Based on the 2020 China Private Enterprise Survey (CPES) data, this article examines the impact of digital transformation on corporate employment policies. The research finds that contrary to societal concerns, companies" labor demand has significantly increased due to the increase in digitalization. After other sensitivity analysis, the above view remains stable. Moreover, the larger the scale of the enterprise, the more optimistic the market expectations, and the better the regional business environment. the stronger the employment promotion effect of the digital transformation of the enterprise. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the employment promotion effect of digital transformation is more pronounced in enterprises with faster rising labor costs, more optimistic macroeconomic expectations, and government employment policy support. Further analysis also finds that the employment promotion effect of digital transformation has obvious "structuralu201D characteristics, that is, digital transformation promotes the recruitment of high-quality talents by enterprises, while the u201Csubstitution effectu201D of low-quality personnel has asymmetric characteristics of u201Cflow and stocku201D Mechanism analysis shows that digital transformation can improve the efficiency of process management in enterprises, exacerbating the problem of u201Cmismatch between labor demand and professional skillsu201D in enterprises, and thus incentivizing enterprises to expand the proportion of recruitment for high-quality talents. The research conclusions of this article have certain reference significance for supporting digital transformation and upgrading human capittal structure of enterprises, and also provide a new perspective for promoting high-quality employment under the new normal in China.
As a significant measure in China's tax reform,the impact of the Value-Added Tax(VAT)credit refund policy on income distribution remains an area ripe for research.This paper takes the 2018 VAT credit refund reform as a quasi-natural experiment and empirically examines the effect of the VAT credit refund policy on labor skill premium and its underlying mechanisms using data from China's A-share listed companies.The study finds that:(1)The VAT credit refund policy significantly widens the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers within enterprises,thereby enhancing the labor skill premium,a conclusion that holds after a series of robustness tests.(2)Mechanism tests suggest that,under the"capital-skill complementarity"hypothesis,the VAT credit refund policy primarily boosts the labor skill premium through mechanisms that incentivize capital investment and alleviate liquidity constraints.(3)Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact of the VAT credit refund policy varies across different firms,with more pronounced effects on the labor skill premium in firms facing high financing constraints,high tax burdens,mature firms,and those in industries with lower technological levels.This paper enriches the research on the economic consequences of the VAT credit refund policy from the perspective of labor skill premium and provides new theoretical and practical references for the government to optimize tax policy design and promote common prosperity.
Green credit is a green financial instrument with the earliest practice,the largest scale,the widest scope and the most mature development in China.However,most of the existing literatures examine the economic consequences of the implementation of green credit policies,and a small number of studies on the influencing factors of green credit examine the factors affecting the supply of green credit from the perspective of commercial banks,while few literatures pay attention to the factors that affect firms' access to green credit funds.This paper uses text analysis to measure the availability of green credit funds in listed companies,and tests whether green interlocking directors with green work experience or education background can help firms to obtain green credit funds.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)Green interlocking directors can significantly promote green credit financing of firms.The more green interlocking directors in the board of directors and the higher the proportion of seats,the stronger the availability of green credit and the larger the scale of green credit financing of firms.(2)Mechanism test shows that improving the level of firm environmental information disclosure and improving firm environmental performance are two mechanisms for green interlocking directors to promote firm green credit financing.(3)Heterogeneity analysis results show that green interlocking directors have a greater role in promoting green credit financing in firms without bank-firm relationship,with high government environmental attention allocation intensity and low level of regional green finance development.From the perspective of green governance function of green interlocking directors,this paper provides a feasible solution to alleviate the green credit financing dilemma of micro-enterprises,thus stimulating the power of green transformation of micro-enterprises and ultimately promoting the green transformation of macro-economic structure.
Based on data from the China Labor Dynamics Survey for 2012, 2014, and 2016, combined with city-level data on the density of robot installations, this paper examines the impact of robot applications on individual labor market entry and exit decisions. The empirical results show that (1) for every 10% rise in robot application, an individual's labor force participation rate significantly increases by 2.31%, and the finding remains robust after a series of tests. (2) Mechanistic analyses show that robot application contribute to increasing employment, facilitating skills upgrading and matching, improving work conditions, optimizing worker status, and thus increasing individual workforce participation. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of robot application varies across different groups, with more significant effects on labor force participation for women, young and middle-aged people, individuals with good health, and individuals with low and high skills. Based on research findings, this paper suggests that China can unleash the potential labor force by promoting the development of robot application to alleviate the labor shortage caused by population aging and childlessness. At the same time, the government also needs to preempt the problem of unequal labor participation that may be triggered by the application of robots and promote the fair and healthy development of the labor market.
