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Using the value-added method in the global input-output framework, embedded carbon transfers between economies are measured. Then, the international embedded carbon network (IECN) models are constructed and analyzed to reveal the real pattern of the IECN. Influential factors of the IECN are further explored with Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP). The main findings are as follows: first, the IECN has the characteristics of small world and scale-free. Developed economies led by the USA have high centrality indicators and always occupy the core position in the network; the network position of China and India has risen significantly with different network characteristics. Second, the subgroup relationships of the carbon network implied by international trade are becoming more and more complex and diverse, economies' participation in the global carbon chain is gradually increasing, and the number of edge nodes are decreasing. Third, the results of QAP analysis show that in addition to the negative impact of geographical distance on embedded carbon transfers between economies, inter-country trade agreement relations, differences in industrial structure, energy intensity, environmental regulation, economic size, and population size have a positive impact on embedded carbon transfers between economies. These findings can provide important practice implications for the global carbon neutrality., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The construction of trade power and green low-carbon transformation are common high-quality development goals for countries worldwide. The depth of the environmental provisions contained in different countries' intercountry trade agreements and the implicit carbon data of intercountry trade are accurately measured based on the textual analysis of trade agreement rules, and it is empirically found that enhancing the depth of the environmental provisions contained in trade agreements can significantly reduce CO 2 emissions embodied in international trade. The capacity of intercountry green technology cooperation to strengthen the internal environmental governance capacity of countries and to enhance carbon productivity is an important transmission mechanism. The effect of the environmental provisions in different types of trade agreements on reducing trade-implied carbon is obviously heterogeneous; the higher the level of correlation with carbon emissions is, the stronger the effect of trade agreement provisions, and that effect is more significant in developed countries and in the reduction of foreign carbon emissions that are embedded in export products. In this paper, the impact of the depth of the environmental provisions of trade agreements on trade-implied carbon under the same framework is directly studied, which not only advances the measurement of the depth of the environmental provisions of trade agreements and expands the research field on the scope of influence of existing trade agreements but also fully accounts for the role of the effectiveness of environmental provisions in different contexts and provides a theoretical basis for the optimization of future environmental provisions., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China has significantly increased trade in countries along the Belt and Road (B&R). Since most of these countries are developing and emerging economies, the pressure to reduce carbon emissions poses a leading challenge for them. Carbon productivity has become a key indicator for assessing the degree of low-carbon development, as it can link economic development with CO 2 emission reduction. However, few studies have investigated how international trade affects carbon productivity. Based on panel data from 43 countries along the B&R during 2001-2019, this paper uses a system GMM model to explore the impact of international trade on carbon productivity. Then, we divide the 43 countries in the sample into two groups according to their income levels to compare the different effects of international trade on carbon productivity. The results show that, first, the carbon productivity of the examined B&R countries has an overall increasing trend, and there is a significant heterogeneity of carbon productivity among countries with different income levels. Second, the effects of international trade, export, and import on carbon productivity are all significantly positive, and export's effect is higher than import. In the high-income group, carbon productivity is more likely to be improved by trade than in the middle (low)-income group. Third, economic development level, urbanization, and energy productivity are positively associated with carbon productivity, while CO 2 per capita and government size inhibit carbon productivity improvement. Insight into the impact of international trade on carbon productivity provides theoretical support for B&R countries to better leverage foreign trade activities to achieve a green economy., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the context of increasing global resource and environmental problems, it is of great practical significance to accurately test the impact of various factors on energy use efficiency for maintaining national energy security and formulating relevant policies. This paper measures firms' total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) using the two-stage stochastic frontier method within the data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework, leveraging data from listed firms in China spanning 2010 to 2022. Employing the establishment of free trade zones (FTZs) as a quasi-natural experiment, we apply the staggered differences-in-differences (DID) and stacked DID methods and analyze the impact of FTZs on firms' TFEE. The results show that the establishment of FTZs significantly promotes the improvement of firms' TFEE, and it has a greater promotion effect on heavily polluting, non-manufacturing, state-owned, private, and small-scale firms. The results of the mechanistic analysis showed that the promotion effect of FTZs on firms' TFEE is mainly realized through three channels: increasing government subsidies, reducing the financing constraint effect, and encouraging the technology innovation effect. Furthermore, industry-level decomposition results indicate that the surge in industry energy efficiency primarily results from improvements within firms rather than inter-industry variations. This paper's results propose that countries can enhance energy efficiency by progressively endorsing the implementation of FTZs., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The concept of sustainability in the context of human resource management (HRM), or more precisely, green HRM, has significantly transformed in recent years. Human resources are an important and valuable asset of a firm. In this research, green HRM is concentrated on the areas where HRM is held accountable for the company's sustainability initiatives. The research examines the effects of green HRM on organizational performance in China while considering the mediating roles of green innovation (GI), green employee behavior (GEB), and organizational culture. The data was gathered from 316 HR specialists working in various Chinese manufacturing businesses to meet the study's goals. A self-administered questionnaire utilizing the preexisting scale is used to obtain the data (detail is provided in Table 1). The smart PLS 4 structural equation modeling approach is applied for the