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Population aging has become a social issue of concern to the whole world, and as the world's most populous country, how to cope with population aging will be a hot issue that all sectors of Chinese society must think about. This paper uses provincial panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2021 to study the relationship between population aging and economic development based on the perspective of health expenditure. The DIFF-GMM model, the fixed effect model (FE), and fixed effect instrumental variable model (FE-IV) are used to test this study. The following two conclusions are drawn from the empirical study: (1) population aging has a significant inhibitory effect on economic development, while health expenditures have a significant promotional effect on economic development; and (2) increased health expenditures help to alleviate the negative impact of population aging on economic development. However, the deepening of population aging will likewise inhibit the positive effect of health expenditure on economic growth. Based on the conclusions of the study, it is recommended that the government and society should continue to increase spending in the field of health protection, encourage and guide residents to carry out self-care, and moderately increase personal health expenditure, to promote economic development with healthy bodies and realize the goal of "Healthy China". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes panel data from 30 provinces in mainland China from 2011 to 2020 to investigate the impact of carbon-neutral development on economic high-quality development by constructing an economic high-quality development index and a carbon-neutral development index. Firstly, the study examines the effects of carbon-neutral development on economic high-quality development using baseline regression and spatial Durbin regression. The results indicate that carbon-neutral development has a positive direct effect on economic high-quality growth, but there are negative spatial spillover effects. Secondly, this study employs total factor productivity (TFP) as an intermediate variable in the mediation model regression. The findings demonstrate that carbon-neutral development significantly improves TFP, and the significant improvement in TFP promotes high-quality economic growth. Lastly, the study conducts regional heterogeneity analysis and finds a significant promoting effect of carbon-neutral development on economic high-quality development in the eastern and central regions of China, while it is not significant in the western region. Therefore, it is recommended that China, in the process of achieving carbon-neutral growth, consider the geographical connections between different regions to prevent negative spillover effects. Additionally, regional heterogeneity should be taken into account when formulating relevant policies to promote economic high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and Development (R&D) in particular and innovation in general are the best drivers of long-run sustainable economic growth and spending in R&D has been recognized as one of the means to the economic accomplishment of both developed and developing countries. However, the sustainability of the association between R&D & economic growth exclusively depends upon the performance of other macroeconomic determinants. Hence, we examine the effect of R&D on economic growth in the existence of five important macroeconomic determinants. The study focusses on 151 selected countries, including both developed and developing, over the period 1996-2020 and focused on the macro-level analysis. Our research is based on the deployment of system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique. The GMM technique encompasses longitudinal data; and is gathered by pooling time-series across a pool of cross-sectional units, specifically countrywise. The biggest advantage of using the GMM technique is that it allows for addressing the endogeneity problem using lagged explanatory variables as instrumental variables. We have three samples in our analysis, namely pool of developed countries, pool of developing countries, and the pool of both developed and developing countries. Our study deploys four proxies of R&D to work the nexus between R&D and economic growth in presence of five important macroeconomic determinants. In each of these three samples, we run four GMM models, depending upon the deployment of four R&D activities that we used in this study. We observe an evidence that R&D plays a significant role in economic growth when the selected macroeconomic determinants are used as control variables. Our findings are mostly robust to R&D specifications, country specifications, model specifications, and estimation strategies. Most importantly, the effect of lagged economic growth is highly positive, signifying that economies with higher economic growth in the previous years tend to grow faster in presence of R&D intensity. The behaviour of other macroeconomic variables is having diverse nature. Some of these variables behave positively, while others behave negatively. This study suggests that policymakers should focus on improving R&D activities and strengthening the chosen macroeconomic determinants to facilitate economic development. Hence, it contributes to the ongoing policy debate, that is with reference to R&D effect on economic growth, on the finest strategies for attaining sustainable economic growth in all these selected countries. Hence, we can use these findings to develop a targeted policy that promotes R&D intensity in the phases of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the digital economy in economic transformation is increasingly prominent. This paper empirically examines how the digital economy affects TFP and its mechanism using Chinese provincial panel data. The results show that the impact of the digital economy on regional TFP is U-shaped. Further studies show that digital economy development may improve regional TFP through two channels: stimulating innovation and promoting entrepreneurship. In addition, we also discuss the role of active government, effective market, and high-level judicial protection in digital economic policies improving economic growth. Based on our research results, we put forward some policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the hypothesis that variations on manufacturing investment are influenced by the difference between the real effective and industrial equilibrium exchange rates and by the difference between the current account and industrial equilibrium exchange rates (a proxy for the Dutch disease). The current account equilibrium exchange rate is defined as the rate that guarantees that the current account of a country is balanced intertemporally, and the industrial equilibrium exchange rate corresponds to the rate that makes competitive those companies producing internationally tradable non-commodities goods and services in the so-called