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This paper summarizes some hot communication topics in the first half year in 2013 by combining academic views of some scholars. These topics include the reasons of network colony event, media mass try to adapt in network times, how journalists use SNS, the female gender of the mass media, analyze the report of national influence published by BBC, the situation of foreign investment in Chinese media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, being the world's largest exporter, has now certain environmental commitments such as to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. These commitments of China has raised a reasonable concern regarding the expected reduction in the production and export of pollution intensive goods in the future. Besides China, the most efficient countries in the region to produce these goods are most of the member countries from ASEAN. The current study therefore aims to analyze if in the future, China reduces the production and export of these goods, whether the selected ASEAN countries can be the next choice for the export of pollution intensive goods. Based on the data availability for the period 1990–2019, this study considers five selected ASEAN countries (ASEAN-5). The results are based on the Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to cointegration and Error Correction Modeling (ECM). The aggregate analysis of five pollution intensive goods (pulp and paper (341), industrial chemicals (351), non-metallic minerals products (369), iron and steel (371) and non-ferrous metals (372)) suggests that Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow can significantly increase the export of pollution intensive goods only in case of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. However, there is no significant effect of FDI on the export of pollution intensive goods in case of Philippines and Singapore. The disaggregate analyses of the five pollution intensive goods suggest that in each of the ASEAN-5 countries, FDI inflow can significantly increase the export of pollution intensive goods in some of these industries rather than in all of them. In nutshell, it is concluded that ASEAN-5 countries can be a potential choice for the export of pollution intensive goods in some of the pollution intensive industries but not in all of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depending on the trading modes, the effect of Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) on the manufacturing industry's position within the global value chain (GVC) may differ considerably. This paper examines the GVC position of China's manufacturing industry from 2003 to 2018, specifically focusing on the general trade and processing trade. Drawing upon this premise, this paper analyzes the effect and mechanism by which OFDI influences the GVC position of China's manufacturing industry. The result demonstrates that: (1) China's processing trade manufacturing industry has a much lower GVC position than general trade manufacturing industry. The GVC position of China's general trade manufacturing industry rose from 2.76 to 2.90 from 2003 to 2018, while processing trade manufacturing industry remained around 1.93. (2) OFDI boosts the GVC position of general trade manufacturing industry through facilitating reverse technology spillover, inducing industry structure upgrading, and enabling export scale expansion. (3) OFDI hinders the GVC position growth of processing trade manufacturing industry. The research findings offer theoretical backing for China to develop OFDI strategies that are tailored to different trading modes within the new framework of dual circulation. These strategies aim to facilitate the transformation and advancement of the manufacturing industry, as well as the growth of the GVC position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rise of China in the last three decades has reshuffled power dynamics in the global economy, including the global balance of power in employment relations. Since 2000, global FDI inflows into China have more than quadrupled, but also, something less noticed by research, China's FDI outflows have increased more than hundredfold, and by 2015 had overtaken the inward flows (UNCTAD data). [Extracted from the article]

Improving green innovation efficiency (GIE) is the key to achieve high-quality economic development in China, and the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important path choice to promote the GIE. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China, this paper explores the linear and nonlinear effects of FDI on GIE from both quantity and quality perspectives, and further analyzes the mediating role of environmental regulation level. The results show that: (1) From 2011 to 2020, the GIE of all provinces in China generally shows an upward trend. (2) The quantity and quality of FDI have a significant positive impact on the improvement of GIE in China's provinces, and this impact has regional heterogeneity. (3) The quantity and quality of FDI can promote the improvement of GIE in China through the level of environmental regulation (ER). (4) With the level of knowledge accumulation and GIE as the threshold variables, the quantity and quality of FDI have a single threshold effect on the GIE of China's provinces. The conclusions of this study provide some policy implications for local governments to make full use of FDI to perform green innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the second-largest and a fast-growing economy, China has played important roles in promoting globalization and impacting the environment. They explore the effect of China's Central Inspection of Environmental Protection (CIEP), a campaign-style governance approach, on China's legislation process related to the conservation of nature. The second paper by Chen et al. (2021) empirically examines how European Union-China (EU-China) trade affects intra-EU trade. [Extracted from the article]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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For advantage of the environment, coastal region in China is more attractive to foreign direct investment, such as Yangtze River delta and Pearl River delta. To analyze the differences in foreign direct investment importation performance among different provinces in China from a sustainability perspective, this paper constructed a foreign direct investment importation performance model based on the intertemporal effect of dynamic factors. Furthermore, applying the dynamic Malmquist model and panel data, this paper evaluated the total factor productivity of the foreign direct investment importation model by considering four factors as energy, openness, human capital, and physical capital. To obtain a comprehensive perspective, this paper also identified the bottlenecks of sustainability for FDI importation performance, based on an analysis of factor contributions. The results reveal that dynamic technical changes are critical in promoting foreign direct investment importation performance. Though, the advantange of coastal region is obvious. They are also enslaved to lower dynamic technical changes. Thus, the development of soft power is the greatest bottleneck for most Chinese provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Under the guidance of the concept of openness and development, the paper grasps the mechanism of