data analysis. The study results indicate that green HRM practices influence green innovation (GI), green culture (GC), and green employee behavior (GEB). Furthermore, results also suggest that GI, GC, and GEB influence the organization's sustainable performance (SP). The research has several theoretical, methodological, and practical ramifications for many stakeholders, including the Chinese security exchange commissions, firms' senior management, academics, and HR specialists., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Green innovations are the most critical factor in promoting environmental sustainability worldwide. Trade can speed up the adoption of green innovations by facilitating the transfer of information, skills, and technology. However, trade policy uncertainty can create significant challenges for businesses investing in eco-innovations, leading to increased risk, reduced investment, and slower progress toward sustainable technologies. Recently, a growing number of researchers have shown their interest in finding the factors that can impact green innovations, but none have investigated the influence of trade policy uncertainty on green innovations in the USA and China. In addition, none of the past studies has relied on the nonlinear assumption. This analysis fills these gaps by examining the nonlinear impacts of trade policy uncertainty on eco-innovations in China and the USA over 2000Q1-2021Q4 by employing a nonlinear ARDL model. The finding reveals that a positive shock in trade policy uncertainty results in a decrease in green innovation in the USA and China, while a negative shock in trade policy uncertainty leads to an increase in green innovation in the USA over the long run. The nonlinear models also indicate that a positive shock in trade policy uncertainty harms green innovation in both the USA and China in the short run. The robustness of these results is confirmed by the NQARDL model, which confirms that an upsurge in trade policy uncertainty lowers green innovation in most quantiles in the USA and China in the short and long run. Conversely, negative shocks in trade policy uncertainty stimulate green innovation at most quantiles in both China and the USA, in the short and long run. Thus, policymakers need to consider the potential impact of trade policies on eco-innovations and work to create stable and predictable trade environments that support the growth of renewable technologies and other sustainable solutions., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The economic and environmental consequences of bad banking practices have aroused much attention. In China, banks are at the center of shadow banking activities through which they avoid regulation and support environmentally unfriendly businesses such as fossil fuel companies and other high-pollution enterprises. In this paper, we study the impact of bank's engagement in shadow banking activities on its sustainability by using annual panel data of Chinese commercial banks. The result shows that bank's engagement in shadow banking activities has a negative impact on its sustainability and the negative impact of bank's engagement in shadow banking activities is more pronounced for city commercial banks and unlisted banks which are less regulated and lack corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, we explore the underlying mechanism of our findings and prove that bank's sustainability is impeded because it transforms high-risk loan into shadow banking activities which are less regulated. Finally, by using difference-in-difference (DiD) approach, we find that bank's sustainability improved after the financial regulation on shadow banking activities. Our research provides empirical evidence that the financial regulation on bad banking practices is beneficial for bank's sustainability., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

A new route perspective measure based on the global value chain (GVC) distinguishes the embodied emission transfer destinations while concurrently considering the transfer process and GVC embedding position. This study applies this measure to reassess the characteristics of China's foreign trade embodied emissions and their impacts on global emissions. The results show that: (1) China's domestic embodied emission exports are mainly concentrated in manufacturing and dominated by final goods exports and simple GVC routes. China primarily imports foreign emissions via simple GVC routes. (2) The embodied emission intensity of China's exports is much higher than that of its imports, and China's expansion in imports indirectly promoted global emission reduction. (3) China's foreign trade increases global emissions with a waning trend, while GVC-related trade reduces global emissions. Additionally, it is feasible to reduce global emissions by adjusting China's bilateral trade structures with different countries. We conclude that China's GVC-related trade has increased, but exports through complex GVC tend to be the resource-input type. We emphasize that China needs to actively participate in globalization and upgrade its GVC to step off the low-end locking predicament in global production and cope with the multiple pressures of global and domestic emission reduction and stable development., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

With increasing environmental degradation, green finance and green innovation have attracted the attention of policymakers and industries. However, the impact of green finance on corporate green innovation is still unexplored. Based on signal theory, this study analyzes the mixed effect of green finance on green innovation in enterprises. We use data from 31 provinces (333 cities in total) in China in 2021 and use a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method. Green finance factors include green credit, green bond, green investment, green insurance, and green subsidy. Our research findings are as follows: Firstly, green innovation in businesses is not a product of a single antecedent situation but rather the interaction of several antecedent conditions. Green insurance and green subsidy are the core prerequisites for high green innovation in enterprises, and green credit plays an auxiliary role. Secondly, when there is a lack of green insurance, green bonds and green subsidies play a key role, leading to a high level of green innovation in businesses. Thirdly, the impact of various antecedents on the level of green innovation performance in enterprises is asymmetric. Policymakers should fully leverage the effect of green subsidy signals and minimize the risks of green innovation by expanding financing channels. Our findings enrich the literature on green innovation and finance and provide beneficial practical insights for green innovation in enterprises., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The article presents a study on China's document trends and causal factors from 1995 to 2005 with regards to paper and pulp products imports and exports through gravity model. A table is presented that depicts the boost of pulp and paper which coincides with bilateral negotiations of an entry to the World Trade Organization(WTO) with the European Union and the United States. The leading importers which accounted of about 62% of China's annual exporting were Hong Kong, United States, and Japan while Great Britain. South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia accounted of about 2% each. Also presented are the result of the study as with the use of gravity model..

