This paper investigates the impact of air pollution on China’s internal migration using the Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey and Air Quality Index (AQI) data in 2014. Binary response... Show More

This paper investigates the impact of air pollution on China’s internal migration using the Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey and Air Quality Index (AQI) data in 2014. Binary response models suggest that, on average, the probability of the willingness to leave will grow by approximately 0.1 if the average value of AQI is increased by 100 points. The migration effect of sever air pollution still holds using two-stage least squares estimation. In particular, compared to inter-province and intra-city within the same province, interviewees are more willingness to leave in intra-county with the same city. Besides, individuals from the cities in central and western regions, the listed key environmental protection (KEP) cities and cities not listed as resource-based (RB) cities have stronger willingness to leave than those from the cities in eastern region, Non-KEP cities and RB cities. Our results are robust to alternative measures of air pollution and models specification.

The integration of economies always attracts much attention from policymakers and researchers. This paper introduces a novel approach to evaluate potential economic and environmental gains from... Show More

The integration of economies always attracts much attention from policymakers and researchers. This paper introduces a novel approach to evaluate potential economic and environmental gains from integrating economies. Based on aggregate production technology and directional distance functions, we regard all decision-making units as a whole, allowing free resource reallocation among units. The level of resource misallocation is identified by a structural measure, which is obtained by the difference between overall potential improvement and individual technical inefficiency. Taking China as an empirical example, possible economic output expansions are estimated at 43.2% and 10.1% under convex and nonconvex production technologies, respectively; potential pollution reductions are around 28.4% and 5.1% under convex and nonconvex production technologies, respectively. A significant disparity of structural inefficiencies is detected, indicating a high level of resource misallocation in China. Economic cooperation is vital to promote potential green gains for all provinces in China.

Agriculture is considered a sector with an essential contribution to carbon emissions in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. This paper innovatively uses the by-production process to... Show More

Agriculture is considered a sector with an essential contribution to carbon emissions in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. This paper innovatively uses the by-production process to analyze the agricultural carbon shadow price (CSP) and agricultural production performance in the BRI countries. The results show that the agricultural CSP for the countries has a decreasing trend. However, the agricultural CSP varies significantly across regions, highest in China and India and lowest in Russia and CEE countries. This study provides more detailed and comprehensive insights into sustainable agricultural development in the BRI regions. The BRI countries need to improve agricultural production efficiency to reduce carbon emissions and strengthen international cooperation in agriculture.

In this article, we measure the change in the green total factor productivity of the publication printing industry in 31 provinces in China between 2013 and 2019. An additive... Show More

In this article, we measure the change in the green total factor productivity of the publication printing industry in 31 provinces in China between 2013 and 2019. An additive Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen total factor productivity indicator and an aggregate directional distance function measure are used to decompose a green total factor productivity into technical efficiency change, scale efficiency, and technological progress change. The results show that the average annual growth rate of China’s publication printing industry’s green total factor productivity during the sample period was -2.75%, indicating that the business situation of China’s publication printing industry is not optimistic under the premise of reducing carbon emissions in recent years. Among the main driving factors of green total factor change, scale efficiency change and technical efficiency change significantly reduce the level of green total factor productivity in China’s publication printing industry.

Although energy constraints, green technology innovation increment, and corporate profitability are issues of central importance to enterprise management and the environment, many aspects of these... Show More

Although energy constraints, green technology innovation increment, and corporate profitability are issues of central importance to enterprise management and the environment, many aspects of these elements have been neglected in the present work. Using data from listed manufacturing firms in China, this study presents two major findings. First, the authors identify a u-shaped relationship between city-specific energy constraints and business profitability. Second, they find green technology innovation can significantly drive profitability in different types of industries. In addition, the profitability of certain enterprises, such as those that are smaller and younger can be more drastically affected by energy constraints. To develop a green innovation-driven strategy to allow manufacturing enterprises to achieve greater profitability and promote ecological improvements, they recommend energy policies be more individualized to guide “energy-constraint sensitive” enterprises to success.