technology spillover in developed countries and analyzes how to better absorb advanced manufacturing technology based on empirical analysis so as to point out the path for the transformation and development of China's digital manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach: The paper constructs the panel data model and further analyzes the impact of international technology spillovers on the transformation and development of the digital manufacturing industry. Findings: This paper measures the level of technology spillover in the Yangtze River Delta region and finds that foreign direct investment (FDI) technology spillover and import trade technology spillover among four provinces and cities show a growth trend from 2010 to 2017. But after 2017, there is a certain degree of decline. Originality/value: With the advent of industry 4.0, the digital manufacturing industry of all countries in the world is developing with a new attitude, the global technology spillover methods are diverse and the spillover channels have changed greatly, which will affect the transformation and upgrading of China's digital manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to explore the intrinsic mechanism of green finance's role in widening the green development space for China, in order to optimize the structure of green financial development and accelerate the construction of a modernized economic system. Taking ecological environment improvement as a new research perspective, this paper presents the impacts and mechanisms of green finance on the green development space of the economy and society through the fixed-effect model and moderating-effect model, based on panel data from 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2011 to 2020. The findings show that green finance development in China significantly expands the green development space of the economy and society, and this conclusion did not change after robustness tests such as replacing the main variables, adjusting the study interval, and considering endogeneity. In terms of its mechanism of action, ecological environment improvement plays an important mediating and regulating role in the process of green finance, essentially magnifying the green development space of the economy and society. In terms of a heterogeneity analysis, the effect of green finance on the expansion of the green development space is the largest in the eastern region, followed by the northeastern region, and the smallest in the central and western regions. In addition, the positive effect of green finance is relatively larger in regions with a higher urbanization level, government fiscal expenditure level, foreign investment level, and advanced industrial structure. The main contribution of this paper is to the field of green development, revealing the important role of the ecological benefits of green finance, which can help to achieve high-quality sustainable development in the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global regional trade agreements (RTAs) are experiencing unprecedented rapid development in terms of number and content of provisions, and China's RTAs are no exception. With the increase in the depth of RTA provisions, as an important form of economic and trade relations between countries, investment is bound to be affected. Taking the RTAs signed by China as the research object and using the bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) data provided by the International Monetary Fund CDIS database and the relevant data from the World Bank RTA text depth database, this paper constructs various indexes to measure the depth of RTA provisions and analyzes the effects of changes in the depth of RTA provisions on inward FDI stocks to China. The study finds that the improvement of all four depth indexes, namely, total depth, core depth, depth of WTO+ provisions, and depth of WTO-X provisions, significantly promotes China's inward FDI stocks. This conclusion still holds after a series of endogenous problem analysis and robustness tests. Further analysis shows that the improvement of the depth of RTA provisions has a relatively greater effect on FDI stocks from developing countries and countries along the "Belt and Road". At the same time, there exists significant heterogeneity in the effects of different RTA provisions on the FDI stocks. The insights that we obtain in this paper enable us to provide policy recommendations for the construction of China's global high-standard free trade agreement (FTA) network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the question, "How do firm-level, home-country and host-country environmental performance (EP) affect the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs)?" Design/methodology/approach: The authors examine the relationships between EP and OFDI propensity and between EP and OFDI intensity using a sample of 359 Chinese firms in industries with a significant environmental footprint between 2009 and 2019 (2,002 firm-year observations) and a Heckman two-stage model. Findings: This study shows that the propensity for OFDI by Chinese MNEs is significantly and positively related to the firm's prior EP and the country-level EP of China. However, the amount of FDI invested is significantly and positively related to the firm's prior EP and negatively related to the EP of the host country. Research limitations/implications: The findings suggest that FDI in a country by an MNE is determined by a combination of firm-level EP, home-country EP and host-country EP. This study finds that the decision to undertake FDI (propensity) and the decision about how much to invest (intensity) are determined by different factors. The propensity for FDI is determined by the home-country EP and firm-level EP. However, the intensity of FDI is determined by a combination of the host country EP and firm-level EP. A limitation is that this study only examines MNEs in China, so the findings may not apply to other countries. Originality/value: This paper shows that MNEs' EP is positively related to the propensity and intensity of their OFDI decisions. However, this paper shows that the home-country and host-country EP may also play an important role in determining the propensity or intensity of OFDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilateral organizations are taking attention toward foreign divestment; they are in practice to shift toward a large number of host countries from their home countries. In this paper, the significant role of FDI divestment in the development of the economy has been discussed. The role and contribution of FDI divestment in emerging economies have been discussed. The study employs qualitative descriptive analysis to address the determinants of FDI divestment operated by the emerging economies specifically in China. The study is based on economic reports, official documents, and data directly related to the subject of the study. The role and contribution of FDI divestment to develop a strong corporate sector are elaborated in this paper. Furthermore, the role of FDI divestment in reforming organizations and their sustainable growth with the support of evidence has been discussed. Issues regarding FDI divestment faced by different stakeholders have been explained in this research. Inflows and outflows of FDI divestment with cause and effect have been discussed in this paper. Additionally, this study examined the role of multilateral organizations