ABSTRACT Facility cucumber production is a flagship segment of China’s protected horticulture, yet productivity varies markedly across provinces. Using provincial cost–benefit data for 21 major producing provinces in China over 2011–2024, we measure annual total factor productivity (TFP) growth with a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)–Malmquist index and decompose it into efficiency change and technical change; the resulting TFP-growth panel covers 2012–2024. Average TFP grows by about 3.1% per year, with pronounced spatial heterogeneity. In North and Western China, growth is driven largely by technical progress, whereas Northeast and East–Central China exhibit a dual-driver pattern in which technical progress is accompanied by efficiency gains. In fixed-effects and panel-threshold regressions, planting scale exhibits a significant nonlinear relationship with TFP. At relatively small scales, expanding the planting scale leads to a significant reduction in TFP. However, once the scale crosses the threshold, this negative impact shows a diminishing trend. These findings provide a basis for formulating region-specific policies aimed at strengthening regional agricultural management capacity, implementing technology-tiered extension strategies and establishing threshold-crossing guidance mechanisms.

ABSTRACT In recent years, financial technology (fintech) has emerged as a crucial driver of sustainable economic growth. Yet, the interplay between fintech, natural resource utilization, industrialization, and environmental outcomes remains underexplored, particularly in rapidly industrializing economies. This study examines the environment – development trade-off in China by analysing the impact of fintech, natural resources, industrialization, and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from 2000 to 2020. Using a Dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lag (DARDL) simulation model, the results confirm the resource curse hypothesis indicating that natural resource dependence increases emissions while fintech development significantly reduces CO2 emissions. Conversely, industrialization and GDP expansion contribute to higher emissions. These findings highlight fintech’s potential as a policy lever to promote green financial intermediation and mitigate environmental degradation. The study recommends integrating fintech-driven solutions into China’s sustainability and industrial policies to achieve long-term ecological balance and economic resilience.

ABSTRACT Digital infrastructure plays a pivotal role in reshaping the spatial allocation of production factors. Using a city – firm matched panel dataset from China, this paper examines how digital infrastructure affects cross-regional capital allocation in the context of building a nationally unified market. We employ fixed-effects models, panel threshold models, and a spatial Durbin model to identify both local and spatial spillover effects. Baseline results show that a one-unit increase in the number of 4 G base stations per 10,000 residents increases the number of cross-city subsidiaries by approximately 1.1%, indicating economically meaningful effects on firms’ location decisions. The impact exhibits pronounced heterogeneity across regions and firm types. Threshold estimates reveal a significant non-linear relationship: the positive effect of digital infrastructure on capital reallocation strengthens only after its development level exceeds a critical threshold of 1.72. Spatial effect decomposition further shows that spillover effects account for about 60% of the total impact, suggesting that digital infrastructure influences capital allocation not only locally but also through regional networks, generating a ‘ripple effect’. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of improving digital infrastructure quality and strengthening cross-regional coordination to optimize capital allocation and advance the construction of a unified national market.

ABSTRACT This paper examines how platform-specific antitrust regulation shapes innovation using China’s 2021 Anti-Monopoly Guidelines as a quasi-natural experiment. We develop a model where an incumbent platform allocates resources between internal R&D and data-driven M&As; tighter merger scrutiny lowers M&A returns and induces substitution towards R&D. Using a panel of 112 listed platform firms (2016–2024) and a difference-in-differences design exploiting continuous variation in pre-policy M&A reliance, we find that the Guidelines significantly reduce M&A activity (18% in deal counts, 22% in value) while increasing R&D intensity (12%), invention patents (15%), patent quality, and exploratory innovation. Mechanism tests confirm resource reallocation from M&As to R&D drives these effects. Results suggest well-targeted antitrust can enhance innovation by reshaping the mix between external and internal strategies.

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of a low-carbon urban transition, this study investigates the impact of subway network development on carbon balance ratios across 300 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2023. Moving beyond conventional analyses that treat metro systems as isolated ‘point-line’ infrastructure, we construct multidimensional network topology and node centrality indicators using complex network analysis. The findings reveal that improvements in subway network accessibility significantly enhance urban carbon balance ratios, namely the ratio of carbon absorption to carbon emission. Mechanism analysis indicates three pathways: (1) ecologically, metro construction helps preserve existing carbon sinks and expand green space, enhancing carbon absorption capacity; (2) in terms of lifestyle, subway networks reshape residents’ travel behaviour by guiding modal shifts from private vehicles and taxis to metro transit, reducing carbon emissions; (3) from the production perspective, subway networks promote manufacturing spatial agglomeration, stimulate green technology innovation, and increase green total factor productivity. These findings extend the literature on the environmental impacts of transportation infrastructure by establishing subway networks as catalysts for carbon balancing. Policy implications emphasize establishing metro carbon accounting and trading pathways, implementing differentiated industrial layout guidance, and constructing cross-regional carbon sink compensation mechanisms, so as to achieve synergistic effects between transportation infrastructure and carbon neutrality.