Policy learning,as a deep integration of artificial intelligence technologies with causal inference theory,provides a scientific foundation for precision social governance in the era of big data.Grounded in the practical context of China's large-scale governance and complex policy constraints,this paper systematically reviews the international frontier literature on policy learning and proposes a policy learning algorithm based on convexification theory.This approach effectively addresses the computational optimization challenges inherent in complex,high-dimensional policy spaces,thereby significantly improving policy learning efficiency under big data and multiple-constraint settings.The paper further conducts an empirical analysis using China's Minimum Livelihood Guarantee(Dibao)program as a case study,drawing on data from the China Household Finance Survey(CHFS).The results demonstrate that the proposed method can generate highly interpretable and precisely targeted Dibao allocation schemes,effectively expanding social welfare gains and enhancing governance efficiency.This study provides an important reference for leveraging cutting-edge digital and intelligent technologies to advance the modernization of social governance in China.
The gross domestic product(GDP)at current prices by the production-based accounting method reflects the scale and structure of the economy and is essential for understanding economic performance,designing economic policies,and promoting sustainable and healthy economic development.To improve data quality,the National Bureau of Statistics has continuously refined China's GDP by production-based accounting methods,enhancing their scientific rigor,standardization,and international comparability.This paper reviews the major changes in these methods and proposes suggestions for further improvement,with the aim of helping users better understand these changes and accurately use the relevant data in research.
People-oriented is the constant principle of the Confucianism,so Confucianism advocates the idea that the people are the foundation of a country and the root of a country's stability,and implementation of people-oriented benevolent government.Therefore,Confucian culture may have an important impact on the concept and behavior of local governments.Based on the policy framework of separating the place of birth and place of office of local officials,this paper uses the data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2001 to 2015 to design an epidemiological method to identify the influence of Confucian cultural tradition,as measured by the density of Jinshi in the Ming and Qing Dynasties(DJ),on the governance ideas and behaviors of local officials.The study found that local officials deeply influenced by Confucian cultural traditions significantly increased public spending on agriculture,education,social security,and health care in their places of office,which held true in a variety of robustness tests.The extended analysis found that the behavior of local officials to increase the fiscal expenditure on the people's livelihood in office due to the influence of Confucian cultural tradition may not be weakened by stronger promotion incentives or greater pressure on fiscal revenue and expenditure.At the same time,local officials deeply influenced by Confucian cultural tradition significantly improved the social livelihood in the place where they worked,specifically,the higher DJ in the birthplace of local official,the lower the urban-rural income gap and the higher the teacher-student ratio in primary schools in officials' office place.It is indicates that traditional culture may be an important source of shaping the governance ideas and behaviors of local officials.Therefore,carrying forward excellent Confucian culture will help to implement the people-centered development idea and improve people's livelihood.
Implementing effective green fiscal policies is a crucial means to promote urban energy conservation and emission reduction, facilitating a green and low-carbon transition. However, such transitions can also impact various sectors of the economic system. This paper takes the u201CComprehensive Demonstration Cities of Fiscal Policies for Energy Conservation and Emission Reductionu201D pilot program as a case study and employs a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to explore the effects and mechanisms of green fiscal policies on employment. The main findings are as follows: (1) While reducing urban carbon emissions, the demonstration city pilot program has significantly boosted urban employment; (2) The policy primarily increases enterprise labor hiring through two mechanisms: the u201Coutput effectu201D and the u201Cfactor complementarity effect.u201D (3) The employment effects of the pilot program vary significantly across industries, sectors, and ownership types of enterprises. This study provides important empirical evidence and policy insights for designing more effective green fiscal policies in China, ensuring stable employment during the low-carbon transition, and achieving high-quality economic development.