Technological advancement and innovations not only transformed businesses but also optimize numerous functional areas of financial services. Besides, green finance and fintech are also essential tools to achieve sustainable development agendas. Thus, it is imperative to document the evidence that how conducive such factors are to achieve 2030 sustainable development goals. The study, in this regard, is aimed to scrutinize innovation, green finance, financial technologies, and ESG factors altogether in order to determine their effectiveness on sustainable development in Gulf countries in the time span of 2000-2020. The study opts for methods of moments quantile regression (MMQR) and claim that green finance, green innovation, and fintech helps in achieving sustainable development goals. However, among ESG factors, social and governance role is negative in the sampled economies. Findings are interesting for policy makers and government institutions because it assists them to improve governance evaluation system and classification standards so that countries may no longer experience hindrance when indulging in sustainable development actions., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The study investigated "Building Ecological Civilization: the Importance of Promoting Green Investments by Chinese Companies" to examine the complex connections between the factors affecting Chinese businesses' ecological performance (EP). An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is used in the study to analyze the impact of green investments (GI), the policy environment (PE), government support (GS), public awareness and perception (PAP), and technological capability (TC) on companies' earnings per share (EPS). The results show a strong correlation between GI and EP, indicating that businesses' growing use of green initiatives is essential for raising environmental sustainability. The study also shows that PE, TC, and EP have an inverse relationship, indicating the need for more supportive governmental policies and regulations and the effective adoption and implementation of green technologies. The interaction of GS and PAP significantly reduces the ecological impact of green investments, highlighting the significance of citizen involvement and the role of government in advancing ecological civilization. The findings also demonstrated that green investments, policy environments, public perception, and technology influence the ecological performance of businesses. They also demonstrate statistical robustness with low p-values. This information is essential for developing policies that support an ecological civilization, which is necessary for China and globally in light of the current climate crisis., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Innovation has become the driving force behind China's economy's sustainable growth. Due to the efficient transmission of taxation leverage, preferential tax policies are frequently used to stimulate innovation. Therefore, the incentive effect of preferential tax policies on sustainable innovation has gradually become the focus of attention. This paper takes the 2016-2019 China A-share listed high-tech enterprises as a sample, calculates tax incentive intensity with the aid of B-index, and studies the incentive effect of preferential tax policies on the sustainability of corporate innovation. This study shows that: (1) Tax incentive intensity has a positive incentive effect on corporate sustainable innovation. (2) The R&D expenses plus deduction policy and the preferential tax rate policy can significantly enhance corporate sustainable innovation, but there is a substitution effect between them. (3) Based on the heterogeneity of institutional environment and enterprise characteristics, the incentive effect of tax preferential policies is more obvious in enterprises which are non-state-owned and in areas with low government intervention and sound legal system. However, the incentive effect of different types of preferential policies differs in the size of the enterprise. This study will provide reference for the improvement of preferential tax policy system and the optimization of innovation policy environment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

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Countries become global leaders by controlling international and domestic transactions connecting geographically dispersed production stages. We model global trade as a multi-layer network and study its power structure by investigating the tendency of eigenvector centrality to concentrate on a small fraction of countries, a phenomenon called localization transition. We show that the market underwent a significant drop in power concentration precisely in 2007 just before the global financial crisis. That year marked an inflection point at which new winners and losers emerged and a remarkable reversal of leading role took place between the two major economies, the US and China. We uncover the hierarchical structure of global trade and the contribution of individual industries to variations in countries' economic dominance. We also examine the crucial role that domestic trade played in leading China to overtake the US as the world's dominant trading nation. There is an important lesson that countries can draw on how to turn early signals of upcoming downturns into opportunities for growth. Our study shows that, despite the hardships they inflict, shocks to the economy can also be seen as strategic windows countries can seize to become leading nations and leapfrog other economies in a changing geopolitical landscape., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

This study aims to explore the driving determinants on the export-related carbon intensity (ECI) of China, to better understand the impact of international trade on climate change governance and facilitate China's carbon intensity mitigation goals. First, China's ECI evolution and its gaps with the USA and India are measured during 2002-2014. Then, the main drivers of China's ECIvert study further discusses the influencing factors of ECI in the manufacturing industry using the environmental-extended STIRPAT model and GMM method. The results show that (1) China's overall ECI increases from 1.50 Kg/US$ in 2002 to 1.92 Kg/US$ in 2005 and then decreases to 1.27 Kg/US$ in 2014. The ECI of the manufacturing industry is significantly higher than that of the agriculture and service industry. China's ECI gap with the USA is greater than that with India, and both show a downward trend. (2) Carbon emission coefficient is the domain factor to reduce China's ECI during 2002-2014; the effects of the value-added coefficient, input-output structure, and final demand are limited. The input structure dominantly expands China's ECI gaps both with the USA and India, followed by the value-added coefficient. The carbon emission coefficient enlarges the ECI gap with the USA while reduces that with India. (3) Industrial productivity and value-added rate are negatively correlated with ECI in the manufacturing industry, while per capita capital stock plays the opposite role. The positive correlation between energy intensity and CIE becomes significant after distinguishing technology heterogeneity. In contrast to the non-tech-intensive manufacturing industry, the increase of backward GVCs participation of tech-intensive ones will reduce the ECI. The threshold effect of backward GVCs participation exists in the whole manufacturing industry. Targeted ECI reduction policy implications are suggested., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper examines the impact of earthquake risk on the lending behavior of local Chinese banks. The results show that when facing earthquake risk, banks will adjust their lending behavior, including decreasing the amount of loans and mortgage loans and increasing credit loans and loan loss provision, but the effect only exists for banks without inter-provincial branches or that are located in cities with a higher population density. In general, earthquake risk cannot significantly affect the performance of banks, but it can deteriorate the performance of banks that have not adjusted their lending behavior., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

