中国经济评论最新文献

{"title":"China's aid-giving modalities: Impacts on sustainable growth in China-Africa trade","authors":"Xu Shao ,&nbsp;Qicheng Yang ,&nbsp;Zhao Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102370","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102370","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The paper focuses on exploring the impact of China's production-oriented aid projects on bilateral trade between China and Africa. By matching data from AidData, Eora Global MRIO, World Development Indicators (WDI), and CEPII Remote Database, regression results indicate that China's aid model significantly promotes sustainable growth in China-Africa bilateral trade. In the mechanism analysis, it is revealed that aid enhances African countries' autonomous trade capabilities across national, industrial, and product dimensions, thereby fostering the growth of bilateral trade between China and Africa, highlighting China's aid to Africa as development-oriented. Heterogeneity test results demonstrate that the positive effects of aid are more pronounced in African countries with high political stability, convergent values, and strong cooperative consensus. Unlike previous studies that overlook production-oriented aid projects, this paper delves into this dimension, offering novel insights into the effectiveness of non-standardized aid forms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102370"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143437655","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":"Productivity implications of inefficient environmental regulation: Evidence from China","authors":"Jing Hang ,&nbsp;Miaojun Wang ,&nbsp;Mohan Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102362","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102362","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Inefficient environmental regulations can lead to a misallocation of abatement efforts among firms, resulting in a loss of aggregate productivity. Beginning in 2006, the Chinese central government adopted a top-down approach to incentivize local officials to combat pollution through the “cadre evaluation system”, resulting in a significant emission reduction. This paper assesses the productivity implications stemming from the misallocation of abatement efforts due to this drastic regulation tightening. Utilizing data from Chinese manufacturing firms spanning the years 2000 to 2009, we document a significant increase in the dispersion of regulation intensity across firms. Through a structural accounting framework, we find that the misallocation of abatement efforts among firms (holding total emission constant) resulted in a 1.8% decrease in manufacturing total factor productivity (TFP) during the years 2006 to 2009, compared to the period before the regulation tightening.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102362"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143430084","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":"“A tale of two rails”: Transportation infrastructure and technological spillovers from R&D center foreign firms","authors":"Lei Li ,&nbsp;Bocong Liu ,&nbsp;Bin Sheng ,&nbsp;Tianyu Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Identifying the pure technology spillover effect of foreign investment is an academic problem. The academic community also knows little about the role of transportation infrastructure in it. For the first time, this article uses the special event of R&amp;D center foreign firms entering to explore how two completely different transportation infrastructures, high-speed rail, and subway, promote technology spillover from foreign investment within the same empirical framework. Based on city-industry-year panel data in China from 2004 to 2020, this article empirically proves that both high-speed rail and subway can promote R&amp;D center foreign firms' technology spillover. Further analysis found that transportation infrastructure and R&amp;D center foreign firms can jointly promote the development of China's key industries, that is, the core effect is stronger for high-tech and strategic emerging industries. This article also provides evidence about cross-city technology spillover from R&amp;D center foreign firms. First, this article takes advantage of the special nature of R&amp;D center foreign firms to provide new ideas for subsequent related research. Second, it empirically confirms that transportation infrastructure can promote foreign investment technology spillovers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102367"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143464439","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":"Broadband internet and income inequality among the floating population: Evidence from the “broadband China” strategy in China","authors":"Qingfeng Cao ,&nbsp;Pengfei Ni ,&nbsp;Jing Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102369","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102369","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using the “Broadband China” strategy as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ the difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of broadband internet on the income inequality among the floating population based on the panel data of 35 major cities in China from 2011 to 2018. We find that broadband internet significantly widens the income inequality among the floating population. This conclusion still holds after robust tests including parallel trends, placebo, endogeneity, and treatment effects heterogeneity. The mechanism analysis indicates that broadband internet widens income gap between the high-skilled and low-skilled floating population, as well as between the urban and non-urban registered household floating population, but does not substitute for labor. Further analysis shows that broadband internet leads to skill-biased technological progress rather than routine-biased technological progress, has a greater effect on widening the income inequality among the inter-province, established and young floating population, and represents a Pareto improvement for the floating population's welfare.