Abstract China faces increasing ecological constraints, and the National Ecological Civilization Demonstration Counties (NECDCs) policy may offer an effective solution. Using a sample of 1,963 counties in China from 2015 to 2021, which represents approximately 70% of all Chinese counties after screening for data completeness, this study treats the selection of NECDCs as a quasinatural experiment and employs a multiperiod difference-in-differences model to empirically examine its impact on county-level air quality. The results indicate that NECDCs experience a 2.4% reduction in the PM2.5 index, which is driven by mechanisms of promoting dynamic adjustments in firms, enhancing innovation capabilities, facilitating industrial upgrading, and increasing public environmental awareness. The impact is more pronounced in regions with higher digital financial inclusion, better ecological quality, and those in central and western China. This study also finds the spillover effects of NECDCs in surrounding areas. This research enriches the theoretical framework linking environmental regulation and air pollution and provides policy insights for sustainable development of air quality.
Parenting styles play a pivotal role in formulating effective family policies to support early childhood development, with enduring intergenerational implications for children's outcomes. Drawing on survey data from children aged 6-24 months and their primary caregivers, this study investigates whether the mental health of the second generation (G2) mediates the relationship between the parenting styles of the first generation (G1) and the social-emotional development of children in the third or fourth generation (G3/G4). In a three-generation model, gendered parenting by G1 predicts warm parenting behaviors in G2, whereas hostile parenting by G2 negatively affects the social-emotional competence of G3. In the four-generation model, overprotective parenting by G1 exerts an indirect effect on social-emotional problems in G4, mediated by G2's mental health. Notably, the positive influence of protective parenting by G1 fathers diminishes with lower educational attainment in G2, while the adverse effects of protective parenting by G1 mothers intensify with higher G2 education. These findings underscore the importance of early preventive interventions to improve caregivers' mental health and parenting practices during early childhood.
An ongoing debate in the literature is whether rule-breaking actors are more innovative than others. This study examines how corporate misconduct influences green innovation. We find that firms involved in misconduct experience a 14.7% reduction in green patent quantity and a 20.4% decrease in citations, demonstrating a detrimental effect on green innovation. This adverse impact is more pronounced within firms characterized by lower transparency, higher default risk, independent central research institutes, stronger top management team power, and weaker local intellectual property protection. Our findings remain robust and consistent when implementing change analysis and instrumental variable approach. Further analysis indicates that corporate misconduct primarily inhibits green innovation by fostering a culture of dishonesty, releasing signals, and reducing human capital. Our findings contribute to the literature gap by establishing a direct link between corporate misconduct and green innovation, offering new insights into how dishonesty undermines long-term strategic capabilities in emerging markets.
Training represents a crucial pathway for enhancing farmers' human capital. China currently invests over 2 billion CNY (310 million USD) annually to train nearly a million professional farmers. While previous studies have primarily focused on the direct effects of training on production and income, there is no consensus on how training specifically contributes to farmers' human capital accumulation. This study employs panel survey data from 753 farmers across four Chinese provinces collected in 2016 and 2019, utilizing Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Differences (PSM-DID) methodology to examine the impact of farmer training on participants' human capital. The empirical analysis reveals that farmers who participated in professional training programs experienced significant improvements in their explicit human capital, demonstrated by increases of 6.76% and 13.30% in obtaining national vocational qualification certificates and farmer technical staff titles, respectively. Additionally, their internalized human capital showed marked enhancement, with increases of 21.03% and 11.29% in utilizing digital platforms such as WeChat groups and Douyin (or Kuaishou) for agricultural knowledge and skill acquisition. These findings suggest that China should continue prioritizing farmers' human capital development, particularly through professional training programs, as a key strategy for promoting agricultural transformation and rural revitalization.
In this research, stable isotope analysis of plants was integrated with macrofossil studies to investigate social conditions underpinning millet cultivation and mundane food production at the Bronze Age village Erdaojingzi (3600-3500 cal. yr BP), Northeast China. Specifically, we sought to answer two questions: 1) Did different households (or other groupings) manage cultivation collectively in similar environments, or did house groups have unequal access to (or ownership of) different farmlands? 2) Were millet harvests organized according to house group distinctions, or were they equally distributed among households? How were crops harvested in the field within this social context? Our results seem to suggest that both cultivation and harvest were configured in the context of the household economy. Millet was cultivated in environments only accessible to certain house groups, while the products were shared among household members rather than pooled across the whole community. The correlation between morphologically attested grain sizes and isotopic results indicated circumstances that grains from the same family plot were harvested multiple times sequentially, rather than in a single seasonal harvesting regime. Extensive archaeobotanical sampling at Erdaojingzi has enabled fine-grained analysis of how millet cultivation and production were woven into social conditions operating both in the field and within the settlement.