We use input-output analysis and Levinson's structural decomposition method to measure China's CO 2 emissions under the no-trade hypothesis, to calculate how international trade affects China's emissions. We also analyze the driving factors of the difference between hypothetical no-trade CO 2 emissions and actual emissions and discuss the existence of "Pollution Haven Hypothesis" (PHH) in China. The results show that (1) from 2000 to 2017, the hypothetical no-trade CO 2 emissions are 2.43-14.67% lower than actual emissions. The scale effect is the main cause of this difference, while the composition effect fluctuates and has little impact. (2) Although exports make other economies' CO 2 emissions transfer to China, imports also help avoid China's emissions from some carbon-intensive sectors. (3) International trade has little impact on the cleanliness of China's industry composition. The no-trade industry composition is slightly cleaner than the actual one before 2010, after which trade improves the cleanliness of industry composition to a small extent. PHH is invalid for China in recent years, and results for most developing countries do not support PHH. (4) The relationship between no-trade effects and income per capita for all the economies does not also support PHH. Most economies reduce emissions, and their industry compositions are cleaner because of trade, regardless of their development degree. Trade will not severely influence China's future emission reduction, and improving the cleanliness of carbon-intensive sectors should be paid more attention to., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The objective of study is to test the role of access to finance between environment friendly technological adoption model for reshaping green consumer adoption pattern. For this, fuzzy-analytic approach is applied on Chinese model. The study findings highlighted that the environment friendly business initiatives must be maintained for longer durations to maintain environmental stability while time-honored techniques of controlling the environment evolve. In China, the technology acceptance model (TAM) in eco-friendly e-commerce increases consumer adoption goals for ecologically responsible items and creates new avenues for securing funding. The theoretical underpinnings of this study come from the fields of rational choice and planned behavior. Fifteen Chinese e-commerce professionals provided information for the research. Pythagorean fuzzy (PAHP) and FTOPSIS techniques are used to predict the results. The research results provide light on how TAM shapes the mindset, values, and goals of eco-conscious online shoppers in China, allowing them to get financial access while also helping to preserve the country's natural resources. Both theoretical and practical suggestions suggested directions to the key stakeholders to obtain financial access so that green consumer adoption may enhance for towards the adoption of environment friendly technology models., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The green financial policy is one of the important policy tools for China to achieve the national carbon peak goal and carbon neutrality through financial means. How financial development affects the growth of international trade has been an important research topic. This paper uses the Pilot Zones for Green Finance Reform and Innovations (PZGFRI) implemented in 2017 as a natural experiment drawing on the relevant data of Chinese provinces' panel data from 2010 to 2019. It adopts a difference in difference (DID) model to assess the impact of green finance on export green-sophistication (EGS). The results report that the PZGFRI significantly improves EGS, and the result remains robust after robustness checks such as parallel trend and placebo. The PZGFRI improves EGS by boosting total factor productivity, industrial structure upgrading, and green technology innovation. Moreover, the role of PZGFRI in promoting EGS is significantly reflected in the central and western regions and the regions with low-marketization levels. This study confirms that green finance is an important factor influencing the quality improvement of China's exports, which provides effective evidence from the reality level for China to vigorously promote the construction of a green financial system in recent years., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The objective of this paper is to analyze structural characteristics and the evolution of "international trade-carbon emissions" network in the equipment manufacturing industry. To do so, we construct four kinds of networks, namely export trade network (E network), export implied carbon emission network (EC network), foreign value-added network (FVA network), and foreign value-added implied carbon emission network (FVAC network) for the said industry. The data obtained from world-input-output table and social network analysis method was used for empirical analysis. The results indicate that (1) the four types of networks show a trend of denseness, which also has the characteristics of trade clustering effect and small-world network. As the equipment manufacturing industry in various countries is increasingly embedded in the global value chain, the value chain is extended globally, which leads to the complexity of the international carbon transfer network. (2) The four types of networks' pattern are basically stable. Germany plays an important intermediary role. Whereas China is deeply involved in the division of global value chain and has achieved the shift from the edge to the core in all four types of networks, but there is still a big gap compared with Germany. (3) The E network and EC network have the obvious core-edge feature, and the two kinds of networks can be divided into developed countries block represented by Germany, Japan, the USA; developing countries block represented by China and India; and European Union block represented by Spain and France. The developing world receives carbon emission transfer from the developed world. Finally, (4) the division of FVA network and FVAC network segment shows that the global value chain under the current international division of labor is characterized by multi-regionalization. Therefore, actively embedding in the regional value chain has become an important way for China's equipment manufacturing industry to upgrade to low carbon.

The problem for developed and developing economies is achieving sustainable development and cleaner production. Income, institutional regulations, institutional quality, and international trade are the primary factors of environmental externalities. This research looks at 29 provinces in China between 2000 and 2020 to determine the effect of green finance, environmental regulations, income, urbanization, and waste management on renewable energy generation. Similarly, the current study uses the CUP-FM and CUP-BC for the empirical estimation. More precisely, the study shows the positive influences of environmental taxes, green finance index, income, urbanization, and waste management in renewable energy investment. However, the different measures of green finance, such as financial depth, financial stability, and financial efficiency, also positively contribute to renewable energy investment. Therefore, it can be considered the best solution to environmental sustainability. However, imperative policy implications are given to attain the peak of renewable energy investment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Developing countries are struggling to balance the economic development and environment protection. This paper examines the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on firm-level environmental performance in China. Using the staggered expansion of China's passenger-dedicated HSR and the panel data of Chinese manufacturing firm-level data from 2002 to 2012, we find that firms exhibit a lower level of chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions after the opening of HSR. The average geographical slope of city is used as an instrumental variable to address the potential endogeneity problem of the HSR variable. Furthermore, the reduction effect of HSR introduction on firms' COD emission intensity is more pronounced for firms that located in eastern regions as well as technology-intensive and labor-intensive firms. Agglomeration economies, scale effects, and technological innovation are three plausible channels that allow HSR to promote firm environmental performance. Our paper provides new insights into the impacts of introduction of HSR on firm environmental performance and the development of green city., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The improvement of corporate ESG performance is of great significance to the high quality and sustainable development of the economy. Governments in various countries have introduced many tax incentives to motivate companies to actively fulfill their ESG responsibilities. However, no research has been conducted in academia to study the relationship between tax incentives and ESG performance. This study aims to fill the gap in this area and investigate whether tax incentives can effectively motivate the improvement of corporate ESG performance. Using a two-way fixed effects model, this paper empirically investigates the relationship between tax incentives and corporate ESG performance and the paths of action, using Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as the research sample, and finds that (1) tax incentives significantly contribute to the enhancement of corporate ESG performance; (2) financing constraints play a partly mediating role in the relationship between tax incentives and corporate ESG performance; (3) a favorable business environment can enhance the promotional effect of tax incentives on corporate ESG performance; (4) the incentive effect of tax incentives on corporate ESG performance is more significant among state-owned enterprises, enterprises in the eastern region, larger enterprises, enterprises with more concentrated equity, and enterprises with better quality of internal control. The research in this paper enriches the research perspective on the factors influencing corporate ESG performance and provides strong empirical evidence to support the implementation and improvement of ESG-related tax incentives, helping the implementation of the concept of sustainable development and high-quality economic development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The existing studies ignore the potential impact of e-commerce on CO 2 emissions. Based on panel data of 284 cities at the prefecture level and above in China from 2003 to 2019, we regard National E-commerce Demonstration Cities (NEDC) policy as a quasi-natural experiment and empirically examine the impact and mechanism of NEDC policy on urban CO 2 emissions by using multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model and mediating effect model. The results show that, under the premise of satisfying parallel trends, the NEDC policy significantly reduces urban CO 2 emissions. Compared with the non-pilot cities, the NEDC policy leads to decreases in urban CO 2 emissions by 0.83%. The result still holds after a series of robustness tests, which include placebo test, propensity score matching (PSM) DID estimation, and instrumental variable estimation. The NEDC policy reduces urban CO 2 emissions through promoting industrial structure upgrading, green technology innovation, and economic agglomeration. