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Based on a sample of 92 listed renewable energy enterprises in China from 2007–2017, this paper empirically examines the nonlinear effect of environmental policies on renewable energy investments using a semiparametric regression model. Environmental policies are divided into three groups in terms of pre-control, in-process governance, and post-accounting—the groups being green supervision and public regulations, green standardized regulations, and green accounting regulations—and this paper explores the differences in the effects of environmental policies at different stages. The results indicate that the relationship between environmental policies and renewable energy development has been unstable, following a “W-shaped” pattern. Green supervision and public regulations can greatly enhance investments in the renewable energy industry, with an estimated coefficient of 10.8173. Green standardized regulations have a similar “W-shaped” impact on renewable energy development. However, the nonlinear impact of green accounting regulations on renewable energy development fails the significance test. In addition, the effect of environmental policies on investment in the solar energy industry is positive, with a coefficient of 1.0697. The positive effect of environmental policies on investments in the renewable energy industry is reflected mainly in medium-, small-, and micro-sized enterprises. These findings contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of environmental policies by putting a set of environmental policies into a unified framework to explore their combined effects.

Increased objective uncertainties, upward movement in the hierarchy of needs, and associated cultural and ideational transition are inherent to modern societies. These factors were previously treated as independent macro-shocks and studied separately, without regard for their interactions. In this paper, we provide an all-around framework to interpret fertility behavior and low fertility in developed economies, to compensate for the isolation of economic uncertainty from a cultural and ideational transition in previous empirical studies. In this regard, we conduct an empirical analysis of panel data of 34 OECD countries from 2000 to 2018, to discuss the impact of economic uncertainty on the fertility rate and the moderating effect of cultural and ideational transition on that impact. Below are our findings: (1) economic uncertainty significantly inhibits the fertility rate, and such an inhibiting effect is found to be underestimated after endogeneity is controlled; (2) according to heterogeneity analysis, the inhibiting effect of economic uncertainty on the fertility rate is stronger after the 2008 financial crisis and among low-income economies and countries where Confucianism is practiced; (3) a significant negative moderating effect of cultural and ideational transition on the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility rate is observed, indicating that the inhibiting effect of structural dimensions that combine objective and subjective factors regarding the fertility rate may be self-reinforcing; and, (4) further tests show that economic uncertainty and cultural and ideational transition affect the fertility rate by means of the effect of delayed parenthood, the substitution of cohabitation for marriage, and fertility preferences. We find that fertility behavior is cumulatively affected by both economic uncertainty and cultural and ideational transition. This implies that reducing economic uncertainty and fostering a culture that encourages marriage and fertility are fundamental for increasing the fertility rate in China, a country resorting to the third-child policy to promote a fertility rebound.

Industrial structure green adjustment (ISGA) and green total factor productivity (GTFP), deriving from development processes for green goals, recently attracted great attention as two ways to achieve Ecological Well-being Performance (EWP) growth, which is one of the main green development goals that humanity should pursue, and which affects the efficiency improvement of transforming ecological consumption into human well-being. In this paper, the effects of ISGA and GTFP on EWP growth are empirically tested in a dynamic panel model of spatial econometrics, using statistics from 30 provinces of China in the 1994–2014 period. In particular, the indicator system of ISGA is firstly constructed based on the theories of EWP and three-dimensional industrial ecological footprint (3DIEF). The results indicate that spatial spillovers are important factors in the effects, the main driving force for EWP growth in provinces of China had gradually shifted from ISGA to GTFP, and GTFP is essential for structural bonuses from ISGA to take effect. In addition, a provincial government needs to target reference objects from not only other provinces in the same economic zone's yardstick competition, but also ISGA and GTFP situations in geographically close or economically similar provinces. In addition, the adverse EWP effects of ISGA can be mitigated by GTFP increase or a combination of GTFP and ISGA for provinces in all stages of ISGA. In general, improving GTFP will be the main driving force for China's provincial EWP growth, and the main venue through which the adverse effects of improper ISGA can be mitigated. The present study contributes to explore the EWP growth effect of ISGA and GTFP, can at least provide a valuable guidance and in-depth understanding to researchers, operators and policy makers who wish to improve human well-being in an ecologically efficient way, as well as for the follow-up studies.