to convince emerging economies by improving their divestment approach. In global strategy formulation FDI divestment consider as a significant aspect. It is observed, that this aspect of the strategy is still untouched in the field of international business and business academies. This study is specifically in the context of China with under consideration of other developed economies. This study investigates the encouraging factors for growing economies to formulate their divestment policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the significance of FDI as a way to alleviate credit constraints. Incoming foreign investment provides additional sources of capital. Specifically in the Chinese case, enterprises may look for foreign investors, being constrained in their activity due to distortions in the state-dominated system. First, the Chinese financial system allocates resources to the least efficient firms – state-owned enterprises – while denying the same resources to Chinese private enterprises, forcing them to look for a foreign investor. Second, the inefficient system of state investment planning leads to mismanagement of public enterprises, increasing ‘insolvency-induced FDI’. We propose to analyse determinants of FDI in Chinese provinces to test the above hypotheses. We control for traditional determinants of FDI such as market access, labour costs, productivity, infrastructure, reform advances and banking sector size in order to assess the impact of inter-provincial heterogeneity in terms of the access that private enterprises have to credit and the distortive management in state-owned firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The view of political achievements suggests that officials will prefer to implement measures that benefit their own development in order to seek promotions. In the past, GDP weighed heavily in officials' appraisals, leading them to develop the economy without regard to sustainability. Now that the central government has incorporated environmental indicators into the officials' appraisal system, will this lead officials to implement sustainable development strategies to the fullest extent? Are there spillover effects and regional heterogeneity in this role? This paper discusses these questions with the help of entropy method and a spatial Durbin model using data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2006 to 2016. The conclusions show that, firstly, the officials' competitive pressure is beneficial to enhance the sustainable development capacity of the province, but this effect is only effective in western China. Secondly, there is no spillover effect of officials' competitive pressure on sustainable development capacity; thirdly, foreign direct investment, the proportion of state-owned enterprises and environmental regulations have their own unique effects on sustainable development capacity, and there are spillover effects. Based on these findings, this paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations in terms of officials' appraisal system, talent training, foreign investment introduction, and state-owned enterprise reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the paths of development taken by China and Malaysia in their attempts to pursue catching-up. While both China and Malaysia rely to a large extent on attracting foreign direct investment, China has, since its economic liberalisation in the late 1970s, implemented a more proactive set of industrial policy to embed foreign know-how and promote domestic technological deepening. This is illustrated through a comparison of the evolution of the Chinese and Malaysian semiconductor (upstream) industry. Although their progress remains tentative at this stage, China seems to be showing more concrete signs of technological and industrial sophistication than Malaysia. Such mastery is a useful platform for Chinese firms to progressively climb the technological ladder and to capture more value from the production and sales of increasingly complex goods and services. The principles discussed in this paper provide policy lessons, or at least some initial guidance, for other developing economies aspiring to move up the value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2005, China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has increased year by year, which corresponds to the continuous decline of energy intensity. But there is limited literature concerning their relationship nowadays. To answer whether or not OFDI can reduce energy intensity, this paper selects data from 29 provinces in China from 2006 to 2015 and establishes a fixed-effects model to analyze the relationship. Further, this paper divides OFDI into technology-intensive ones and non-technology-intensive ones in order to distinguish the impact of outward foreign direct investment from different types of enterprises on the energy intensity. Combined with the micro-data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, we find that OFDI plays a significant role in reducing the energy intensity in China, and OFDI of high-technology-intensive enterprises has a greater effect on the decrease of energy intensity than that of low-technology-intensive enterprises. This paper classifies OFDI from the perspective of enterprise technology intensity, which enriches the existing research results in the field of international cooperation and energy intensity. It also overcomes the limitations of previous literature data and provides new evidence for encouraging high-tech enterprises to strengthen international cooperation from a micro level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both "dual cycle" and "carbon neutral" policies have been implemented as national strategies in China. But will "dual cycle" policy help carbon neutral policy and how do "dual cycle" policy affect carbon neutral policy? This paper investigates whether unbalanced bidirectional foreign direct investment (FDI) hinders electricity efficiency. To do so, it uses the super slack-based version of the global Malmquist–Luenberger index to measure electricity efficiency in 30 provinces from 2001 to 2020. This paper uses panel threshold regression model, finds out that bidirectional FDI below 1.7174 will positively impact electricity efficiency, but the positive effects disappear when bidirectional FDI exceeds 1.7174. Thus, balanced bidirectional FDI in province is required to enhance electricity efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria is one of the top countries of China's outward foreign direct investments in energy and power projects to meet the needs of China's fast-growing energy-intensive industries. Following several risks faced by investors to invest in countries with high levels of regulatory, judicial and political uncertainties that appeared in most African states, including Nigeria, contracting parties often take steps to advance and enhance their investment relations and investment climate through an agreement or bilateral investment treaties. This paper examines the China–Nigeria Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and the investment arbitration framework in place in the energy sector. It includes a general analysis on China–African BITs and features common difficulties and possible ways of addressing them. It analyzes the adequacy or otherwise of these frameworks and the various protections afforded to the contracting parties or the host state