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the reduction effect of NEDC policy on urban CO 2 emissions is stronger in non-western cities, larger scale cities, and resource-based cities., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Capital providers have placed increasing importance on risks associated with transitioning to a low-carbon economy. This study investigates the causal link between energy regulation and cost of debt financing by exploiting regional variations in stringency of the dual control system of total energy consumption and energy intensity (dual controls) to construct a continuous difference-in-difference model. We use a sample of A-share listed firms in 2010-2020 and find that tighter energy regulation leads to higher cost of debt financing. We find that the underlying mechanism is risk premium brought by compliance cost and uncertainties. Further analysis indicates that the impact of dual controls is mainly driven by non-state-owned firms. Lastly, capital providers did not differentiate the interest rates they charge companies based on their level of green transition., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

It is still controversial whether environmental information disclosure (EID) can alleviate firms' financing constraints. Existing studies have not addressed the issue of whether internal control can address the financing constraint in the context of institutional weaknesses and managerial opportunism of environmental information disclosure quality (EIDQ). Therefore, through constructing multiple linear regression analysis, we empirically studied the impact of EIDQ on the financing constraint of Chinese firms and the moderating effect of internal controls on the above relationship. The findings showed that (1) improving EIDQ could significantly alleviate the financing constraint problem of enterprises, and the mitigation effect is more significant among non-state enterprises; (2) the quality of internal control helps to strengthen the mitigation effect of EIDQ on the financing constraint; and (3) further research found that the mitigation effect of EIDQ on financing constraints was more significant in a sample with a high degree of marketization, stricter government regulation, and non-political affiliation among non-state-owned enterprises. This study provides new ideas for promoting institutional optimization of EID and the development of green finance., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study performed a comparative analysis of changes in the operating status of initial surviving disaster-stricken businesses and non-disaster-stricken businesses in Lushan County, China, after a devastating earthquake on 20 April 2013. It used a logistic regression model to explore the key factors associated with 'post-disaster continued business operation' in the long term. Field data were collected from 1,078 businesses and questionnaire data from 263 small businesses between 2013 and 2017. The results indicate that a higher proportion of initial surviving disaster-stricken businesses than non-disaster-stricken businesses managed to remain operational in each observation period. The continued operation of disaster-stricken businesses after the earthquake was positively associated with the owner's age, previous disaster experience, pre-disaster financial conditions, closure duration, and borrowing money from family or friends. A negative association was found with the size of the business. The findings serve as a vital reference for strategies to promote post-disaster continued business operation., (© 2019 The Authors Disasters © 2019 Overseas Development Institute.)

An enterprise's green value chain comprises a multitude of factors and links for a successful green transformation, and relevant environmental policies are multi-dimensional and multi-sectional. Environmental policies can affect the enterprise's green development through stimulating the supply of green services or by increasing the demand for green products. Based on 346 policy statements issued by various government departments from 2000 to 2020, this paper matches the "type" of environmental policy with the "dimension" of value chain of manufacturing companies, establishing a coordination model and a co-existing network to measure how both elements interact. The results indicate a notable phenomenon with the Chinese government's enterprise environmental policies, which can be described as "heavy supply-driven, light demand-pull." A strong emphasis is put on the supply side of policies, in particular for the technology innovation sector, but the demand end of policies is comparatively minimal. The synergy between the policies and the links in the green value chain is divergent, which replicates the "heavy end-treatment, light front-prevention" seen with existing policies. Policy synergy at the end of the value chain such as the green production process is more mature and well-integrated, while the synergy for green product development lacks policies on both ends. The mismatch and imbalance of policies limits the overall level of green transformation for manufacturing enterprises., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Nationally determined contributions were at the core of the Paris Agreement for the global response to climate change. However, with the geographical separation of production and consumption caused by international trade, traditional trade statistics can no longer accurately reflect the flows of economic value and carbon emissions between countries, which will affect the participation and implementation of global climate policies. Based on a multi-regional input-output model, we measured the embodied carbon flows of bilateral trade between developed countries represented by Germany and the US, discussed the decoupling relationship between embodied carbon and export-led growth, and finally used structural decomposition analysis (SDA) to show how the driving factors affect embodied carbon flow in German-US trade. We found that from 2000 to 2014, embodied carbon in German-US trade showed an overall downward trend. While Germany maintained a trade surplus with the US, it also maintained an embodied carbon surplus. In addition, embodied carbon and value added in Germany's exports to the US were mostly strongly decoupled, while in US exports to Germany were mostly weakly decoupled, and the two-way decoupling had been weakened in the later stage. The results of SDA showed that changes in carbon intensity clearly inhibited bilateral carbon flows, while trade scale effects promoted it. This study provided an opportunity to use trade to achieve carbon reduction and increased the possibility of providing a convenient and feasible market mechanism for emission reduction through international partnerships., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Government public support is an important policy tool to support enterprises in carrying out innovation and R&D in China. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the effect of direct and indirect government support on the innovation ability of Chinese high-tech enterprises, especially the relatively weak SMEs. This paper aims to explore the impact of public support on sustainable innovation by SMEs in China and identify the differences, if any, between direct and indirect support. By using the survey data of 2600 Chinese SMEs, we found that government support significantly and positively impacts both innovation input and output. In particular, we found that R&D intensity acts as a mediator between direct government support and innovation output; however, indirect support did not exhibit a significant mediating effect. Additionally, it was found that innovative sales can promote innovation investment by alleviating financial constraints; this is known as sustainable innovation., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity, is accelerated by global demand for commodities. Although prior literature has linked deforestation to global supply chains, here we provide a fine-scale representation of spatial patterns of deforestation associated with international trade. Using remote sensing data and a multi-region input-output model, we quantify and map the spatiotemporal changes in global deforestation footprints over 15 years (2001-2015) at a 30-m resolution. We find that, while many developed countries, China and India have obtained net forest gains domestically, they have also increased the deforestation embodied in their imports, of which tropical forests are the most threatened biome. Consumption patterns of G7 countries drive an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year. Some of the hotspots of deforestation embodied in international trade are also biodiversity hotspots, such as in Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Liberia, Central America and the Amazonian rainforest. Our results emphasize the need to reform zero-deforestation policies through strong transnational efforts and by improving supply chain transparency, public-private engagement and financial support for the tropics.