Based on the 2020 China Private Enterprise Survey(CPES)data,this article examines the impact of digital transformation on corporate employment policies.The research finds that contrary to societal concerns,companies' labor demand has significantly increased due to the increase in digitalization.After other sensitivity analysis,the above view remains stable.Moreover,the larger the scale of the enterprise,the more optimistic the market expectations,and the better the regional business environment,the stronger the employment promotion effect of the digital transformation of the enterprise.The heterogeneity analysis shows that the employment promotion effect of digital transformation is more pronounced in enterprises with faster rising labor costs,more optimistic macroeconomic expectations,and government employment policy support.Further analysis also finds that the employment promotion effect of digital transformation has obvious"structural"characteristics,that is,digital transformation promotes the recruitment of high-quality talents by enterprises,while the"substitution effect"of low-quality personnel has asymmetric characteristics of"flow and stock".Mechanism analysis shows that digital transformation can improve the efficiency of process management in enterprises,exacerbating the problem of"mismatch between labor demand and professional skills"in enterprises,and thus incentivizing enterprises to expand the proportion of recruitment for high-quality talents.The research conclusions of this article have certain reference significance for supporting digital transformation and upgrading human capital structure of enterprises,and also provide a new perspective for promoting high-quality employment under the new normal in China.
Supply chain alliances between Chinese listed companies have proliferated in recent years.Based on this background,this paper explores the knowledge transfer between suppliers and customers(upstream and downstream firms)in supply chain alliances.This article takes 142 pairs of supply chain alliances formed by 229 Chinese listed companies from 2001 to 2021 as the research object.By using propensity score matching method and difference-in-differences regressions,we find that supply chain alliances can facilitate knowledge transfer between firms and accelerate mutual learning between suppliers and customers.Compared to firms without supply chain alliances,firms that enter into supply chain alliances increase the number of citations of their alliance partners' inventions,the number of inventions of their alliance partners and have more inventions that cited to alliance partners' knowledge.In addition,we classify each pair of supply chain alliance partners into supplier and customer and find that there is mutual learning rather than unidirectional knowledge transfer between suppliers and customers in supply chain alliances.The treatment effects from supply chain alliances are present in both suppliers and customers.Specifically,there is no significant difference between the supplier's citations that cite its customer partner's inventions and the customer's citations that cite its supplier partner's inventions.This result indicates that the effect of supply chain alliances in promoting knowledge transfer from suppliers to customers is as good as promoting knowledge transfer from customers to suppliers.Moreover,among a pair of supply chain alliance partners,the partner with lower-technological-diversity learns more knowledge of the partner with higher-technological-diversity.This paper provides theory and new empirical evidence for our insight into the knowledge transfer of supply chain alliances.
This study examines pollution-intensive industry relocation and its environmental costs under China's inter-provincial assistance program.We find that while the program significantly boosts economic output in recipient regions,it concurrently increases local pollution emissions,confirming the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for early-stage development.Longitudinal analysis of listed firms' cross-regional investments shows these environmental costs attenuate over time.Mechanism analysis reveals new polluting firms' entry as the primary driver of negative externalities.Heterogeneity tests demonstrate that eastern-assisted regions achieve lower emission intensity per unit output than central-assisted regions,attributable to scale economies.Our findings suggest institutional designs should account for local governments' strategic behavior to mitigate environmental externalities from industrial relocation.
We run an experiment to investigate how ideology, exemplified by differing opinions on a specific social topic, shapes group identity and influences behavior in conflict scenarios. Participants engaged in the Peacemaker Game, where disputants decide to cooperate or defect, and a third party chooses whether to intervene. The experimental design includes an opinion-divergence treatment, a minimal grouping treatment and a control condition. Results reveal that "opinion-based group identity" significantly influences in group favoritism, out group bias, and the likelihood of third party intervention. The findings underscore the substantial impact of ideological alignment on social interactions and provide valuable implications for understanding and mitigating conflicts in real-world scenarios marked by increasing polarization.
