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Economic high-quality and low-carbon development stand as strategic priorities for urban advancement within the context of dual carbon goals. Administrative territorial adjustments have emerged as a robust instrument in China's urbanization drive over recent decades. Nevertheless, scant attention has been given to its impact on urban low-carbon development. This paper employs a multi-period DID model to investigate the effect of the "City-County Merger" policy (CCMP) on urban carbon emissions, while also exploring potential channels and heterogeneity characteristics. The findings of this study are unequivocal: the implementation of the CCMP has proven to be a potent strategy in effectively curbing urban carbon emissions. This conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests. Furthermore, the study identifies certain channels that play a pivotal role in moderating the nexus between the CCMP and urban carbon emissions, including enhancing government intervention, optimizing urban energy structure, and improving urban (green) technology innovation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that CCMP yields heightened effectiveness in small and medium-sized cities, non-resource-based cities, and cities in the eastern and western regions. This study serves to provide nuanced insights, offering both theoretical underpinnings and pragmatic recommendations to propel the effective implementation of the CCMP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the impact of the national ocean economic pilot project on the blue economy (BE) development using panel data for 11 coastal regions in mainland China from 2005 to 2017. The study shows that the BE is composed of three levels: traditional advantageous industrial construction, emerging industrial development, and ecological protection, where they can merge an index system using the analytic hierarchy process-improved entropy weight method. Besides, this paper adopts heterogeneous timing difference-in-differences to find that the policy increased the BE in the pilot areas by an average of 0.025. This effect passed various robustness checks including the parallel trend hypothesis and placebo test. In addition, the policy can also mediate the BE by skill and capacity aggregation, optimization of transportation networks, and incentives for innovation, and their contributions were 21.5%,10.6%, and 10.6%. Moreover, this paper finds that the current BE work shows a preference for the economy over the ecosystem. For economic growth, pilots prefer traditional rather than emerging industries. In summary, this study recommends that multi-level governments should use a project-based management model for the BE, increase international cooperation and knowledge transfer to promote the integration of the knowledge economy and the BE and facilitate administrative reform to clarify the ecological responsibilities of marine management agencies. • Ocean economic pilot project increased the blue economy by an average of 0.025. • Knowledge economy, transportation network, and innovation are policy influence pathways. • Blue economy is important for government experience in project-based management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the risk of zombification of the French economy during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, as a result of the unconditional financial support provided to firms by public authorities, to limit the impact of lockdown measures. We develop a simple theoretical framework based on a partial-equilibrium model to simulate the liquidity and solvency stress faced by a large panel of French firms and assess the impact of government support. Simulation results suggest that those policies helped healthy but illiquid firms to withstand the shock caused by the pandemic. Moreover, the analysis finds no evidence of a "zombification effect", as less productive companies did not disproportionately benefit from government support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since General Secretary Xi Jinping pledged the "30·60" targets to the world, the importance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction has become increasingly prominent. The previous focus on the pollution reduction effects of emission trading systems, while overlooking their carbon reduction impacts, as well as the limitations of research methods and scope, is no longer suitable for the needs of the new era. Therefore, this paper constructs a CGE model to study the synergistic effects, simulating the synergistic emission reduction effects of sulfur dioxide emission trading policies, and comes to the following conclusions: After the implementation of the sulfur dioxide emission trading mechanism, under different sulfur price scenarios, the synergistic reduction amounts of SO 2 and CO 2 vary greatly. As the sulfur price increases, the reduction amount becomes larger. In the five sulfur price scenarios set in this paper, the maximum reduction of SO 2 can reach about 111,400 tons, and the maximum for CO 2 is about 399 million tons. The CO 2 reduction rate is approximately 1.0767 times that of SO 2. This indicates that the sulfur dioxide emission trading policy is a very effective path for synergistic pollution and carbon reduction, with good reduction effects. In addition, sulfur dioxide emission trading will reduce the consumption of fossil energy, decrease industry output, raise product prices, cause GDP loss, and lead to reduced social welfare to varying degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Marketization of data elements can alleviate corporate financing constraints. • Marketization of data elements alleviates corporate financing constraints through the mediating mechanisms of information effect and management effect. • The effect of data elements marketization on corporate financing constraints exhibits heterogeneity across corporate at different stages of the corporate life-cycle. Utilizing data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022, this paper develops a multi-time difference-in-differences model to explore the impact of data elements marketization on corporate financing constraints. Furthermore, we also explore the mediating roles of management effect and information effect and the heterogeneity effect across different companies. The research findings indicate that the marketization of data elements alleviates corporate financing constraints, and the effect varies across companies at different stages of the corporate life-cycle. The research conclusion offers insights