and the investors. It contends that the current China–Nigeria BIT is lacking essential environmental and social aspects, including sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, transparency and respect for the human rights of host communities, for the promotion of better China–Nigeria investment relations. Notwithstanding the fact that there has not been any known energy dispute in China–Nigeria-related projects, this paper calls for the need for an effective and efficient dispute resolution mechanism to address future disputes between the parties, in order to promote a favorable investment climate for Chinese (and international) investors willing to invest in Nigeria. It advocates that the China–Nigeria BIT should be unambiguous and well drafted to cover issues that could best address investment disputes in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes available aggregate country-level data, as well as bilateral trade and investment data, to identify signs of fragmentation in trade and investment patterns among ten major trading countries or regional trading blocks. We compare the trade and investment trends in the years during the US-China trade war and increase in geopolitical tensions (2018-2021) against the years preceding the trade war (2014-2017). Our analysis generally corroborates findings in the existing literature. Bilateral flows between the US and China have been damaged, but there is little evidence of wider fragmentation or that the world is splitting into competing spheres. Even focusing on technologyintensive manufactures that are increasingly subject to trade restrictions, we find no evidence of broad fragmentation. Our analysis does reveal, however, shifts in global trade and FDI, particularly towards Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and ASEAN countries. This may reflect a partial reshuffling of global value chains that is a natural outcome of favorable developments in these regions, as well as rising production costs in China. Such shifts do not necessarily reflect global fragmentation driven by geoeconomics factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper integrates trade policy and foreign direct investment into a unified analytical framework, and investigates the effects of input trade liberalization on the entry of foreign firms. To identify the causal effects, we utilize China's accession to the WTO in 2001 as a quasi-natural experiment, and perform difference-in-difference estimation. The results show that input trade liberalization significantly increases foreign entry. We also find that input trade liberalization not only promotes the entry of new foreign firms, but also restrains the exit of existing foreign firms, thereby contributing to the net growth of the number of foreign firms. The mechanism tests show that increasing variety as well as quality of intermediate input and reduction in marginal cost are the potential channels through which input trade liberalization promotes foreign entry. This paper further demonstrates that institutional environment strengths the positive effect of input trade liberalization on foreign entry, and the promotive effect of input trade liberalization on foreign entry increases with industry import intensity, additionally, input trade liberalization is also conducive to improving the quality of foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the reform and opening-up, China has developed into the world's number one manufacturing country. Meanwhile, China's environmental protection efforts continue to strengthen. So, will changes in the intensity of environmental regulatory policies have an impact on the technological development level and international competitiveness of China's high-tech manufacturing industries? In response to this issue, we have reviewed relevant research in the field of environmental regulation and export technology complexity, and then selected appropriate indicators to quantify the environmental regulation and export technology complexity of high-tech manufacturing industries in different regions of China. Furthermore, the entropy method was used to calculate the intensity of environmental regulations in different regions of China. In the subsequent empirical analysis, based on relevant indicator data from 30 provinces in China, excluding Tibet, from 2006 to 2021, we quantitatively analyzed the impact of China's environmental regulations on the complex export technology of high-tech manufacturing industries. The degree of influence and the robustness of the benchmark regression results was proved through endogeneity testing and robustness testing. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) from 2006 to 2021, China's environmental regulation intensity and the technological complexity of high-tech industry exports have shown an upward trend. (2) The empirical analysis results show that the increase in intensity has a significant "U-shaped" impact on the technological complexity of exports of high-tech manufacturing industries. (3) The "U-shaped" impact of environmental regulation on the technological complexity of exports of high-tech manufacturing industries has regional differences. However, the high-tech manufacturing industry does not show obvious industry differences. (4) Environmental regulations will affect the level of export technology complexity of the high-tech manufacturing industry through foreign direct investment, human capital, and innovative R D investment, which cause indirect effects. Based on those conclusions, this paper has suggested corresponding policy measures and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a Chinese solution to build a community of human destiny, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has shown China's international responsibility by promoting its green development. Based on the annual panel data of Chinese cities from 2004 to 2018, this paper systematically explores the effect of BRI on the Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) of cities along its domestic route using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. The results of the study show that (1) BRI significantly increases the GTFP of cities along its domestic route, and this finding holds after excluding a series of robustness tests such as endogeneity issues and other policy disturbances. (2) BRI promotes the growth of GTFP in the region mainly through improving science and technology innovation, increasing foreign direct investment and enhancing trade cooperation. (3) From the perspective of heterogeneity, the promotion effect of BRI on the GTFP of inland cities along the route is much higher than that of coastal cities, and cities along the route with stronger environmental concerns have a more significant enhancement effect. (4) Based on the policy context and the undertaking of role functions, there is a significant positive linkage effect between BRI Initiative and the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) construction in promoting GTFP growth. (5) From a spatial perspective, BRI has not only increased the GTFP of cities along the route, but also radiated the growth of GTFP in neighboring cities along the route. The conclusion of this paper provides a policy reference and theoretical basis for further building the green "Belt and Road" and promoting the sustainable development of China's economy and high-quality transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) has