He Xu

The carbon emission trading system (CETS) is a milestone policy in the history of China’s emission trading system, which is of great significance to China’s realization of “carbon peak and carbon neutralization”. As an important component of sustainable development, LUT should be related to the CETS. However, in the literature on the CETS, little material deals with its impact on land use transition (LUT). This paper will enrich this literature. Based on 30 provincial regions in China from 2011 to 2017, using the DID and entropy methods, this study investigated the impact of CETS on the trend of LUT from three perspectives: economic effects, environmental effects and Porter effects. The conclusions are that (1) the implementation of the CETS hindered economic development, but optimized energy-use efficiency; (2) the implementation of the CETS reduced the emissions of CO₂ and SO₂; (3) the implementation of the CETS did not produce a Porter effect; and (4) the influence of the CETS had the characteristics of a spatial cluster. These findings offer some guidance for improving CETS policies and formulating similar environmental regulation policies.

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.

The combination of digital technology and finance has brought about a new development model for financial inclusion. What impact will it have on the current imbalance in the distribution of financial resources and the urban-rural income gap in China? To answer this question, this paper uses relevant data from 2014–2018 to study the impact of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap from the theory of financial exclusion, and analyzes the transmission of digital inclusive finance through alleviating financial exclusion, widening financing channels and helping residents with entrepreneurial spirit to start their own businesses, thus increasing jobs, raising the income of rural residents and reducing the urban-rural income gap. The conclusions are as follows: (1) digital inclusive finance can significantly converge the urban-rural income gap; (2) among the dimensions of digital inclusive finance, only the breadth of coverage can significantly reduce the urban-rural income gap, while the effects of depth of use and digitalization are not significant; (3) digital inclusive finance can alleviate the urban-rural income gap through the transmission mechanism of promoting residents’ entrepreneurship; (4) the worse the regional economic development and education, the better the effect of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap. This paper combines the above results to propose corresponding policy recommendations.

Rapid urbanization has provided a strong impetus for the economic growth of China, but it has also caused many problems such as inefficient urban land use and environmental pollution. With the popularization of the concept of green and sustainable development, the Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) assessment concept is widely accepted. The government and residents are paying more and more attention to environmental issues in urban development, and environmental protection has formed an important part of urban development. In this context, this study takes 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as examples to build an evaluation system for urban land-use efficiency under green development orientation. The evaluation system takes into account the inputs of land, capital, labor, and energy factors in the process of urban development. Based on emphasizing economic output, the social benefits and undesired outputs brought about by urban development are taken into account. This paper measures urban land use efficiency by the super-efficiency SBM model, and on this basis, analyses the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of urban land-use efficiency. Further, this paper measures urban land use efficiency without considering undesired outputs and compares the two evaluation methods. Again, the comparison illustrates the rationality of urban land use efficiency evaluation system under green development orientation.

Innovation is the primary driving force for development and the core of green, healthy, and sustainable economic development. This paper researches the spatial effect of absorptive capacity on regional innovation capacity from the perspective of knowledge spillover. We use the seven dimensions such as R & D intensity to build an absorptive capacity index evaluation system. After statistical verification, we select the most suitable empirical model, the dynamic Spatial Durbin Model with two-way fixed effect. The empirical results show that: (1) The promotion effect of absorptive capacity on knowledge spillovers in one province has no obvious effect on innovation promotion in other provinces, especially provinces at similar economic levels. However, it tends to inhibit the innovation development of neighboring provinces. (2) The impact of absorptive capacity on promoting knowledge spillovers varies from region to region. The eastern provinces of China are not affected by the absorptive capacity of neighboring provinces. The regression results of the central and western regions are not substantially different from the full sample. This study puts forward some policy suggestions based on the empirical results. It shows that a higher absorptive capacity does not mean better performance. The Chinese government should thus promote innovation in different provinces according to the local conditions.