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There is few significant attempt to integrate environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation in a methodological framework. Employing the data of the industrial enterprises with an annual turnover of over 20 million yuan from 30 Chinese provinces or municipalities between 2008 and 2016, this paper applies the fixed effect regression model to reveal the relationships between environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation simultaneously. Results show that: (1) there exists a U-shaped relation between environmental regulation intensity and technological innovation of enterprises which declines first and then climbs up, and China is still at the stage of inhibition before the “inflection point”. (2) government financial support does not significantly work on technological innovation directly, but environmental regulation drives this effect to be achieved; when the value of lnER is higher than 3.69, government financial support can significantly facilitate corporate technological innovation. (3) the comparison between regional samples reveals that heterogeneity exists in the influence of environmental regulation intensity and government financial support on corporate technological innovation. The threshold value of enabling effects of environmental regulation in eastern region is higher than that of the central and western region. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks. Theory and policy implications of our work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective and timely quantification of the spatiotemporal pattern of urban expansion in China is important for the assessment of its environmental effects. However, the dynamics of the most recent urban expansions in China since 2012 have not yet been adequately explained due to a lack of current information. In this paper, our objective was to quantify spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015. First, we extracted information on urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015 by integrating nighttime light data, vegetation index data, and land surface temperature data. Then we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion at the national and regional scales, as well as at that of urban agglomerations. We found that China experienced a rapid and large-scale process of urban expansion between 1992 and 2015, with urban land increasing from 1.22 × 104 km2 to 7.29 × 104 km2, increasing in size nearly fivefold and with an average annual growth rate of 8.10%, almost 2.5 times as rapid as the global average. We also found that urban land in China expanded mainly by occupying 3.31 × 104 km2 of cropland, which comprised 54.67% of the total area of expanded urban land. Among the three modes of growth—infilling, edge expansion, and leapfrog—edge expansion was the main cause of cropland loss. Cropland loss resulting from edge expansion of urban land totalled 2.51 × 104 km2, accounting for over 75% of total cropland loss. We suggest that effective future management with respect to edge expansion of urban land is needed to protect cropland in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of environmental change on internal migration has received wide attention in recent years. Mass internal migration has been a significant economic and social phenomenon in China, and soil erosion is a major environmental problem that impacts sustainable socioeconomic development. This study aims to identify the impact of soil erosion on internal migration in China at the county level based on gravity model by analyzing related data, such as the sixth national population census data and the soil and water conservation survey data. The results of spatial overlay could not identify an obvious relationship between soil erosion and net outmigration in China. The traditional gravity model of migration is modified to analyze the impact of soil erosion on net outmigration while other variables are controlled. The results indicate that only serious soil erosion increases the possibility of outmigration and that the impact is considerably higher in agricultural counties than in non-agricultural counties. In general, the impact of soil erosion on internal migration is far less than the impact of socioeconomic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]