Focuses on a study of coverage by `New York Times' and Washington Post' during the administration of former United States President George Bush about the China trade controversy. Influence of the president on the medial;Sources and media coverage; Explanation on how the Congress influences presidential and public views.

As a significant trade item on the ancient Silk Road, the evolution of mug shapes represents a confluence of Eastern and Western economic history and cultural-artistic exchanges, also reflecting the flourishing export culture of Guangzhou. This paper analyzes the functional and social factors influencing the morphological changes of Lingnan mugs from 1616 to 1949 from the perspective of quantitative typological analysis. The overall design trend of these mugs transitioned from complex to simple, enhancing user comfort, while variations in mug scale reflect the diversity of consumer classes and regional drinking cultures. Among the 30 mugs analyzed, the average capacity was 356ml, with a range of 1588ml. Common shapes included cylindrical bodies and ear-shaped handles. Morphologically, the belly of the mugs transformed from arc-barrel bodies (emphasizing heat retention) to bulbous bodies, and eventually to cylindrical bodies (combining heat retention, practicality, and economy), with handles also showing signs of East-West integration. The analysis of the mug body' s inclination, with handle-side junction angles ranging from 34° to 53° and wall-side junction angles from 50° to 90°, indicates that these features are associated with stability in placement, aesthetic design, and practicality in liquid containment. These morphological evolutions reflect genuine responses to market demands and advancements in production technology, manifesting as products of market orientation and societal needs. By measuring changes in morphology, scale, volume, and external contour curves, this paper addresses how social factors shape material morphology in an academic context., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Ao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs) are a crucial new platform for China to build a more open economic system. Existing literature primarily focuses on the 'Bring In' effect of PFTZs, often overlooking the importance of 'Going Out' aspects. To bridge this gap, this paper uses data from China's Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed enterprises from 2007 to 2021 and constructs a time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) model to test the impact of establishment of PFTZs on international expansion of enterprises. The study finds that establishment of PFTZs can significantly promote international expansion of enterprises, with a more pronounced effect on the scope of international expansion than on its depth. Mechanism analysis reveals that PFTZs can facilitate international expansion of enterprises by driving digital transformation, enhancing total factor productivity and management efficiency, and alleviating financing constraints. Notably, senior managers with overseas work experience play a crucial role in enhancing this relationship. Further, PFTZs not only have a linkage effect with the Belt and Road Initiative but also a radiation effect on neighboring cities. This study provides an analytical perspective and empirical evidence for evaluating policy effects of PFTZs and offers valuable insights that will enable PFTZ policies to be refined and facilitate successful implementation of the 'Going Out' strategy., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Jing et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Under economic globalization, countries are linked through trade and investments. This economic interdependence creates vulnerabilities. The indirect vulnerability induced by interdependent networks of trade and investments can put a country's economy at risk, but this risk has yet to be systematically quantified and investigated. In this paper, we developed the novel Potential Indirect Vulnerability Index (PIVI) to capture how interdependencies between networks of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) may induce economic vulnerabilities. The model consisted of three main components: a target country (the importer of goods), an investing country (the exporter of FDI), and the intermediary countries that export commodities to the target country and receive FDI from the investing country, serving as conduits of the vulnerabilities caused indirectly by the investing country. The PIVI quantifies the indirect vulnerabilities based on the product of two fractions: 1) the dependency of the target country on commodities from each intermediary country; and 2) the dependency of each intermediary country on FDI from the investing country. We demonstrated the utility of PIVI by examining the US economy's vulnerability to China using 2019 trade and FDI data. Several Asian countries and a mix of agricultural products and raw materials were identified as conduits through which China could potentially influence the US economy. Vietnam was a sizeable risk because, while it has been a primary source of many US imports, it also received about 30% of its FDI from China. The US policy makers might opt to increase diversity in trade partners or to promote investment in countries such as Vietnam. We also applied the PIVI analysis to critical minerals, identifying cobalt, tungsten, and copper as the most vulnerability-inducing among them. PIVI is a flexible metric than can be aggregated and modified to provide a more nuanced and focused assessment of an economy's vulnerability., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Pourshahabi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Trade network connects enterprises together, while its impact on corporate ESG performance is unknown. Drawing on unbalanced panel data of resource-based enterprises in China from 2009 to 2021, this study decomposes the trade network into purchasing network and sales network based on trade directions, and explores their impact on corporate ESG performance and the mechanisms involved. The findings indicate that: (1) The trade networks exhibit a negative correlation with corporate ESG performance. Meanwhile, purchasing network demonstrates a more pronounced adverse impact on corporate ESG than sales network. After a series of endogeneity tests, the above results still hold. (2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that trade networks have a more significant effect on the ESG performance of state-owned enterprises, mature enterprises and heavily polluting enterprises. And the most pronounced negative effect is observed in the governance (G) component of ESG. (3) Mechanism analysis reveals that trade networks negatively influence corporate ESG performance by impeding the progress of green innovation and internal control. (4) Accelerating digital transformation and intensifying government environmental regulations can mitigate the inhibitory impact of trade networks on corporate ESG performance. This study provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for resource-based enterprises to enhance ESG performance while reinforcing trade linkages., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Extant studies focus on the impact of environmental regulation on regional economic growth or environmental pollution, and a lot of research outcomes have been made. However, from the perspective of corporate green sustainable development, the question of whether carbon emission trading represents a "green blessing" remains unclear. To address this issue, we employ a staggered difference-in-differences model to investigate the effects and mechanisms of the carbon emissions trading pilot policy (CETPP) on the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of listed manufacturing companies in China. Our results demonstrate that: a) CETPP can effectively promote corporate GTFP, and the robustness of this result is verified through a series of checks; b) the mediating role of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance is critical in the relationship between CETPP and corporate GTFP, with environmental and governance performance serving as two key transmission channels; and c) CEO green experience and public environmental concern both play the moderating roles on the relationship between