for companies, especially those facing financing constraints, to actively engage in the data elements trading market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a micro-econometric framework to analyse choice data from participatory value evaluation (PVE) surveys. In a PVE survey respondents receive, similar to stated choice surveys, information on the social impacts of public sector projects before choosing the best policy portfolio according to their preferences. Respondents' choices are limited by governmental and private budget constraints. The PVE data format is characterised by a mixture of discrete and continuous choice data. Building on recent literature of Kuhn–Tucker models, particularly the MDCEV model, a range of methodological and econometric contributions are provided facilitating model estimation and policy evaluation. We derive a set of closed form choice probabilities explaining the choice for the optimal portfolio with public projects, private consumption levels and whether to spend the public budget in full or not. The proposed policy evaluation framework is centred around the notion of social welfare maximisation. The parameter estimates are used to derive the optimal public sector budget and the corresponding portfolio maximising social welfare, but also to rank the set of feasible portfolios given a restricted budget, including sensitivity analyses. The proposed framework is illustrated using an empirical example on urban mobility investments in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. • Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is an evaluation method for public policies. • Individuals choose a portfolio of transport projects subject to a (public) budget constraint. • Closed form choice probabilities are derived for the chosen policy portfolio. • Policy evaluation identifies the optimal portfolio and attractiveness of individual projects. • Respondents show a strong preference for projects improving traffic safety and cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a sound ex-post evaluation of the impact of the Eurasian integration on member countries' bilateral trade after a decade of implementation. We overcome the main limitations of current empirical analyses on the effects of trade agreements, namely the aggregation of tariff and non-tariff barriers and the likely self-selection bias, by applying a non-parametric method specifically designed to fully exploit time-series cross-sectional data. We thus compare the trade flows of the member countries in the Eurasian agreement with the exporter-importer pairs located in the Eurasian continent, which are most similar in terms of pre-treatment trends and features. Our results confirm the previous literature about the lack of a significant impact of the Eurasian customs union but find more positive net effects of the more recent integration steps. Our results ask for additional efforts to complete the Eurasian integration and let its member countries fully benefit from its hoped-for long-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public support schemes are typically targeted towards capital investments. However, the targeting of digitization investments might not only be a missed opportunity to increase the usage of state-of-the-art digital services in the economy, but might even lower the uptake thereof. This paper exploits variation in the eligibility and the size of potential investment subsidies of German firms in order to analyse the relationship with the firms' propensity to adopt cloud services. Our empirical results are in line with the hypothesis that capital investment schemes lower the use of cloud services by firms: the higher the potential subsidy for investments, the lower the incentive for firms to adopt cloud services. We consider this finding an unintended policy effect which is highly relevant for policy makers, as the adoption of cloud services has been linked to various benefits on the firm as well as on the aggregate economy level. • Investment subsidies lower the cost of IT investments, distorting the market of firm digitization. • Firms eligible for investment funding have a lower probability to use cloud services. • The higher the potential investment support, the lower the propensity of firms to adopt cloud services. • Due to economic benefits of cloud computing, public investment schemes do not support today's digitization needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy making is a highly interactive process with environmental systems. Evaluation of policy's potential environmental impacts has been regarded as an efficient precautionary measure to avoid unexpected losses and environmental risks. One of the greatest challenges is how to streamline the policy-making process through an integrated evaluation approach. This paper formulated a process-based framework for environmental impact assessment of policy making (PB-EIA), by integrating policy problem identification, environmental impact assessment, and policy cost-effectiveness evaluation. Using China's wastewater resource utilization (WWRU) policy as a case study, the institutional, technological, and economic constraints or limitations related to wastewater resource utilization were identified, and the potential environmental impacts of policy implementation on energy consumption and carbon emissions were evaluated. The expected ecological and environmental benefits of the WWRU policy were supposed to be significant, and the cost of recycled water was relatively low compared with other unconventional water resources in China. Furthermore, significant variations in the environmental impacts and policy effectiveness were found across different sectors and regions. According to the evaluation results, some recommendations for supporting policy improvements and follow-up policy implementations were proposed. The specific technical procedures and application of PB-EIA were also discussed. This study demonstrates that the process-based framework can effectively incorporate environmental considerations into policy-making processes and promote sustainable development. • A process-based framework for environmental impact assessment of policy making (PB-EIA) was formulated. • The PB-EIA integrated policy problem identification, environmental impact assessment, and cost-effectiveness evaluation. • The PB-EIA framework was adopted in China's wastewater resource utilization (WWRU) policy evaluation. • The PB-EIA can help to integrate environmental considerations into policy making processes for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]