Yiwei Duan

The New Western Land–Sea Corridor (NWLSC), a key logistics initiative of China, serves as a strategic passage connecting Eurasia. This study establishes an indicator system to evaluate its logistics resilience, and explores the structural evolution and corresponding driving mechanisms of the logistics resilience spatial correlation network. With the panel data of 13 provincial-level regions along the corridor, this study adopts the standard deviational ellipse and centroid migration model to examine the spatial distribution of logistics resilience and the migration trajectory of its gravity center, respectively. It also employs the modified gravity model and social network analysis (SNA) to investigate the structural configuration of the logistics resilience spatial correlation network, and applies the QAP (Quadratic Assignment Procedure) model to reveal the relevant driving mechanisms. The findings are concluded as follows. (1) The overall logistics resilience level of the NWLSC has been continuously improving, with a prominent regional imbalance; its spatial gravity center has long been located within Sichuan Province and has begun to shift toward the northeast. Meanwhile, the logistics resilience spatial correlation network has gradually evolved from a relatively dispersed and loose pattern to a mature, hierarchical, and integrated network system with a clear core–periphery structure, presenting the evolutionary trends of agglomerative morphology, stable connection direction, and orderly centroid migration. (2) The logistics resilience spatial correlation network features high accessibility with no isolated nodes, but the overall scale and density of network connections remain relatively fragmented. It has displayed a tendency of phased contraction under external shocks, followed by restoration and further enhancement. (3) Each block has a clear functional division, forming a pattern of “net beneficiary absorption, broker connection, net spillover supply, and bidirectional spillover linkage”. The network has formed a mature tributary system with distinct functional division of blocks: the core cluster plays the role of a sink for resilience resources, the peripheral blocks serve as resource supply sources, and some provinces have evolved into pivotal broker nodes, with inter-block spillovers becoming the core of the correlation network. (4) The QAP analysis confirms that the structural evolution of the logistics resilience spatial correlation network is significantly and positively driven by the economic development, educational advancement, and geographical proximity, which together form a hierarchical and synergistic driving mechanism, while the effects of inclusive finance and informatization are not significant due to the relevant conditional constraints. Robustness tests confirm the reliability of the aforementioned findings. Therefore, this study provides an important academic basis and practical enlightenment for optimizing the spatial network structure and enhancing the development quality of logistics resilience in the NWLSC.

Fresh agricultural products are highly perishable, and inadequate preservation leads to food loss and supply chain inefficiency, undermining sustainability. This study develops a continuous-time differential game model to analyze dynamic pricing and cold-chain investment decisions in a two-echelon fresh agricultural produce supply chain under government intervention. Two subsidy regimes are examined: one targeting suppliers’ cold-chain investments and another supporting the retailer based on sales volume. By explicitly modeling the dynamic evolution of product freshness, we analyze how subsidy intensity and allocation influence firms’ strategies, market outcomes, and social welfare over time. The results show that when initial freshness is low, firms consistently adopt a penetration pricing strategy and increase cold-chain investment irrespective of subsidy intensity. In contrast, when initial freshness is high, a critical subsidy threshold emerges: Below this threshold, firms employ skimming pricing and reduce investment, whereas above it, they switch to penetration pricing and raise investment. Under equal government expenditure, supplier subsidies achieve higher product freshness but raise retail prices, while retailer subsidies lower prices and stimulate demand, albeit with more modest freshness improvements. Welfare effects are non-linear: supplier subsidies are more effective at low intensities, whereas retailer subsidies become superior beyond a specific threshold. These findings provide actionable insights for designing sustainable, targeted subsidy policies in fresh agricultural supply chains.