the dual attributes of green development and being innovation driven, and it has become an inevitable choice for solving the prisoner's dilemma of environmental protection and economic development under the action of the concept of sustainable development in the new era. This paper aims to clarify how environmental regulation (ER) can achieve a win‒win situation of GI and environmental protection by using data from prefecture-level cities in China and creating a dynamic panel model, quantile model, spatial econometric model, and panel threshold model to empirically analyze the dynamic effect and spatial effect of ER on GI as well as the nonlinear characteristics of the relationship between them and to examine the moderating effect of foreign direct investment (FDI). The results show that ER significantly promotes the development of the GI level and that FDI can play a positive moderating role. The impact has regional heterogeneity, time period heterogeneity, and resource endowment heterogeneity. After several robustness tests, the empirical conclusions are still credible. Based on the empirical conclusions, this paper makes policy suggestions on ER, foreign investment introduction, and the coordinated development of regional GI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid development and agglomeration of manufacturing industries in China inevitably lead to serious environmental pollution problems. The government restrains development of manufacturing industries through environmental regulation policies, but this may affect manufacturing industries agglomeration. Therefore, studying the impact of environmental regulation (ER) on manufacturing agglomeration (MA) is a critical prerequisite for the sustainability of China's manufacturing industry. Based on the panel data of 41 cities in Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region of China from 2003 to 2017, this paper explores the threshold effect of ER on MA using a panel threshold model and analyzes the heterogeneity impact of ER on MA in different regions and analyzes the dynamic mechanism and contribution of each influencing factor on MA using a panel vector autoregressive model. The results show that (1) there is a double threshold effect of ER on MA, showing an inverted "U"-shaped effect of rising and then falling; there are threshold effects of ER on MA based on foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic development level (EDL). The effect of ER on MA has the threshold effect under different FDI and EDL level, in which the effect based on FDI shows an inverted "U" shape relationship of rising and then falling; the effect based on EDL shows a growing trend. (2) There are 29 cities in YRD region in the "weak regulation" or "strong regulation" stage, both of which are not conducive to MA. (3) ER has a facilitating effect on MA, but with the extension of forecast period, this facilitating effect turns into an inhibiting effect. MA is mainly influenced by itself and transportation conditions (TC). Our study can provide some insights for improving the ecological environment and promoting the development of manufacturing clusters in YRD region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, China's economy is transforming from rapid development to high-quality development, and environmental pollution stands out as an urgent need to be addressed. Fiscal decentralization is considered to confer economic incentives on local governments to obtain the right to gain and spend in economic growth. However, at the same time, political incentives are given to local officials under the promotion mechanism based on gross domestic product (GDP) assessment, and these two incentives become key to the environmental performance of the jurisdictions. Therefore, this paper incorporates fiscal decentralization, promotion incentives, and environmental pollution into a unified framework and theoretically analyzes the effects of fiscal decentralization, promotion incentives on environmental pollution, and the intrinsic mechanism of action. Using panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2002 to 2018, we examine that fiscal decentralization significantly promotes environmental pollution, and this performance is more obvious in economically underdeveloped regions. In terms of its mechanism of action, fiscal decentralization affects environmental pollution by increasing the demand for foreign direct investment, inhibiting technological progress, and enhancing environmental regulation, while foreign direct investment and technological progress significantly inhibit environmental pollution, but environmental regulation does not present a role of pollution control. Further study finds that under the consideration of "GDP-based promotion incentives," local officials will generate "competition for investment," relax environmental standards for FDI, and generate "competition for growth", which will inhibit technological progress and incomplete enforcement of environmental regulations, thus exacerbating local environmental pollution. On this basis, this paper proposes to further deepen the fiscal system reform, promote the optimization of local government competition system, and effectively restrain the vicious competition behavior of local officials under the fiscal decentralization system, so as to provide relevant insights for realizing China's economic transformation as well as high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether regional integration can promote the urban agglomeration to attract foreign direct investment and expand the opening‐up is a question worthy of in‐depth discussion. This paper constructs a quasi‐natural experiment from the perspective of regional integration expansion in the Yangtze River Delta, using the panel data of 208 cities in China from 2005 to 2017. The main purposes are to examine and analyze the common trends and regional differences regarding the influences of regional integration on FDI in entire cities, incumbent cities, and new cities. Next, the internal mechanisms of expansion on FDI are explored. The results show that the regional integration exerted a significant positive effect on the FDI of the entire Yangtze River Delta. For different regions, the effect of regional integration on FDI in the incumbent cities was higher than that in the new cities. In terms of mechanisms, regional integration could affect FDI through industrial division mechanism and market unification mechanism, yet the role of economic connection mechanism exhibited regional differences. The conclusions of this paper bear important enlightenment for promoting the construction of regional integration in China and the high‐quality growth of FDI in the Yangtze River Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics and mechanisms of cultural diversity that affect foreign direct investment (FDI) using the panel data on provinces in China from 1999 to 2019 and find that, in general, cultural diversity inhibits FDI absorption. However, this kind of adverse effect has a nonlinear threshold characteristic. That is, when the population density reaches a certain level or urbanization is controlled within a certain range, the increase in cultural diversity can weaken the inhibitory effect on FDI. Additionally, by exploring the mechanisms of cultural diversity affecting FDI, we further find that cultural diversity inhibits FDI mainly through the channels of inhibiting