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102369"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143421764","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":"Unlocking the dual benefits: Economic and ecological impacts of China's National Key Ecological Function Areas","authors":"Houqi Shen ,&nbsp;Yuanmeng Zhang ,&nbsp;Mingzhe Wang ,&nbsp;Yumeng Lei","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102365","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102365","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Protected areas have become one of the most important tools for ecosystem restoration, yet their multiple benefits have not been fully recognized. This study focuses on the multiple benefits of China's most influential protected areas policies—the National Key Ecological Function Areas (NKEFAs). Using multiple county-level datasets in China, we employ the staggered Difference-in-Differences method to empirically examine the economic and ecological impacts of NKEFAs. Our findings show that the establishment of NKEFAs significantly promotes local economic growth and ecological conservation, with these benefits intensifying over time. Mechanism analysis reveals that spatial agglomeration, economies of scale, industrial structure optimization, and ecological fiscal transfers are crucial drivers in achieving dual benefits. Furthermore, NKEFAs accelerates economic growth in poverty-stricken areas, though regions with high human activity face challenges in achieving ecological improvements. We also highlight the differences in impact between types of ecological function, with areas designated for windbreak and sand fixation, and water source conservation, struggling to achieve dual benefits. This study elucidates the dual benefits of NKEFAs, demonstrating their significant role in promoting both economic growth and ecological conservation, which contributes to the understanding of protected areas as tools for ecosystem restoration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102365"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143430286","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":"Urbanization or “Townization”? Measuring the evolution of urban systems in modern China","authors":"Hao Feng ,&nbsp;Jingyang Fu ,&nbsp;Huiwen Li ,&nbsp;Yuanbo Liang","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapid urbanization in China reveals distinct regional patterns: some areas demonstrate a pattern of concentrated growth of cities (“metropolization”), while others experience the rapid proliferation of dispersed small towns (“townization”). We present a novel approach for quantifying the size of urban settlements in China using remote sensing big data. Additionally, we propose a criterion based on Zipf's law to determine the population threshold for classifying a settlement as a “metropolized settlement.” This criterion enables us to distinguish between metropolization and townization. Analysis of China's urbanization rate decomposition indicates a swift expansion of townization, whereas metropolization progresses at a more moderate pace between 2001 and 2020. Townization has predominantly driven urbanization in most regions of the North China Plain and Northeastern provinces, overshadowing metropolization. Furthermore, we examine the connection between these urbanization patterns and economic development. Empirical findings highlight a stronger association between metropolization and economic growth compared to townization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102368"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453161","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":"Analysing decision behavior styles in contingent valuation: The latent class and the factor analysis","authors":"Hongyan Su ,&nbsp;Jie He ,&nbsp;Hua Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102363","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102363","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A better understanding of respondents' decision behaviors in contingent valuation (CV) is essential to reveal the true preferences of the public for environmental goods or services. Although the theoretical foundation of CV is based on the assumption of the full rationality of respondents, the literature provides various evidence of limited or partial rationality. In a CV survey of air quality improvement in China, we identified non-rational decision behavior style by adopting the latent class analysis and factor analysis methods, both of which are based on a series of questions related to decision behaviors initially proposed by Frör (2008). The application of the latent class model proposes the identification of two or three classes, with at least one more analytical reasoning group significantly differing from the other group(s). The factor analysis approach allowed us to identify two decision behavior factors, i.e., the analytical reasoning factor and the non-analytical reasoning factor. Our estimation results show that the analytical reasoning style is positively correlated with willingness-to-pay (WTP). Furthermore, the mediation tests conducted in the WTP determination models reveal that simply including respondents' socioeconomic, knowledge and perception characteristic questions in the survey to collect the information does not ensure that all the information conveyed by people's decision behavior style is captured.