CETPP and GTFP; d) CETPP has a stronger positive impact on GTFP of private enterprises and enterprises in the maturity life cycle; and e) CETPP has a spatial spillover effect on GTFP, and the effect will decay as spatial distance increases. Our study offers both theoretical and practical implications for enterprises to achieve their green economic development objectives, so as to promote China's high-quality development., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Vietnam's agricultural exports to China have remained strong, with the country maintaining its position as the top destination for Agri-products. This article primarily utilizes the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) Index, and Trade Complementarity (TC) index to examine the trade comparative advantage, and the complementary of twenty major agricultural products between China and Vietnam from 2012 to 2021. The study results showed that Vietnam and China frequently exchange agricultural products. Vietnam has more stronger competitiveness than China in terms of agricultural products. China's exports to Vietnam were highly complementary to Vietnam's imports in category 0 whiles Vietnam's exports to China showed strong complementarity with China's imports in category 2. This paper analyzes the complementarity and comparative advantages of agricultural trade between China and Vietnam, and proposes informed suggestions for policy-making to promote agricultural trade between the countries. The proposed suggestions aim to expand agricultural trade between the two countries, reduce the trade imbalance, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Tian et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Ports are critical centers of international trade and global logistics now that economic globalization has taken hold. The efficiency performance of port logistics is crucial to building an emerging pattern of development in which domestic and foreign dual cycles are complementary for China. This paper examines the efficiency performance of 19 ports within five major economic circles in China. It explores how their efficiency is distributed, and the configurations of efficiency improvement during the new normal of China's economy. First, the DEA-BCC model is employed to calculate the technical efficiency performance and distribution of each port from 2011 to 2020. Then, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was applied to integrate and analyze the influencing factors. The results show as follows: (1) Each port group performed differently on efficiency rankings, as well as regional distributions. Among these, the port groups of the Bohai Rim region, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Bohai Rim region continue to rank highly. (2) From the perspective of configuration analysis, the results suggest that government support is not necessary for port logistics with better economic endowments. However, it is critical for backward ones. (3) A rational industrial structure can enhance levels of infrastructure, openness, and information technology, improving port performance. The findings can provide theoretical and practical references for better promoting the development of Chinese port management.al references for better promoting the development of Chinese port management., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xie, Hu. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper develops a theoretical model of determinants influencing multimodal fake review generation using the theories of signaling, actor-network, motivation, and human-environment interaction hypothesis. Applying survey data from users of China's three leading E-commerce platforms (Taobao, Jingdong, and Pinduoduo), we adopt structural equation modeling, machine learning technique, and Bayesian complex networks analysis to perform factor identification, path analysis, feature factor importance ranking, regime division, and network centrality analysis of full sample, male sample, and female sample to reach the following conclusions: (1) platforms' multimodal recognition and governance capabilities exert significant negative moderating effects on merchants' information behavior, while it shows no apparent moderating effect on users' information behavior; users' emotional venting, perceived value, reward mechanisms, and subjective norms positively influence multimodal fake review generation through perceptual behavior control; (2) feature factors of multimodal fake review generation can be divided into four regimes, i.e., regime 1 includes reward mechanisms and perceived social costs, indicating they are key feature factors of multimodal fake review generation; merchant perception impact is positioned in regime 2, signifying its pivotal role in multimodal fake review generation; regime 3 includes multimodal recognition and governance capabilities, supporting/disparaging merchants, and emotional venting; whereas user perception impact is positioned in regime 4, indicating its weaker influence on multimodal fake review generation; (3) both in full sample, male sample, and female sample, reward mechanisms play a crucial role in multimodal fake review generation; perceived value, hiring review control agency, multimodal recognition and governance capabilities exhibit a high degree of correlation; however, results of network centrality analysis also exhibit heterogeneity between male and female samples, i.e., male sample has different trends in closeness centrality values and betweenness centrality values than female sample. This indicates that determinants influencing multimodal fake review generation are complex and interconnected., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an open platform for international cooperation proposed by China to promote common global development and prosperity. The BRI can promote the optimal allocation of resources and promote in-depth cooperation in international trade. Meanwhile, it can establish a green supply chain cooperation network to help BRI countries achieve green transformation. BRI has made a notable contribution to the rapid growth of cross-border trade. However, it has also brought environmental impacts. Given that little attention has been paid to the trade-embodied particulate matter 2.5 related human health impacts (PM 2.5 -HHI) throughout the BRI, this study accounts for and traces the embodied PM 2.5 -HHI flows between the BRI countries and non-Belt and Road Initiative (non-BRI) countries. Moreover, this study also uncovers the critical socioeconomic drivers of PM 2.5 -HHI changes in BRI countries during 1990-2015, based on the multi-regional input-output based structural decomposition analysis (MRIO-SDA). Results show that, firstly, BRI countries had significantly increased their economic added value by exporting products to the non-BRI countries. They also have brought PM 2.5 -HHI to themselves. Secondly, the final demand of BRI countries was the largest potential driving force of PM 2.5 -HHI of BRI countries. Thirdly, the emission intensity change of BRI is the key socioeconomic factor for reducing PM 2.5 -HHI. While per capita final demand level change of BRI and production structure change of non-BRI are the key socioeconomic factors for increasing PM 2.5 -HHI. The study's findings on the one hand can help reduce the PM 2.5 -HHI and impacts of environmental pollution of BRI countries from a global perspective by providing scientific support. On the other hand, they can help provide relevant policy recommendations for the green transformation of BRI and the construction of green BRI., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Industrial technological progress, as an essential industrial-technological and institutional phenomenon, brings with it the possibility of high profits for firms but also implies new norms and rules of competition, which affect the willingness and propensity of firms to bear the costs of undertaking venture capital projects. This study empirically investigates the causal impact of industrial-technological progress on corporate risk-taking and the mechanism of digital financial growth on the relationship between the two, based on data from China's A-share listed businesses from 2011 to 2020. This paper finds that (1) industrial technological progress improves enterprise risk-taking levels. Moreover, digital financial