This paper applies the logarithmic mean divisia index to explore the decomposition and decoupling of sectoral carbon emissions across four provinces in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD). The results... Show More

This paper applies the logarithmic mean divisia index to explore the decomposition and decoupling of sectoral carbon emissions across four provinces in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD). The results show that (1) the YRD experienced a significant upward trend in sectoral carbon emissions, among which Anhui and Jiangsu provinces experienced the largest increase in carbon emissions. (2) Anhui and Jiangsu showed expansive coupling or weak decoupling in the “10th Five-Year Plan (FYP)”, and Shanghai and Zhejiang indicated weak decoupling and strong decoupling in the “11th FYP”, “12th FYP”, and “13th FYP”. These observations show that the YRD has been transforming its economic growth patterns and increasingly concentrating on the green economy. (3) Shanghai was the most progressive in decoupling. An inspection of decoupling indicators reveals that declining energy intensity contributed most to decoupling, whereas the population scale was less important. In addition, the industry structure and energy structure varied among the provinces.

This paper matches the large-scale survey data and the corresponding historical weather data to explore how air pollution impacts on low-carbon travel choices. The K-means algorithm is employed to... Show More

This paper matches the large-scale survey data and the corresponding historical weather data to explore how air pollution impacts on low-carbon travel choices. The K-means algorithm is employed to cluster the personal characteristics of residents into five groups according to their travel behavior. The authors take ordered Logit models to identify the group differences in the impact of haze on the five types of low-carbon travel choices, combining with the theory of responsibility attribution and protection motivation theory. The results show that haze has a significant impact on the two groups, namely young office workers and students. The other three groups will not consider the influence of haze when choosing travel vehicles, travel distance, and travel time. The quantity of personally owned automobiles also has a significant impact on the group differences in low carbon travel choices. It is indicated that low carbon travel policies should be considered in the group differences in the future, and efforts should be made from supply and demand sides to guide residents to choose low-carbon travel.

Promotion tournaments theory and regional economic competition can be used to explain China's overcapacity. This study used the non-radial distance function to evaluate the overcapacity considering... Show More

Promotion tournaments theory and regional economic competition can be used to explain China's overcapacity. This study used the non-radial distance function to evaluate the overcapacity considering resource and environmental pollution, combined with Chinese industrial enterprise data, to evaluate the fiscal subsidies and their impact on regional industrial capacity. Empirical evidence based on provincial panel data shows that to strive for more foreign investment, local governments tend to increase fiscal subsidies to industrial enterprises and inhibit capacity utilization, but the technology diffusion and competitive effect of foreign investment can also weaken this adverse effect. The heterogeneity analysis based on geographical location shows that the fiscal subsidies to industrial enterprises weaken the improvement effect of economic competition on capacity utilization in coastal cities, but there is no such impact in inland cities. Reducing the government's excessive intervention and promoting orderly competition are essential to eliminating overcapacity.

Green innovation is an effective way of solving the dilemma of the economy–environment trade-off. As an important innovation policy in China, national economic and technological development zones... Show More

Green innovation is an effective way of solving the dilemma of the economy–environment trade-off. As an important innovation policy in China, national economic and technological development zones (NETDZs) play a significant role in promoting innovation, but empirical studies on their impact on innovation, especially green innovation, are scarce. In this study, the authors used highly disaggregated micro-level data such as patent data, industrial firm data, and customs data to examine the impact of NETDZs on green innovation. The results showed that: (1) NETDZs significantly promote green innovation, as measured by both patent quantity and patent quality; (2) the binding environmental indicators in China's five-year plan enhance the promotional effect of NETDZs on green innovation; (3) learning by importing, including through foreign direct investment and importing capital goods, is an important mechanism for the nexus between NETDZs and green innovation; and (4) compared with non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), SOEs are relatively passive in terms of engaging in learning by importing.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) initiated by Chinese government could be regarded as a systematic framework for promoting economic cooperation and development among the countries along the Belt... Show More

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) initiated by Chinese government could be regarded as a systematic framework for promoting economic cooperation and development among the countries along the Belt and Road and China. This paper attempts to analyze economic and environmental performance in 61 developing countries along Belt and Road. An additive total factor productivity growth measure allows aggregating contributions of individual countries along the BRI to construct a reasonable measure. Both desirable and undesirable outputs are considered. The growth in the total factor productivity is decomposed with respect to the economic and environmental contributions. The annual average growth rate of green productivity is 3.1% and the disparity of economic and environmental performance could be observed among countries. Some countries show robust economic growths while environmental performance slows down green growth. This indicates that developing economies should pay attention to environmental impacts and promote sustainable development by sharing emission reduction technologies.