population density and urbanization. The conclusions of this paper not only enrich the theoretical research on FDI location from the perspective of cultural diversity but also shed light on how to better attract FDI to China and other countries, such as resolving cultural conflicts and constructing an inclusive investment environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollution has become an unavoidable concern as China's high-quality development is underway. How to reduce pollution is an imperative issue for China to address. Pollution emissions are closely related to factor inputs, production processes and pollution control measures. Are there other forces to cut emissions besides regulatory control? Taking sulfur dioxide as an example, this paper probes into the potential mechanism through which technical efficiency drives pollution reduction in the context of opening to foreign investment. The results reveal that the openness to foreign investment remarkably lowers pollution emissions of firms, with SOEs, large firms and exporters seeing more pronounced pollution reduction effect after opening to foreign investment, while firms in pollution-intensive industries and less regulated areas are weaker in pollution reduction. A look into firm behavior suggests that the openness to foreign investment reduces pollutant emissions by improving technical efficiency rather than by raising investment in pollution control. The pollution reduction effect resulting from the openness is reflected in the improvement of intra-firm emission reduction capacity instead of inter-firm resource reallocation effect, according to an analysis at the aggregate level. This paper concludes that technical efficiency gains are an important tool to advance pollution reduction, and that China must be more flexible in leveraging the pollution reduction effect of other policies regarding technical efficiency to drive its high-quality development that is green. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental resources play an extremely important role in economic development. In the context of China's economic development entering a new normal, attaching importance to environmental protection and strengthening environmental regulations will have an important impact on the original foreign direct investment (FDI) and China's economic development. Therefore, this paper combines the characteristics of the "new normal" of China's economic development, takes 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2017 as the research object, and uses the PVAR model and impulse response function to re-verify the interaction mechanism and path among environmental regulation, FDI and high-quality economic development. The study found that: (1) There is an obvious mutual promotion relationship between environmental regulations and the quality of China's economic development and economic development environment. Strengthening environmental regulation is conducive to the realization of China's economic "new normal" development goal. (2) Although the strengthening of environmental regulation will have a significant constraint effect on FDI and China's economic growth rate, but the effect is relatively small. (3) FDI and economic growth rate variables are mutually motivated and promote each other, but both of them have a significant inhibitory effect on regional environmental regulation. In general, under the background of the "new normal" of China's economic development, appropriately increasing the intensity of environmental regulation is not only conducive to environmental protection and promoting high-quality and sustainable economic development, but also can serve the purpose of guiding the structure of foreign investment and transforming the mode of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the impact of host country corruption on foreign direct investment (FDI) from China to developing countries in Africa. With the opposing arguments that corruption is detrimental to or instrumental in FDI and mixed empirical evidence, this paper contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on the issue. Additionally, little research has been done on the impact of corruption on FDI made by developing country multinationals to developing countries. This paper fills a void in this area. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the published literature, as well as China and Africa contexts, the authors develop hypotheses that host countries with low corruption receive more FDI and resource-seeking investments weaken the relationship. The annual stock of Chinese FDI in 35 African countries, host country corruption data and other control variables from 2007 to 2015 are collected. Feasible generalized least squares models are used to test the hypotheses. Additional robustness tests are also conducted. Findings: The findings support the hypotheses. Specifically, Chinese investors make more investments in host countries with low corruption except for resource-seeking investments in resource-rich host counties. The results are statistically significant accounting for various control variables. The results of the robustness tests show that the main findings are robust. Originality/value: First, this study provides new evidence on the impact of corruption on FDI. Second, this study also fills a void by examining FDI from a developing country, China to other developing countries in Africa. Finally, this study also has a practical implication for Chinese multinationals investing in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence mechanism of the marketization process and financial technology on corporate investment preference using panel data from 2013 to 2019 for China's A-share listed companies. The study finds that both the marketization process and FinTech can facilitate increased R&D innovation and foreign equity investment by companies but discourage investment in their fixed assets, and FinTech has a "U-shaped effect" on corporate R&D and innovation. At the same time, the marketization process and FinTech show different threshold effects on corporate investment preferences with government subsidies as the threshold variable. It is found that market-based processes in small-scale enterprises are better able to promote investment in innovative R&D by companies—the marketization process for large enterprises has a greater impact on outward equity investment in the heterogeneity analysis. From the perspective of the nature of property rights, it is found that the marketization process and FinTech have a greater impact on non-state enterprises. As a result, in an era of rapid FinTech development, this paper enriches the relevant research on the impact of the marketization process on corporate investment preferences, which has important practical significance for policy formulation and corporate future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses what factors best explain foreign capital inflows into Hungary and China during the period 1978–92. The size of the host country markets is found to play a positive role, while the cost of capital variables and political instability are negatively correlated with investment inflows. It supports the hypothesis that low-cost labour and currency depreciation are important factors in explaining how much foreign capital inflows into a particular country. There is little evidence to support classical hypotheses concerning tariff barriers and imports variables. The OECD growth rates show significant positive correlation with foreign direct investment in Hungary. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) has become a major element of global capital flows. As a consequence, recent years have witnessed an increasing growth in the number of papers focusing on Chinese companies "going global." This paper reviews 112 empirical papers focusing on Chinese OFDI that were published in major scholarly journals between 2002 and 2014. We report on individual and institutional contributions, citations, the theories and methods used and the research topics. We also identify the research gaps and discuss the implications of our literature review for future theory building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persisting in opening up and achieving coordinated development of economy, society, and ecology is China's major strategies for achieving sustainable urbanization. Ecological efficiency is a reasonable indicator to measure the development level of a circular economy. Therefore, using the statistical data of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2016, this paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model that considers undesired output to measure the eco-efficiency value, which is used to measure the level of circular economy development in each province. Based on this, a panel model is constructed to test the impact of circular economy and FDI on urbanization. The empirical results show that (1) there is a complex nonlinear relationship between the development of circular economy and the advancement of urbanization, and the shape of the curve varies with areas; (2) FDI under environmental regulation is conducive to promoting China's urbanization to achieve green, effective, and sustainable development; and (3) the development of the tertiary industry, human resources, innovation capabilities, and employment situation is conducive to promoting China's urbanization. Finally, based on the empirical results, this paper puts forward policy recommendations to achieve green, efficient, and intelligent development of Chinese cities by promoting the development of a circular economy and strengthening FDI screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the development concepts of "innovation, coordination, green, opening and sharing," a high-quality economic evaluation index system is constructed using city-level data in Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), China. Further, the spatial lag model is used to empirically study the effects of environmental regulation, foreign direct investment, and its interaction term on the high-quality economic development. The results show that environmental regulation is conducive to promoting high-quality economic development, which provides a certain empirical basis for the Porter Hypothesis. In addition, foreign direct investment also plays a significant positive role. Specifically, environmental regulation has positive impacts on the relationship between foreign direct investment and the high-quality economic development. Finally, this paper puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions, such as improving environmental regulation policy and actively introducing high-quality foreign direct investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As there are many studies on the predictors of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, the influences of foreign direct investments (FDIs) knowledge spillovers (KSs) on CSR reporting in developing countries remain unclear. This paper introduces the passive‐learning KSs concept to explain whether, why, and how domestic firms learn CSR knowledge from their foreign counterparts. First, we investigate the relationship between foreign ownership and the quality of CSR reporting (CSRQ). Second, we test the moderating effect of three types of direct institutional pressures: the green development policy, the mandatory CSR reporting requirement, and CSR regulations issued by the State‐owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Third, we examine the moderating effect of board interlocks to explore the indirect impacts of institutional pressures. We run regressions on a sample of Chinese A‐share listed companies and the hypotheses are generally supported. This paper contributes to the literature on CSR reporting and FDIs KSs by adopting the passive‐learning KSs theory to explain CSR KSs in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving energy efficiency is crucial for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. The digital economy, which is characterized by big data, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and a new generation of mobile Internet, has quietly penetrated all aspects of the economy and society, profoundly changing the means of production and lives of human beings. Digital technologies have great potential to improve the global energy system's security, productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in mainland China from 2006 to 2021, this study divided energy efficiency into total and single factor energy efficiency. The two-way fixed-effect model and the Driscol-Kraay method were used to adjust the standard error test in order to examine the impact of digital technology represented by industrial robots on energy efficiency and its path mechanism. Studies have shown that digital technology can significantly improve total factor energy efficiency and reduce energy intensity per unit of GDP. This conclusion was found to be still valid after the robustness test using feasible generalized least squares, time-varying difference in difference and fixed effect space Durbin model. The results of the mechanism test show that digital technology can improve energy efficiency by increasing the degree of industrial virtual agglomeration and the channels of foreign direct investment. This paper provides a valuable discussion on how information technology advances can improve energy efficiency in the era of the digital economy. The conclusions will help relevant market players to formulate policies and measures and corporate strategies to improve energy efficiency. At the same time, it also deepens the theoretical understanding and mechanism path of digital technology's impact on energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What type of investment strategies are effective for foreign venture capital (VC) firms investing in transition economies? This is the research question we address in this paper by analyzing recent institutional developments and investment activities of foreign VC firms investing in China. We find that foreign VC firms identify China as lacking fully-developed institutions necessary to effectively support VC investing. We further find that foreign VCs have evolved unique proactive, hands-on investment strategies via a bumpy road of investing in China: initially dominating the Chinese VC industry, but since the great financial recession playing a still-significant but reduced and disadvantaged-role subservient to the rapidly increasing role of domestic VC firms. We developed a novel triangulation research methodology that allows us to provide significantly more depth in our analysis of how foreign VCs compete in transition economies. This research contributes to both the institutional theory and VC investing literatures. We suggest that foreign VCs can increase