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102363"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143437741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How geopolitical tensions affect China’s systemic financial risk contagion","authors":"YingXue Zhou ,&nbsp;Da Wang ,&nbsp;Zhengyi Nie","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102366","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102366","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study calculates China’s net risk from the perspective of the global systemic financial risk spillover network, and constructs TVP-VAR-SV models for China to examine the time-varying effects of geopolitical exposure on aggregate systemic financial risk contagion and investigate the heterogeneous impacts across different financial submarkets. Furthermore, an innovative combination of machine learning techniques for contribution decomposition and time-varying effect analysis is introduced to identify time-varying channel effects, providing a reference for channel analysis in other studies.</div><div>The conclusions of this paper are: Firstly, geopolitical exposure has a significant and time-varying impact on systemic risk, with reaching its maximum nine months after the shock occurs. From the time dimension of the sample, the impact is the greatest during the 2012–2013 Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands incident. Moreover, the impact during the U.S.-China trade friction lasted for longer time. Secondly, geopolitical volatility has a heterogeneous effect on risk in different financial submarkets. In the short run, it mostly raises the risk in the equity market; in the medium run, it is the treasury market; and in the long run, it is the foreign exchange market. Thirdly, geopolitical exposures increase systemic risk spillovers through the international trade channel, the international capital flows channel, and the market sentiment channel. The capital channel has the greatest response to shocks. However, the effect of these three channels on raising risk spillovers is diminishing over time, while the effect of economic policy uncertainty is gradually increasing.</div><div>It is recommended in this paper that the department of systemic risk monitoring should add the assessment of the geopolitical situation to the risk management. In particular, foreign exchange market regulation should be strengthened during periods of geopolitical volatility to be vigilant against the possibility of long-term risks in the foreign exchange market. In terms of channels, China should develop diversified strategies. Given that the capital channel is the most dominant in terms of response strength, special efforts should be made to optimize the regulation of the capital market to enhance the resilience of China’s financial market. China should also be vigilant about the level of economic policy uncertainty and its growing impact. Finally, China should actively strengthen international cooperation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102366"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143430288","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 effect of corporate energy management on carbon productivity: Regression discontinuity evidence from China","authors":"Hongwei Yu ,&nbsp;Debin Fang ,&nbsp;Yuling Pan ,&nbsp;Bolin Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102364","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102364","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Achieving ambitious carbon reduction targets will inevitably require corporate-level action to reduce carbon emissions. Little research, however, quantitatively explores how to promote coordinated carbon reduction and economic gains from a micro-enterprise perspective. Based on <em>China's key energy-consuming units energy conservation management policy</em>, this paper employs a regression discontinuity design with <em>China Employer-Employee Survey</em> data to investigate the impact of energy management on carbon productivity at the firm level. We find that the policy significantly improves corporate energy management and carbon productivity. Every one standard deviation increase in energy management level will lead to a 101 % increase in carbon productivity relative to its mean. The currently low levels of energy management necessitate proactive energy management practices to enhance carbon productivity. The results are robust to bandwidth choices, placebo test, donut approach, and model specifications. This paper provides important insights for policymakers, corporate managers, and other stakeholders to improve corporate energy management systems and reduce carbon emissions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102364"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143464429","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":"Delegation and strategic collusion under antitrust policies: An experiment","authors":"Jeong Yeol Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102361","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102361","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When firm owners delegate decision-making to managers, such as corporate executives who operate firms directly, a firm's behavior can vary depending on how the owner determines the incentives of the managers. This study employs a lab experiment to investigate the impact of delegation on collusive behavior of firms in a situation where antitrust policies exist. The experiment highlights the following two key findings: (i) Firms form cartels strategically, alternating their collusive and competitive output to evade antitrust regulations, rather than consistently producing collusive output to maximize joint profits; and (ii) Delegation does not necessarily increase the overall number of cartels, but it may change how cartels are formed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48285,"journal":{"name":"中国经济评论","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102361"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143379380","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}