To effectively evaluate the level of economic security of water resources (WES) in China and analyze its influencing factors, a comprehensive evaluation model of WES and a regression analysis model... Show More

To effectively evaluate the level of economic security of water resources (WES) in China and analyze its influencing factors, a comprehensive evaluation model of WES and a regression analysis model of influencing factors are established based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2017. It is found that, first, WES in China presents a fluctuating upward trend. Second, different regions have different economic security levels for their water resources in China, among which WES in the central region is the highest. Third, there is a U-shaped correlation between economic development and WES, and the population, pollution control level, technological innovation have negative impacts on WES. Moreover, this study also finds that with upgrades to the industrial structure and level of human capital, there will be improvements to WES. However, the external coefficient and the investment scale of fixed assets have a negative impact on the economic security of water resources. This is helpful to utilize the water resources, and improve the water resources safety management.

This study provides a data-driven analysis that illustrates a clear renewable energy depiction in sustainable energy security and unveils the regional issues due to the literature solely occupies... Show More

This study provides a data-driven analysis that illustrates a clear renewable energy depiction in sustainable energy security and unveils the regional issues due to the literature solely occupies energy security concept in the descriptions view, and renewable energy differences related to regions are rarely discussed. A hybrid method is proposed to valid those indicators and shows the trend of future studies. This study enriches the challenges and opportunities by contributing to understand the fundamental knowledge of renewable energy in sustainable energy security frontier, conveyance directions for future study and investigation, and assessment on global renewable energy position and regional disparities. There are valid 19 indicators, in which energy demand, energy policy, renewable resources, smart grid, and uncertainty representing the future trends. World regional comparison includes 115 countries/territories and categorized into five geographical regions. The result shows that those indicators have addressed different issues in the world regional comparison.

Abundant natural resources are the basis of urbanisation and industrialisation. Citizens are the key factor in promoting a sustainable supply of natural resources and the high-quality development of... Show More

Abundant natural resources are the basis of urbanisation and industrialisation. Citizens are the key factor in promoting a sustainable supply of natural resources and the high-quality development of urban areas. This study focuses on the co-production behaviours of citizens regarding urban natural resource assets in the age of big data, and uses the latent Dirichlet allocation algorithm and the stepwise regression analysis method to evaluate citizens’ experiences and feelings related to the urban capitalisation of natural resources. Results show that, firstly, the machine learning algorithm based on natural language processing can effectively identify and deal with the demands of urban natural resource assets. Secondly, in the experience of urban natural resources, citizens pay more attention to the combination of history, culture, infrastructure and natural landscape. Unique natural resource can enhance citizens’ sense of participation. Finally, the scenery, entertainment and quality and value of urban natural resources are the influencing factors of citizens’ satisfaction.

This paper investigates structural variation of agricultural productivity growth in China using a multiple-frontier approach. Agricultural productivity gain in Sichuan province is decomposed into... Show More

This paper investigates structural variation of agricultural productivity growth in China using a multiple-frontier approach. Agricultural productivity gain in Sichuan province is decomposed into technological progress, technical, mix and scale efficiency changes in terms of economic and environmental performance. The results show that agricultural Luenberger productivity indicator in Sichuan presents a significant increase trend with annual growth rate of 2.5% over the period of 1997-2017. The agricultural green growth in Sichuan is most driven by technological progress. Of the decline in the OI changes, over 90% results from the decline of environmental inefficiency. The technological progress is the main driven force of the economic growth while the TEC (technical inefficiency) incumbers its growth. The structural effects (mix and scale components) incumber environmental growth. The results imply that policymakers should pay more attention to new agricultural technological development and resource misallocation to improve agricultural green growth in Sichuan.

Most carbon emission reduction studies in transportation focus on the natural use of motor vehicles. However, little attention has been paid to fatal driving violations that lead to the sunk costs... Show More

Most carbon emission reduction studies in transportation focus on the natural use of motor vehicles. However, little attention has been paid to fatal driving violations that lead to the sunk costs of human resources investment and motor vehicle carbon emissions in the manufacturing process of motor vehicles. This article aimed to determine if a driver would be seriously harmful to human capital investment and carbon emissions reduction. 1893 drivers in China were formally surveyed by questionnaire to find out the statistical characteristics. Results indicated that different drivers show significant differences in different driving violations dimensions. Specific drivers showing horrible driving violation (HDV) and dangerous driving violation (DDV) mainly endanger personal security and environmental damage. The identification of the focused drivers would contribute to formulate more refined management policies in carbon emission reduction, improve natural resource utilization, raise human capital benefit, and promote social sustainable development.