development has an incentive effect on industrial technological progress and enterprise risk-taking levels. (2) Industrial technological progress under digital financial development generates financing constraint relaxation effects, input capital return enhancement effects, and innovation performance incentive effects, increasing enterprise risk-taking. (3) The positive moderating effect of digital financial development on the relationship between industrial technological progress and the risk-taking level of enterprises in the eastern regions and enterprises in the high-tech industry is more prominent. The study's findings provide a theoretical foundation and policy insights on the crucial elements of industrial-technological progress and enterprises' increased ability to take risks throughout the development of digital finance., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist, (Copyright: © 2024 Wu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper theoretically analyzes and empirically examines the impact and mechanisms of automated machines on employment in manufacturing enterprises, drawing on task-based model and using micro data from listed Chinese manufacturing enterprises between 2012 and 2019. Our findings reveal that: (1) Automated machines in manufacturing enterprises leads to a substitution effect on the total labor force, with a substitution effect on low-skilled labor and a creation effect on high-skilled labor in terms of employment structure. (2) Further analysis indicates that automated machines primarily have a positive effect on R&D and technical staff, a non-significant effect on sales staff, and a negative impact on production, administrative, and financial staff. (3) The primary influencing mechanisms of automated machines on employment in manufacturing firms are productivity effects and output scale effects, based on the mediation effect model. (4) Considering the industry linkage effect, we employ the input-output method and the Input-Output Table and find that automated machines for upstream (downstream) manufacturing enterprises will result in a substitution effect on employment for downstream (upstream) enterprises. The novelties and research contributions are as follows: (1) we conduct a structural decomposition of total employment, and further decompose employment positions into production, R&D, sales, finance, and administration. (2) We try to investigate the industry linkage effect about the impact of automated machines on the employment of upstream and downstream enterprises. (3) We use data from listed manufacturing companies, and the data of existing research are about provincial and industry-level data., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Jiang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

In the context of the rapid growth of corporate green investment and the rapid dissemination of information brought about by Internet technology, it is important to explore the relationship between investor attention and corporate environmental responsibility. Unfortunately, an in-depth research on the relationship between investor attention and firms' environment, society, and governance (ESG) performance remains unexplored. The results show a mutual inhibition between investor attention and firms' ESG performance. Each 1% increase in investor attention decreases ESG performance by 0.252%, while each 1% increase in ESG performance decreases investor attention by 2.296%. Thus, ESG performance dominates this mutual influence. Moreover, ESG performance positively affects ESG performance and investor attention of neighboring firms. Each 1% increase in ESG performance increases ESG performance and investor attention of neighboring firms by 0.371% and 0.983%, respectively. Investor attention negatively affects investor attention and ESG performance of neighboring firms. Each 1% increase in investor attention decreases ESG performance and investor attention of neighboring firms by 0.04% and 0.104%, respectively. Further research reveals significant regional and organizational heterogeneity in the relationship between investor attention and ESG performance. The findings provide theoretical and empirical insights for further improvement of the ESG system and continued strengthening of investor guidance by regulators., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The mixed ownership reform of China is a kind of further partial privatization for the listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and an opportunity for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) to expand their commerce boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of heterogeneous blockholders on corporate innovation. Spanning the analysis with listed companies in China from 2007 to 2017, we find that heterogeneous blockholders have a significant positive effect on enterprise innovation. Lowering agency costs and improving corporate innovation efficiency are the two plausible mechanisms. From further research, we find that compared with non-SOEs, the positive effect of heterogeneous blockholders on enterprise innovation is more pronounced for SOEs, and the effect is more positive with the improvement of relative power balance between heterogeneous blockholders. The paper sheds light on the innovation effects of mixed-ownership reform in emerging and transitioning countries. JEL Classification : G32, M13, D23, G34 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an important part of China's new "double-cycle" development pattern. Among the many factors affecting FDI, will the aging population have an impact on manufacturing, the key industry for FDI? This paper examines the direct and indirect effects of an aging population on FDI using panel data from 27 manufacturing sub-industries in China between 2005 and 2020. It is found that (1) the deepening of the population's aging negatively affects FDI inflows and this result continues to hold after a series of robustness tests. (2) Using labor quantity and labor cost as mediating variables, it is found that the population's aging indirectly affects FDI by reducing labor quantity and increasing labor cost. (3) The heterogeneity analysis study finds that the deepening of the population's aging significantly inhibits FDI in labor-intensive and capital-intensive industries among manufacturing sub-industries, and the inhibitory effect on FDI in technology-intensive industries is not significant. This study provides meso-evidence to support the findings of existing studies and provides suggestions and insights for the government to formulate relevant policies to actively cope with aging., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper analyses the impacts of trading partners' environmental regulation on the export volumes of the Russian regions, using panel data covering about 140,000 observations in 84 Russian regions and 204 countries for the period 2013-2020. We employ the Gravity Model of international trade and Heckman Sample Selection methodology, with the fixed effects and random effects Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood techniques to analyse two subsamples of the Russian regions with different shares of environmentally sensitive goods in regional exports. As a robustness check, we utilize the non-parametric Driscoll-Kraay approach. The results of the econometric estimation demonstrate that environmental regulations enhance the export of regions with a high share of environmentally sensitive goods in export structure, while for the rest of the regions the environmental regulations negatively affect export volumes. The promoting effect is associated with a higher level of innovativeness of the regions and the role of the global energy transition process. We conclude that the environmental agenda is a challenge for some Russian regional exporters due to the lack of own environmental regulation, and to the specific features of the commodity and geographic structure of exports. To transform the negative impact into the positive one for all Russian regions, policy measures are necessary on the federal, regional, and company levels, encompassing environmental regulations and green development strategies, along with innovation and cluster policies, and the development of human capital and infrastructure., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)