state-of-art. First, the concepts and methodologies for estimating the current account and industrial equilibrium exchange rate are explained. Then, to test our hypothesis, a database for 24 Brazilian manufacturing sectors was built from 2007 to 2017. A dynamic panel data model was adopted to estimate the relationship between these currency misalignments and the manufacturing investment. The results suggest that the magnitude of those differences influences investment decisions, potentially contributing to economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the mechanism and process of the dynamic evolution of the economy-energy-environment (EEE) system and study the variables that determine the speed of system evolution and development. The innovation is to overcome the defect of single index by constructing a system evaluation index and reveal the regional EEE system's evolution mechanism based on Haken's synergetic theory to supplement a systematic perspective's empirical evidence. It selects 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China to empirically analyse the evolution mechanism of the EEE system from 2005 to 2019. The empirical results show that economic development is the order parameter of the evolution and development of the EEE system. In the process of system evolution, the economic development subsystem is the decisive factor in EEE system evolution. In terms of the positive feedback mechanism of order parameter combination, the EEE system forms a positive feedback mechanism for increasing economic development in the stage of evolution and development. The negative feedback mechanism of decreasing environmental pollution emissions is formed in the EEE system. The increase in pollutant emissions has a certain inhibitory effect on economic growth. The improvement in the economic development level has no promoting effect on pollutants, and economic development, in turn, reduces environmental pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the digital economy, which takes information technology and data as the key elements, is booming and has become an important force in promoting the economic growth of various countries. In order to explore the current dynamic trend of China's digital economy development and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality economic development, this paper measures the digital economic development index of 30 cities in China from the three dimensions of digital infrastructure, digital industry, and digital integration, uses panel data of 30 cities in China from 2015 to 2019 to construct an econometric model for empirical analysis, and verifies the mediating effect of technological progress between the digital economy and high-quality economic development. The results show that (1) The development level of China's digital economy is increasing year by year, that the growth of digital infrastructure is obvious, and that the development of the digital industry is relatively slow. (2) Digital infrastructure, digital industry and digital integration all have significant positive effects on regional total factor productivity, and the influence coefficients are 0.2452, 0.0773 and 0.3458 respectively. (3) Regarding the transmission mechanism from the digital economy to the high-quality economic development, the study finds that the mediating effect of technological progress is 0.1527, of which the mediating effect of technological progress in the eastern, northeast, central and western regions is 1.70%, 9.25%, 28.89% and 21.22% respectively. (4) From the perspective of spatial distribution, the development level of the digital economy in the eastern region is much higher than that in other non-eastern regions, and the development of digital economy in the eastern region has a higher marginal contribution rate to the improvement of the total factor productivity. This study can provide a theoretical basis and practical support for the government to formulate policies for the development of the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial agglomeration is a key way to promote the green transformation of the global economy and environmental governance. The existing literature mainly analyzed the impact of financial agglomeration on economic development, but rarely examines its comprehensive impact on economic growth and environmental governance considering spatial spillover effects. Based on the perspective of spatial spillover effects, this paper uses panel data of 285 cities above the prefecture-level in China to examine the impact and mechanism of financial agglomeration on green development. The results show that: (1) During the study period, financial agglomeration and green development in China are significantly different in directions of spatial distribution and expansion, but the spatial correlation between the two is relatively high. (2) Financial agglomeration can exert significant spatial spillover effects on green development. (3) Financial agglomeration has more obvious positive spatial spillover effects on green development of cities in the servitization stage or with high administrative level. (4) Industrial structure upgrading effect, labor upgrading effect and technological innovation effect are the main paths that financial agglomeration affects green development. The research results can provide a new perspective and approach to promote the green transformation of economy and sustainable development of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The impact of economic growth pressure on energy efficiency improvement is discussed. • Economic growth pressure has hindered the improvement of energy efficiency. • Heterogeneity effects exist in individual dimension and temporal dimension. Economic growth target management has been a typical feature of Chinese governments at all levels for a long time in the past decades. Based on a panel data of 188 Chinese cities, this paper examines the impact of pressure brought by economic growth target on energy efficiency improvement. The results suggest that economic growth pressure has hindered the improvement of energy efficiency. For every unit of increase in economic growth pressure, the improvement indicator of energy efficiency will decrease by 3.3%. This finding is robust, after replacing explained variables and core explanatory variables, no substantial changes are found. Sub-sample regression confirms the existence of heterogeneity effects in individual dimension and temporal dimension. Finally, by summarizing existing studies, this paper finds that the investment imbalance effect, the hindrance effect on industrial structure upgrading, and the crowding-out effect on innovation are three important ways for economic growth pressure to restrain the improvement of energy efficiency. Our findings are helpful to understand the role of the government's economic growth target management in resource allocation and energy utilization and provide a certain practical reference for China to promote high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]