Search

The trade-off between environmental regulation and job creation has been a dilemma for policymakers in the past decades. Exploiting the enterprise-level sample data, we conduct a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) specification to estimate the overall effect of China's Two Control Zones (TCZ) policy on labor demand, measured as the number of enterprise-level employees. We find that the industrial enterprises in TCZ cities, where the TCZ policy has been implemented after 1998, employed fewer workers in more polluting industries. Furthermore, these employment effects are very heterogeneous among different enterprise ownerships and control zones. The TCZ policy significantly decreased the labor demand in private enterprises or those located in the Acid Rain Control Zones (ARCZ) but had little impact on their state-owned and foreign-invested counterparts or those located in the Sulfur Dioxide Pollution Control Zones (SPCZ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial institutions in transition economies maintain higher liquidity at the cost of economic growth. This study offers an alternative policy tool to achieve higher liquidity without compromising economic growth. We show that Zakat—an obligatory Islamic charity with a fixed rate of 2.5%—can be an alternative to the interest rate and that its use as a policy tool promotes economic growth. Instead of considering zakat as a fiscal tool—an alternative to tax—we present it as a monetary policy tool to substitute the interest rate. We provide a framework based on the endogenous growth model, which allows the use of Zakat as a tool to overcome liquidity constraints in transition economies. We also construct an index‐based varying zakat rate adjusted for economic fundamentals, such as economic growth, for each economy. We provide empirical evidence using system generalized method of moments (GMM) in a simultaneous equation model on a panel data of 38 countries for the period 1996–2015. The results show that zakat rate has a significantly positive impact on economic growth. Furthermore, as a policy tool, Zakat has a statistically significant positive impact on FDI and domestic investment, while reducing corruption (CR). The results are robust for various regions and income classifications in different transition economies. The overall findings corroborate that zakat can help achieve the dual objectives of enhanced liquidity and higher levels of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the Chinese economy incorporating the demand of oil to study the effects of oil price shocks on the business cycle. The model answers several questions, including how monetary policy should respond to the disturbances from such shocks, and whether monetary authorities should use core inflation or headline inflation including oil price inflation as the monetary policy rule. The contributions could be summarized as follows: First, the model reveals that the oil transmission mechanism is determined by the nominal inertia, income effect, and the portfolio allocation effect. Second, both noncore inflation monetary policy and core inflation monetary policy that are simultaneously pegged to oil prices fluctuations are inferior to the monetary policy purely pegged to core inflation. Our findings suggest that the monetary policy should focus on core inflation instead of headline inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To observe the effect of Xuefu Zhuyu decoction (XZD) on the chronic hepatitis B caused liver fibrosis (CHBLF) and the portal hemodynamics., Methods: Sixty patients with CHBLF were randomly divided into two groups, the 28 patients in the treated group were treated with oral intake of XZD and conventional liver protective treatment, the 32 patients in the control group were treated with conventional liver protective treatment alone, the therapeutic course for both groups was 3 months. Serum liver fibrosis criteria and portal dynamical criteria were observed before and after treatment., Results: Comparison of the remarkable effective rate between the two groups showed significant difference. After treatment, in the treated group, all the serum criteria for liver fibrosis (HA, PCIII, LN) and criteria for portal trunk hemodynamics, such as mean velocity and quantity of blood flow were significantly improved (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), as compared with those in the control group, the difference was also significant (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01)., Conclusion: XZD has definite therapeutic effect on chronic hepatitis B caused liver fibrosis.