Empirical studies have shown that China's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (APPCL2000), as an environmental regulation, has significantly alleviated the air pollution problem and improved... Show More

Empirical studies have shown that China's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (APPCL2000), as an environmental regulation, has significantly alleviated the air pollution problem and improved the TFP of air polluting enterprises. However, few scholars have studied the regional heterogeneity of this policy. To study this issue, this manuscript introduces the "Hu Line" from the perspective of regional resource endowment differences and divides China into a resource advantage area (A area) and a resource disadvantage area (B area). Subsequently, this manuscript uses the triple difference model and big data of Chinese industrial enterprises to verify. The results show that under environmental regulations, the TFP of air polluting enterprises in B area has increased more than in A area, and the rapid decline in the proportion of low-efficiency air polluting enterprises in B area is the main mechanism. It shows that environmental regulation is beneficial to narrow the gap of regional economic growth and realize economic catch-up in resource-disadvantaged areas.

China actively broadens its channels for environmental protection and limits pollutant emissions through industrial structure adjustment and technical progress. Based on panel data of 30 provinces... Show More

China actively broadens its channels for environmental protection and limits pollutant emissions through industrial structure adjustment and technical progress. Based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2017, this study investigated the effects of industrial structure adjustment and technical progress on environmental pollution using spatial Dubin models. The findings show the following. (1) As the economy develops, the situation of environmental pollution in various regions deteriorates; moreover, spatio-temporal dependence is an aspect of environmental pollution. (2) Industrial structure adjustment and technical progress are beneficial to environmental improvement. Furthermore, there are spillover effects in factors such as industrial structure and technical progress to varying degrees. Thus, this study suggests that the path of coupling between industrial structure and technical progress should be explored to establish a pollution filtering mechanism, thereby improving environmental quality.

Resource utilization not only meets the needs of economic development, but also has a far-reaching negative impact on the environment. Environmental regulation is regarded as the key measure to... Show More

Resource utilization not only meets the needs of economic development, but also has a far-reaching negative impact on the environment. Environmental regulation is regarded as the key measure to solve environmental pollution. However, the rent-seeking behavior of local enterprises will seriously weaken the implementation effect of environmental regulations. Under the background of the development of big data era, the massive micro enterprise data provided by China's private enterprise survey database provides favorable conditions for this paper to study its impact effect from the direction of big data. This paper uses OLS model and Tobit model to investigate the impact of rent-seeking on the implementation effect of environmental regulation. The results show that environmental regulation will make honest enterprises actively reduce output to control the emission level. However, rent-seeking enterprises will further expand their output to gain greater profits because they are sheltered by local governments.

Under the background of carbon neutrality, the carbon sequestration of forest ecosystems is an important way to mitigate climate change. Forest could not only protect the environment but also an... Show More

Under the background of carbon neutrality, the carbon sequestration of forest ecosystems is an important way to mitigate climate change. Forest could not only protect the environment but also an important industry for economic development. As an international climate policy that first recognized the role of forest carbon sinks on climate change, the question becomes, has the Kyoto Protocol promoted the development of forest carbon sinks in contracting parties? To explore this, data of forest can be obtained at the national level. Hence, data of economic, social, polity and climate in 147 countries is also collected. The generalized synthetic control method is adopted. The results show that the policy effect of the Kyoto Protocol was obvious and significant. Moreover, the effect was more significant after the enforcement in 2005. Especially after the first commitment period, the policy effect of the second period is more obvious. Some policy implications are drawn.

Coal has always been an important foundation for China’s economy. The booming and declining of the coal industry can directly impact the regional economy. This study researches the impact of the... Show More

Coal has always been an important foundation for China’s economy. The booming and declining of the coal industry can directly impact the regional economy. This study researches the impact of the rise and fall of the coal industry on the regional economy, finance, and employment by establishing a panel data model. The results show that the economic growth rate of coal-producing areas is vulnerable to the rise and fall of the coal industry, and the impact is uneven. That is, the prosperity of the coal industry has a slightly greater impact on regional economic growth than that of a recession. The fiscal revenue and expenditure of coal-producing areas has been substantially affected during the coal industry recession, and the fiscal deficit has risen remarkably. The employment situation of urban workers in coal-producing areas is almost unaffected by the rise and fall of the coal industry.

