中国经济评论最新文献

{"title":"Unintended negative impact of environmental regulation on public safety: Evidence from China","authors":"Yichuan Zhang ,&nbsp;Jiezhong Shen ,&nbsp;Tianyun Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102562","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102562","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the unintended effect of air pollution regulations on public safety. Based on a city-level panel data set, we document first evidence of the causal relationship between environmental regulations and crime rate, using difference-in-differences approach. Specifically, we find that the well-known “2+26” work plan of air pollution control for Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Atmospheric Pollution Transmission Corridor increased the incidence of intentional injury, provocation and troublemaking, dangerous driving, theft, and robbery in a statistical sense. Regarding the underlying mechanism, environmental regulations may cause substantial job displacement, which in turn triggers negative emotions and psychological distress, ultimately increasing both economically motivated and emotionally driven crimes. Our empirical results imply extra social cost of environmental regulations, which has been mostly overlooked in the literature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102562"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145157635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of experience in climate adaptation: Evidence from a field experiment in China","authors":"Yihong Ding ,&nbsp;Elizabeth Robinson ,&nbsp;Kelvin Balcombe","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102589","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102589","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper extends the existing individual decision-making framework of adapting to climate change by considering the effects of prior personal experience in shaping risk preferences. Conducting Prospect Theory-based “lab-in-field” risk experiments in rural areas of Xinjiang Province, we elicit Chinese farmers' risk curvature and probability bias by adopting more flexible Prelec's two-parameter probability functions. Using Bayesian approaches to estimation, we find that farmers' prior experiences not only provide information that influences the subjective distributions of future outcomes but also, by shaping farmers' personal risk preferences, affects how farmers absorb and update this information. As such, our research suggests that individual risk preferences can evolve, and the effects of personal experience on preferences exhibit distinct patterns depending on whether farmers face benefits or losses. Experiencing production damages tends to make farmers more averse to losses and increases their optimistic bias concerning personal loss risks. A policy implication of these findings is that it is crucial to reduce farmers' cognitive biases regarding their own climate-related losses and their over-reliance on personal experiences in order to make accurate risk management decisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102589"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145464888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Next stop innovation: Subway stations opening and spatial agglomeration of high-tech enterprises","authors":"Meng Shen ,&nbsp;Hongfu Li ,&nbsp;Liyuan Ma ,&nbsp;Jie Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102585","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102585","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The establishment and improvement of public transport systems, particularly subways, are reshaping the spatial distribution of high-tech enterprises in cities. We employed a time-varying difference-in-differences method to investigate the agglomeration of high-tech enterprises in the vicinity of 363 Beijing subway stations opened between 2000 and 2022. Our findings reveal that the opening of the subway stations resulted in a significant increase in the number of high-tech enterprises in the surrounding areas. The construction of subway lines effectively increased accessibility to the outer city and significantly enhanced innovative activities in the peripheral areas, while having no significant impact on the inner city. Subway stations connected to the original innovation center had a more pronounced effect on innovation compared to other stations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102585"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145464889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Political career incentives and multitasking trade-off: Evidence from setting performance targets in Chinese cities","authors":"Zhouling Bai ,&nbsp;Pan Zhang ,&nbsp;Hongtao Yi","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102537","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102537","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Though the goal-setting theory has attracted much attention, current research neglects how the principal-agent structure shapes agents' target-setting. This study estimates how principal-agent incentive arrangements affect target-setting from the micro-level perspective of local officials. Using a novel fuzzy regression discontinuity design, it shows that China's political selection system creates a significant downward discontinuity in city-level agents' political career advancement prospects at the 55-year-old age threshold, and city agents with weaker age-based career incentives set lower GDP growth targets than those with stronger ones. Moreover, this effect decreases when these agents are under increased pressure to curb environmental pollution. The subperiod analysis suggests that the strategic target-setting behavior of local agents evolves dynamically in response to changes in performance evaluation criteria. It contributes to the target-setting theory in principal-agent contexts, featuring a rigorous political promotion ladder and trade-offs associated with multiple tasks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102537"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144931821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Centuries of memory: Historical disasters and modern household savings","authors":"Dongmin Yao,&nbsp;Aohan Xu,&nbsp;Shiyu Zhang,&nbsp;Shuguang Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102511","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102511","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impact of historical disasters on contemporary household saving rates in China. Using a unique dataset that combines detailed disaster records from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911) and China Family Panel Studies, this study reveals that historical disasters significantly increase contemporary household saving rates. Robustness tests confirm this result. Mechanism analysis suggests that risk preference is a key channel: historical disasters increase risk aversion, thereby strengthening the motivation for precautionary saving. A theoretical model of cultural transmission is developed, and heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is stronger in regions with more diverse cultural transmission channels, as reflected in more deeply rooted Confucian and clan cultures. By incorporating historical and cultural perspectives, this study offers a novel explanation for the persistently high household saving rates observed in China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102511"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144772501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The impact of intelligent automation on subjective well-being and job satisfaction: A comparison between standard and nonstandard employment","authors":"Hongye Sun,&nbsp;Gongjing Gao","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102524","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102524","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The accelerating global adoption of intelligent automation (IA) technologies is fundamentally transforming economic structures and reshaping individual lifestyles. Despite intense debate regarding the societal impacts of IA, including both beneficial and adverse effects, empirical evidence on its net influence on multidimensional well-being outcomes remains scarce. Drawing on a nationally representative dataset from China (2018–2020), we employed multilevel probit models with instrumental variables to investigate how IA influences subjective well-being (SWB) and job satisfaction (JS), differentiating between standard and nonstandard employment contexts. Our findings revealed distinct nonlinear relationships: an inverted U-shaped pattern between IA and SWB, versus a U-shaped relationship between IA and JS, with turning points above the 35th and 80th percentiles of IA intensity distribution, respectively. These contrasting trajectories suggest that IA’s impacts vary considerably between consumption utility and production utility domains. The results demonstrate significant heterogeneity in the well-being effects of IA across different forms of employment. Specifically, within standard employment arrangements, IA exerts strong marginal diminishing effects on JS, though with an earlier turning point as IA intensity increases. Moreover, our counterfactual decomposition analysis verifies that IA contributes to narrowing the overall SWB and JS gaps between standard and nonstandard forms of employment by approximately 13% and 19%, respectively. Our mediation analysis identified three distinct transmission mechanisms — psychological factors, social interactions, and structural inequality — through which IA influences well-being, with mental exhaustion and actual inequality accounting for 38% and 30% of the total negative effect of IA on JS, respectively. These findings suggest that policy interventions would ensure balanced technological integration to maximize technology’s welfare benefits while mitigating its polarizing tendencies. This study provides important implications for understanding how technological transformation shapes human well-being across increasingly segmented global labor markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102524"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144921563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The costs of duty exemptions in processing trade","authors":"Jianpeng Deng ,&nbsp;Zi Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a theory in which developing countries may lose from using duty exemptions to encourage processing trade. Our model features that (i) processing exports have a much lower domestic value-added share (DVAS) than ordinary exports and domestic sales, and (ii) domestic production exhibits external economies of scale. Consequently, the welfare effects of duty exemptions can be decomposed into two main components: (i) the <em>direct effect</em> captures welfare gains through reduced input costs and access to a greater variety of imported inputs. In contrast, (ii) the <em>market size effect</em> reflects welfare losses due to the contraction of domestic production, driven by the reallocation of labor away from high-DVAS production to low-DVAS processing production. We then calibrate our model to the Chinese firm-level data and aggregate trade flows across 47 economies. Our counterfactual analysis shows that the welfare losses associated with the market size effect outweigh the welfare gains from the direct effect, resulting in a reduction in China’s real income.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102523"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144921565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Learning from winning firms: Government innovation procurement and peer innovation efficiency","authors":"Hui Jiang ,&nbsp;Yu Liu ,&nbsp;Junqi Dong","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102543","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102543","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Governments are major purchasers of goods and services globally. Although previous research highlights the role of government procurement in shaping business activities, the spillover effects on peer firms' innovation efficiency remain unexplored. Through a textual analysis that distinguishes innovation procurement from general government purchases, this study investigates the effects and underlying mechanisms of government innovation procurement on the innovation efficiency of peer firms. We find that government innovation procurement significantly enhances peer firms' innovation efficiency. Our mechanism analyses reveal that government innovation procurement sends positive signals, increasing peer firms' citations of procured firms' patents, thereby improving their innovation efficiency. The heterogeneity analyses indicate that this positive relationship is more pronounced when peer firms occupy comparable market positions, operate in regions with high-speed rail, have common analysts with the procured firms, and are classified as high-tech enterprises. We also find that central government procurement, cross-regional procurement, and evaluation methods involving “competitive consultation and negotiation” significantly enhance peer firms' innovation efficiency. Overall, our findings provide theoretical guidance and practical insights for governments to foster firm innovation and advance high-quality industrial development through innovation procurement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102543"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The employment effects of VAT rebate efficiency: Evidence from SMEs in China∗","authors":"Bing Lu ,&nbsp;Hong Ma ,&nbsp;Jiashu Hu ,&nbsp;Yuan Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102561","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102561","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are pivotal for job creation in China. This study investigates whether improving the efficiency of Value-Added Tax (VAT) rebates can promote employment in SMEs. Using firm-level data from the National Tax Survey and Chinese Customs, we find that reducing VAT rebate delays significantly increases SME employment, both on the intensive margin—by expanding employment within existing firms—and on the extensive margin—by reducing the probability of exit from export markets. Furthermore, SMEs that face greater financial constraints exhibit heightened sensitivity to VAT rebate delays. Our findings highlight the importance of streamlining VAT rebate processes, particularly for financially constrained firms, to boost employment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102561"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145219823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does digital finance affect energy consumption structure upgrading? Evidence from Chinese rural households","authors":"Debao Hu ,&nbsp;Yutian Lei ,&nbsp;Chenzhe Zhai ,&nbsp;Jiaxin Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102515","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102515","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As carbon neutrality debates escalate, household energy use has gained prominence of scholars. However, existing studies overly focus on consumption expenditure while sidelining the impact of digital finance. This research utilized Chinese household microdata to explore the nexus between digital finance and household energy structure. The empirical results confirm its facilitative effect. The mechanisms of action include infrastructure construction, increased household environmental literacy, improved payment environments, and enhanced risk hedging ability. Regional and policy heterogeneities exist, and the energy structure upgrading aligns with the energy stacking theory. The findings thus shed light on digital finance's role in promoting sustainable household energy transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102515"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144704144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}