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The potential influence of natural ecosystems on human health has been widely acknowledged globally. Nevertheless, the causality of such a correlation among the middle-aged and older populations in developing countries awaits further investigations. This study aims to understand how a specific natural ecosystem change, namely the establishment of ecological reserves, improves the physical and mental health of middle-aged and older residents in China. Two batches of national key eco-function zones (NKEFZs) in 2011 and 2016 are selected as a quasi-experiment; and a total of 128,755 middle-aged and older residents from a combined data set from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Studies (CHARLS) from 2010 to 2020. A difference-in-differences method was used to identify the causal effects of the natural ecosystem improvement on human health outcomes. The results indicate significant and sustained improvements in the physical health of local middle-aged and elderly residents following the implementation of the NKEFZs policy. Notably, ecological reserves with a water conservation function and those in Karst area have the most salient effects on physical health. Furthermore, this study shows that the creation of ecological reserves improves the mental health of middle-aged and older residents, with the effect varying based on changes in physical health. This study provides new insights into the positive impact of natural ecosystem improvement on human health outcomes, in particular physical and mental health., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on population health. For this purpose, we rely on a new measure of health, which not only takes into account life expectancy, but also morbidity and allows us to evaluate both quality and length of life. We apply a new instrumental variable approach, based on the diffuse characteristic of globalization, to a panel of 143 countries over the period 1990-2019 and find an overall positive association of FDI with health. However, we also demonstrate that this positive relationship decreases with countries' per capita GDP. We reveal that developing economies have strongly benefited from inward FDI but, more developed economies less so. For the most-developed countries in our sample, the impact is even negative, but we demonstrate that higher employment protection, which is associated with a lower level of job insecurity, allows countries to decrease this pernicious effect., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper provides an analysis of crude oil, diesel, and gasoline prices for the period from November 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020. We apply Log Periodic Power-Law Singularity (LPPLS) and Discrete Scale LPPLS bubble indicators to explore the dynamic bubbles of oil prices and predict their crash times. The results indicate that West Texas Light crude oil and North Sea Brent crude oil experienced a statistically significant negative financial bubble during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, gasoline and diesel prices are mainly driven by fundamentals. Our findings are expected to be useful to oil market investors, policymakers, and energy experts., (© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Both dysfunctional blood cells and physical exercise, despite the former being pathological and the latter completely normal, make one's blood more acidic, carrying less oxygen, which presents as fatigue. It is up to scientists to develop proper accounts of such mechanisms in the form of theories that are able to distinguish false from true positives. This piece's purpose is to make a case for preventing false positives in social enterprise research. This is achieved by showing how recent research portrays social enterprises as shallow nested systems defined by epiphenomenal enterprise activities as perceived by stakeholders, instead of the internal causal mechanisms that gear such activities. In achieving this piece's purpose, the analysis turns to an analogy with psychiatry, whose status as a medical profession was forged by telling disorders as harmful dysfunctions apart from the false positives of problems of living in general. Similarly, it is concluded that the relevance of social enterprises does not result from stakeholder rationales to use social enterprise-led activities per se, but from the designed functions of social enterprise mechanisms in conjunction with a value judgment that such mechanisms have specific benefits compared to alternatives., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)