their competitive advantage by developing hands-on value-added investing strategies, when investing in transitioning markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deeply investigating the relationship between governance, financial development, and outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is beneficial to formulating effective policies to accelerate Chinese firms' pace of overseas expansion. Based on the theoretical mechanism analysis, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of Asian governance and financial development on China's OFDI using the panel data of 37 Asian countries from 2003 to 2017. The results show that the host country governance has a negative and statistically significant impact on China's direct investment in Asia. The conclusion remains valid even after overcoming the interference of endogenous and economic cycle fluctuations. Moreover, using the mediating effect model, we find that financial development is an important channel through which host country governance affects China's OFDI. In further discussion, the findings suggest that with the scale of OFDI expanding, the role of governance takes an inverted "U" shape, and the "Belt and Road" initiative (BRI) weakens the negative impact of governance quality on China's OFDI. Furthermore, governance has shown more remarkable restraint on China's OFDI in neighboring, coastal, and low-income countries in the heterogeneity test. ​From the perspective of host country governance, this paper provides more specific guidance to formulate China's direct investment policy in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore a model of efficient allocation of financial resources in China and other Belt and Road countries to ensure it plays the most effective economic role. In terms of financial resources, this paper uses a fixed effects model to conduct an empirical study of 2006-2019 panel data on the financial resources of Belt and Road countries. The paper finds that the role of financial resources varies from country to country along the Belt and Road. 1) In some regions, increased bank credit is playing a less important role in driving the economy; 2) Securities markets have an important role in promoting economic growth; 3) The insurance industry has great potential for economic development; 4) Foreign direct investment has boosted economic development. Hence we need to face up to the fact that the role of financial resources in economic growth varies from country to country along the Belt and Road, so we need to formulate the corresponding strategies to optimize financial resources and promote the sustainable development of Belt and Road economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue focus on modelling knowledge and innovation spillovers with an emphasis on the context of China. The first paper decomposes the relative importance of economic growth into knowledge spillovers and technical diffusion, using cross-country data on a worldwide scale, as well as provincial data at the regional scale of China. The second paper investigates whether the economic and financial performances of reformed state-owned enterprises are affected by the presence of non-state-owned enterprises from related industries. The final paper examines how the spatial spillovers from inward and outward foreign direct investment affect the innovation activities of domestic firms in China's Shandong province. This special issue contributes to a better understanding of the channels for transferring knowledge and innovation spillovers in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment and environmental pollution have been a prominent topic in China's economic development. Therefore, this paper investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution, and makes practical policy recommendations to support the harmonious development of economy and environment based on the study findings. In this paper, the spatial econometric approach framework with the spatial weight matrix of the Delaunay method is used to examine the influence of foreign direct investment on the level of urban air quality. It uses air quality index as an indicator to measure air pollution comprehensively. Based on the spatial autocorrelation with the aggregation and radiation effects of foreign direct investment, the results show that the distribution of air pollution has considerable spatial impact in terms of spatial nonequilibrium. Through the empirical analysis, our finding reveals that the increase in GDP, the share of secondary industry, and population growth are the important elements affecting the change in air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the effect of environmental regulations on inward foreign direct investment in China. For this purpose, a panel threshold model was constructed to assess the threshold effects of environmental regulations on the influx of foreign direct investments (FDI). The findings indicate that, under the influence of human capital, the impact of environmental regulations on FDI in China was characterized by a V-shaped curve, indicating an initial inhibitory effect followed by a subsequent increase. A plausible explanation is that specific pollution-generating FDI must withdraw from China because of stringent environmental regulations before human capital reaches a certain threshold level. Meanwhile, impaired by the adverse selection effect, some cleaner-production FDI cannot easily enter China. As a result, environmental regulations in this stage have an inhibitory effect on FDI in China. However, part of the pollution-generating FDI is converted into cleaner production after the human capital level reaches the threshold limit. Further, due to the positive selection effect, additional cleaner-production FDI can also enter China from different destinations. At this stage, environmental regulations boost overall FDI entering China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance is considered a new force for the optimization of industrial structure. With the quasi-natural experiment of the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone, the impact of the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone on the optimization of industrial structure is empirically tested. The research found that: First, although green finance reform and innovation pilot zone generally improved the optimization of the industrial structure, it had an inhibitory effect on the advancement of industrial structure. Although it promoted the rationalization, it produced negative spatial spillovers; second, the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone mainly promoted the optimization of industrial structure through three paths: foreign investment, technological innovation, and infrastructure improvement; finally, provinces with large economies and good central-local relations had a stronger role in promoting industrial structure rationalization, while small economies and poor central-local relations dragged down the advancement of industrial structure. In summary, this paper finds that while green finance can contribute to the optimization of industrial structure in general, there are many aspects of it that deserve attention in more subtle ways. The conclusions enrich the research on the influencing factors of industrial structure and also provide a reference for improving the green financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]