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This study examines the long‐term impacts of early coal mining on human capital outcomes. Based on coal mines across 260 prefectures in late Qing China (c.1840–1912), we find that early coal mining led to a significant rise in schooling years in 2000. We trace the historical channels and show that the influence of early coal mining has persisted through and helped shape the modernization of China, which includes local industrialization and a complimentary supply of educational infrastructure. These results suggest that in contrast to other grabbing mineral extraction, inclusive coal mining systems benefit long‐term human capital accumulation and economic growth, not mining activity per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging is widely assumed to have detrimental effects on economic development, especially through an increased social security burden. This paper starts with the potential problems of the pension system in China. We investigate how local governments respond to population aging and the impact of population aging on the firm pension contributions using administrative data from the period 2008–2015. We present three findings. First, population aging increases the pension contributions of firms. Second, fiscal pressure is the channel through which population aging affects pension enforcement. Last, the pension administration system could affect the net impact of population aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bohai Bay, as a significant economic bay area in China, has experienced considerable ecological consequences during its rapid economic development. One of the major environmental challenges is the emission of air pollutants from ships, which has had a severe impact on regional air quality and the health of residents. To assess the influence of pollutants on the air quality around the Bohai Bay area, a Weather Research and Forecasting and Community Multiscale Air Quality (WRF-CMAQ) model was established using a 9 km × 9 km high-resolution ship emission gridded inventory from 2018. The WRF-CMAQ model was employed to compare two scenarios: vessel emissions and non-vessel emissions, in order to evaluate the impact of ship emissions. By analyzing the pollutant concentrations in Bohai Bay and the degree of change in pollutant concentration in six cities under these two scenarios, significant differences were observed. Furthermore, a comparison of the hourly concentration contributions of ship emissions between port cities and inland cities within the same region revealed that inland cities were less affected by ship emissions. The main contributing factors to this disparity were identified as wind direction and wind speed. • Study reveals ship emissions' severe impact on regional air quality. • WRF-CMAQ model compares air quality under two emission scenarios. • Significant pollutant concentration differences were observed in six cities. • Wind direction and speed were key factors making inland cities less affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper analyzes how land supply response to the ousting of local key officials in urban China due to corruption prosecution. • Corruption crackdown is used as the exogenous shock to identify the relationship corruption and land supply. • Both the volume and value of land sales dropped significantly after the local officials' ousting. • The supply of commercial and residential land dropped but the supply of land for public use increased. • The marketization level of land supply increased and cheap transfer of industrial land became less. • The heterogeneity of the effect was investigated, and the long-term persistence of this effect was confirmed. The allocation of land resources is a crucial issue in sustainable urban development, but it is subject to the vagaries of public governance. By using the prosecution of corrupt local leaders as the shock event, and exploring the data on sacked officials and land transfers in prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2016, we analyse the changes in the supply of land in response to the ousting of key local officials for corruption. The estimations derived through the identification strategy of the DID framework show that both the volume and value of land sales dropped significantly after the local officials' ousting, with the value of total land sales reacting to a much greater extent. We also found the reduction of land supply was mainly from commercial and residential land but a greater supply of land for public use following the local leaders' ousting, accompanied with an increase in the level of marketisation in the supply of land and a reduction in cheap transfers of industrial land. In addition, the heterogeneity of the effect across the rank and type of official was investigated, and the long-term persistence of this effect was confirmed. By showing that anti-corruption measures have a persistent disciplinary effect on officials' subsequent land supply strategy, this paper underscores that the quality of public governance profoundly influences the functioning of the land market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy technological innovation (RETI) is an important way to reduce carbon emissions and achieve sustainable development. Exploring whether RETI is beneficial to the improvement of carbon emission efficiency and how the market environment affects the role of RETI on carbon emission efficiency is critical to the design of effective policies. Therefore, based on the data from 25 provinces in China from 2002 to 2015, the Tobit fixed-effect model and the panel threshold model are used to investigate the impact and the mechanism of RETI on total factor carbon performance index (TCPI) from a market perspective. The results show that: (1) RETI can effectively improve TCPI, but this effect is affected by market factors; (2) With the reduction of market segmentation or the increase of market potential, the improvement effect of RETI on TCPI is significantly enhanced; (3) The panel threshold model further verifies that the impact of RETI on TCPI has a significant single threshold effect in terms of market segmentation and market potential; (4) There is an inverted "U-shaped" relationship between market segmentation and TCPI, and the increase of market potential is conducive to the improvement of TCPI. This paper provides corresponding policy implications for China to achieve the dual goals of economic transformation and carbon emission reduction., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)