This study analyzes the economic and environmental performance of OECD countries over 2000–2019. A by-production approach is applied and the efficiency score is decomposed into its economic and... Show More

This study analyzes the economic and environmental performance of OECD countries over 2000–2019. A by-production approach is applied and the efficiency score is decomposed into its economic and environmental components. Unlike previous studies, we apply a refined model that allows for the correct modeling of by-production technology. The refined model can provide clear economic illustrations for balancing economic growth and environmental protection. The results indicate that environmental inefficiency is higher than the potential economic improvement. The environmental efficiency of OECD countries is improving, while economic performance is worsening over time. Therefore, instead of highly polluting energy, clean energy should be used to build a low-carbon economy. Worldwide, carbon-emitting countries and developed countries should shoulder their responsibilities to reduce carbon emissions and provide emission reduction funds for developing countries, while simultaneously sharing the green production technologies needed to reduce emissions.

This paper explores the impacts of the evolution of the dietary structure of the population on national food security using the food self-sufficiency rate under various statistical dimensions and... Show More

This paper explores the impacts of the evolution of the dietary structure of the population on national food security using the food self-sufficiency rate under various statistical dimensions and simulate various food security scenarios for China in the medium- and long-term future. This study indicates that China’s rapid economic and social development and the continuous improvement in people’s living standards appears to be declining in the food self-sufficiency rate. The analysis regarding the factors influencing the food self-sufficiency rate revealed that the improved dietary structure, involving an increase in animal-based food product consumption, has led to a decrease in China’s food self-sufficiency rate. It concludes that the dietary structure is likely to continue to move toward increased consumption of animal-based food products in China for the future. The research results will assist decision-makers in formulating scientific food self-sufficiency rate targets and food security strategies

The study draws upon the ethical theory of organizing to elucidate the links between ethical climate antecedents, organizational practices, and consequences. We also integrated organizing vision... Show More

The study draws upon the ethical theory of organizing to elucidate the links between ethical climate antecedents, organizational practices, and consequences. We also integrated organizing vision theory to examine the influence of diffusion of big data analytics innovation on sustainable business practices. The results indicate that organizational trust has a significant positive impact on ethics training and ethics audit, which is critical to South Africa's mining industry. Furthermore, the results indicate that ethical leadership is positively related to ethics training and ethics audits. Findings show that ethics training and ethics audit is positively related to sustainable business practices. Findings indicate that the vision constructed by community members is positively related to the diffusion of big data analytics innovation. We also found that the diffusion of big data analytics innovation is positively related to sustainable business practices. Lastly, findings show that sustainable business practices are positively related to firm performance.

How to balance resources, environment, and economic growth to achieve sustainable development is a challenge for developing countries. In 2013, China implemented a high-stringency environmental... Show More

How to balance resources, environment, and economic growth to achieve sustainable development is a challenge for developing countries. In 2013, China implemented a high-stringency environmental regulation—the Clean Air Action, which has effectively controlled air pollution. To explore the economic cost of environmental regulation, this paper investigates the policy effect on employment in the industrial sector. However, there are still controversies about whether environmental regulations impact employment. Based on the city-level data and firm-level data, this study applied a quasi-natural experiment for policy evaluation and used the mediating effect model for mechanism analysis. The difference-in-difference estimation results show that environmental regulation has a significant impact on employment. The mechanism analysis verifies that output adjustment, capital input, and green innovation are the main channels, by which environmental regulation distresses employment. The findings of this paper could be extended to other countries at a similar stage of development.

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is one of the most economically active regions in China, where an imbalance between the demand for land and the non-renewable is increasingly prominent. We... Show More

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is one of the most economically active regions in China, where an imbalance between the demand for land and the non-renewable is increasingly prominent. We present the patterns of land use in the YREB, then construct an evaluation index based on the Pressure-State-Response model. The TOPSIS model is used to evaluate sustainable land development in the YREB, and the spatial deductive characteristics of sustainable development levels are analyzed using three aspects: global spatial correlation, local spatial correlation, and regional difference. The results about the YREB show that: (1) The comprehensive sustainable land development score is average, indicating moderate sustainability with a fluctuating upward trend and good prospects. (2) The sustainable development levels of land have strong positive spatial correlation and agglomeration; the agglomeration characteristics follow a pattern similar to that of the status of economic development. (3) Sustainable development levels of land in the provinces and cities show great spatial differences.