ABSTRACT Frequent extreme climate events have heightened supply chain vulnerabilities, positioning climate risk as a critical factor in corporate sustainability. Using data on Chinese A-share listed firms and their supply chain partners from 2009 to 2023, this study investigates whether customer climate risk shapes suppliers’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. We find that higher customer climate risk significantly improves suppliers’ ESG performance, primarily through risk linkage and incentive synergy mechanisms. The effect is stronger when suppliers exhibit higher dependence on customer firms or when the two parties differ in ownership structure. Moreover, we identify asymmetries in both direction and intensity: customer-to-supplier spillovers are stronger than reverse spillovers, and the effect intensifies when customers’ climate risk exposure exceeds that of suppliers. Further evidence shows that customer climate risk not only enhances supplier ESG scores but also contributes to reduced carbon emissions and improved carbon efficiency. These findings extend the literature on climate risk transmission by uncovering its governance spillovers within supply chains, and provide implications for lead firms and regulators aiming to strengthen supply chain resilience and foster sustainable development.

ABSTRACT While existing literature extensively debates the environmental impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI), it often overlooks the increasing prevalence of joint ventures experience (JVE) as a more liberalized investment vehicle. This study introduces the concept of ‘joint venture imprint’ to identify and analysis the often-overlooked long-term environmental spillover effects of JVE on Chinese firms that have transitioned to wholly owned foreign enterprises. We discover that JVE significantly reduces SO2 and industrial wastewater pollution intensity, which is robust across replacing dependent variables, replacing regression model, controlling for inter-firm spillover effects, cross-fixed effects and exclusion of other policy impacts. And we apply Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjusted (IPWRA) estimation, placebo test, Heckman two-step, PSM and IV method to mitigate endogeneity issues. Furthermore, this environmental spillover effect peaks 3–4 years after transition before gradually diminishing. Mechanistically, this environmental benefit is driven by enhanced innovation capabilities, improved management efficiency, and increased environmental investment. Heterogeneity tests reveal that this effect is more pronounced in capital-intensive, cleaner and larger-scale firms. These findings provide valuable insights for host countries’ foreign investment policies, industrial policies and environmental regulations.

ABSTRACT We examine the MAX effect in China’s A-share market, focusing on how IPO activity and investor sentiment interact to shape return predictability. Short-term returns are negatively associated with subsequent performance, intensifying during periods of active IPO issuance and heightened sentiment. These conditions amplify investor attention to high-payoff stocks and fuel speculative trading, reinforcing demand for lottery-like stocks. IPO activity functions as a behavioural amplifier of the MAX effect and lottery demand, linking primary-market dynamics with secondary-market behaviour, while investor sentiment further intensifies these relationships.

ABSTRACT This study examines the causal impact of digital live streaming on urban tourism demand in China. We construct a city-level Live Streaming Index (LSI) from multi-source Internet big data to measure live streaming popularity. To address endogeneity concerns, including reverse causality and omitted variables, we implement an instrumental variable (IV) strategy, using the number of lottery sales points as an exogenous instrument. Two-stage least squares estimates show that a one-unit increase in the LSI leads to an annual increase of $848 million (in 2020 constant prices) in tourism revenue and 2.06 million additional tourists. The effects are stronger in cities with superior transportation infrastructure, richer tourism resources, younger populations, and greater consumer activity. Mechanism analysis suggests that live streaming boosts tourism demand primarily by amplifying tourism-related public opinion and attracting commercial resources. These findings enrich the literature on digital media and urban economic development and provide policy implications for destination management in the digital era.

ABSTRACT Amid global economic fluctuations and domestic transformation pressures, household economic decision-making is critical to the rational allocation of family wealth. As a core competency for optimizing such decisions, digital literacy is playing an ever more prominent role in helping families navigate complex economic environments and achieve efficient resource allocation. This study employs five waves of China Family Panel Studies(CFPS) data (2014–2022) to investigate the impact of Digital Literacy(DL) on household current consumption, savings, and financial asset allocation, as well as the underlying mechanisms. Findings reveal that DL boosts household current consumption, lowers household current savings, promotes investment in risky financial products, and increases holdings of such products. These conclusions hold after addressing endogeneity concerns and passing robustness tests. Heterogeneity analyses were performed by grouping samples according to urban/rural areas, household income, education level, and mortgage status. Family social networks, credit accessibility, entrepreneurial preferences, and cognitive abilities serve as mediating variables between digital literacy and household economic decision-making. Based on this, it is proposed that policies should be introduced to enhance digital literacy nationwide, with a focus on rural and disadvantaged groups, to support balanced development in residents’ entrepreneurship and consumption.