We also find that for children enrolled in 2004, the higher are the fee reductions, the higher is the probability for them to stay in school in 2007. Heterogeneous effects in terms of different characteristics are also found in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify the effect of trade liberalization on corporate income tax avoidance in a sample of Chinese manufacturing firms, taking advantage of China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). We find that firms engage in more tax avoidance in industries with larger tariff reductions. Further analysis shows that firms with a lack of cash or a high demand for cash before WTO entry tend to engage in more tax avoidance after WTO entry. Our study also provides evidence that manipulating costs is one way that firms avoid corporate income tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the Chinese College Student Survey, conducted in 2010, to examine levels of poverty among students on China's campuses. With the poverty line defined as the college-specific expenditures a student needs to maintain a basic living standard on campus, we find that 22 per cent of college students in China are living in poverty. Poverty is more severe among students from rural or western parts of the country. With a targeting count error of more than 50 per cent, it is important that the college need-based aid programme be improved. Lacking other income sources, poor students rely heavily on loans and paid employment to finance their college education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We find that firms winning Green Company Awards in China from 2008 to 2011 experienced on average insignificant and in some cases significantly negative effects on shareholder value. Various robustness checks suggest that these findings are not driven by the inefficiency of the Chinese stock market or a lack of perceived credibility of the award. In addition, we find important variation in the responses across firms: shareholders of firms in low-pollution industries and firms with primarily private ownership responded more negatively to award announcements. Furthermore, the peers of winning firms showed higher announcement returns than the award winners. Our results suggest that a key benefit of corporate environmentalism in China comes through building stronger relationships with government, and that otherwise the market generally discourages firms from environmental leadership. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The aim of the present study was to investigate the changes of miR-155 expression in the serum of uremic patients before and after treatment and analyze the risk factors of efficacy. A total of 116 uremic patients admitted to the People's Hospital of Chengyang (Qingdao, China) were enrolled in the study as the uremia group, and were treated by hemodialysis combined with hemoperfusion, and 127 healthy subjects who underwent health examination during the same period were selected as the normal group. Reverse transcription quantitative PCR was used to detect the serum miR-155 levels of all the subjects in the two groups before treatment and those of uremia patients after treatment. The changes of clinically related indicators and inflammatory factors in uremic patients before and after treatment and their correlation with miR-155 were investigated. The risk factors affecting the efficacy of treatment were analyzed. Serum miR-155 levels in the uremia group were higher than those in the normal group (P<0.001); the miR-155 level in patients after treatment was significantly lower than that before treatment (P<0.001), and it was positively correlated with efficacy (r=0.6873, P<0.05). The serum miR-155 level in the invalid group was higher than that in the effective group, and the sensitivity and specificity of miR-155 for predicting the efficacy before treatment were 64.71 and 87.88%, respectively. After treatment, the sensitivity and specificity of miR-155 for evaluating the efficacy were 76.47 and 88.89%, respectively. Clinically related indicators and inflammatory factor levels in uremic patients decreased significantly after treatment, and the expression levels before and after treatment were significantly correlated with miR-155. Clinically related indicators, inflammatory factors and miR-155 were all risk factors affecting efficacy. The expression level of miR-155 in serum was significantly upregulated. Findings of this study suggest that monitoring miR-155 may reflect the efficacy and inflammatory state effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on indentation cracks produced by Vickers indentation tests on Silicon Nitride and Fused Silica, fracture toughness ( K IC ) of the two materials was determined by a Vickers indentation finite element model using virtual crack closure technique (VCCT). The elastic modulus and yield stress of the materials needed in finite element simulation were determined by using dimensionless expressions specially established for ceramic materials, which revealed the approximate numerical relationship between indentation responses and elastoplastic properties of ceramic materials. Computed K IC was obtained by calculating the stress intensity factor ( K I ) at crack tip. Considering that the calculated stress intensity factor ( K I ) varied distinctly along an ideal semi-circle crack front, the equi- K I crack front was acquired through successive simulation and adjustment. By comparison, the computed K IC values of equi- K I crack fronts were in good consistence with the reference K IC of the two materials, while those of the semi-circle crack fronts presented significant errors. The results indicated that indentation fracture toughness could be well determined by employing finite element method (FEM) and VCCT, and the obtainment of equi- K I crack front was crucial to the accuracy of computed fracture toughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]