Implementing effective green fiscal policies is a crucial means to promote urban energy conservation and emission reduction,facilitating a green and low-carbon transition.However,such transitions can also impact various sectors of the economic system.This paper takes the"Comprehensive Demonstration Cities of Fiscal Policies for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction"pilot program as a case study and employs a difference-in-differences(DID)approach to explore the effects and mechanisms of green fiscal policies on employment.The main findings are as follows:(1)While reducing urban carbonemissions,the demonstration city pilot program has significantly boosted urban employment;(2)The policy primarily increases enterprise labor hiring through two mechanisms:the"output effect"and the"factor complementarity effect."(3)The employment effects of the pilot program vary significantly across industries,sectors,and ownership types of enterprises.This study provides important empirical evidence and policy insights for designing more effective green fiscal policies in China,ensuring stable employment during the low-carbon transition,and achieving high-quality economic development.
Since the reform and opening-up period,China's growth has been characterized by high investment,weak consumption,insufficient innovation,and a marked slowdown in recent years.This paper argues that these features reflect a strategy of growth through distributional compression:by suppressing wages and the labor income share,industrial policies increased the profit share and aggregate savings,thereby supporting investment,capital deepening,and rapid catch-up growth in the early stage of development.As the economy approaches the technological frontier,however,the main engine of growth shifts from capital accumulation to innovation.At that stage,low wages weaken firms' incentives to innovate by reducing the returns to labor-saving technologies and by depressing household consumption and market size,which makes it harder to recover the fixed costs of innovation.Growth through distributional compression is not unique to China,but a broader development pattern observed in many late-industrializing economies.To explain its stage-dependent effects,this paper develops a two-stage framework linking income distribution,capital accumulation,demand structure,and technological progress.Cross-country evidence and China's development experience reveal structural relationships among the labor income share,consumption,investment,and long-run productivity performance that are consistent with the theory.The findings suggest that the low-wage growth model can accelerate growth in the imitation-and-catch-up phase,but becomes a constraint in the innovation-driven phase through the channel of low wages,weak consumption,limited market size,and weak innovation.The paper concludes that this model is no longer suited to China's current stage of development.Future policy should shift from a supply-centered approach toward one centered more on household income growth and demand expansion,so as to support innovation,structural upgrading,and sustainable growth.
In the process of market-oriented transition,the kinship-based clan network embeds itself in the market opportunity so as to compensate for the deficiencies in the formal institution.This paper takes as an external market opening shock after China's accession to the WTO in 2001.It compares the growth rate of manufacturing industries with different exposure to the shock in regions with varying clan densities.The triple differences estimation reveals that,relative to regions with lower clan densities,industries benefiting more from external market opening witness faster post-WTO growth in regions with higher clan densities,which is achieved through improving the contractual environment and alleviating external financing constraints in the respective regions.This study helps elucidate the market embedding of traditional culture and the logical connotation of China's institutional opening-up.
China's regional economic development is clearly differentiated and the polarization phenomenon is prominent at the present.What impact does the rapid penetration of artificial intelligence(AI)bring to economic growth and regional disparities in this context?This paper applies a difference model to identify the reduced-form relationship between AI and economic growth by using city-level data.It finds that AI significantly boosts economic growth.This conclusion is robust to a series of sensitivity tests and to the way dealing with endogeneity issues.In order to further analyze the impact of AI on regional as well as national economies,a multi-region quantitative spatial model is developed.The simulation analysis shows that AI increases employment,wages,and per capita output while reduces its production costs and prices in the region shocked.AI also facilitates trade and migration among regions.If each region adopts the same rate of AI penetration,national GDP and welfare both increase,but regional disparities in output per capita widens at the same time.
The government procurement in the digital sector can promote firms' digital transformation and cross-regional operations by leveraging the substantial scale of digital public demand,playing a crucial role in enhancing firms' main business performance and building a unified national market.This paper uses a research sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2021 and employs text analysis and machine learning methods to identify government digital public goods procurement indicators from nearly 650000 conventional government procurement texts.It examines their impact on firms'main business performance and the underlying mechanisms.The empirical results show that government digital public goods procurement significantly boosts firms' main business performance through"digital-driven"and"resource-expansion"effects.Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this effect is more pronounced among firms with higher financialization,non-strategic emerging industries,and those located in regions with higher levels of digital financial development.Further analysis shows that cross-regional government digital public goods procurement can incentivize firms' main business operations across regions,contributing to the construction of a unified national market.However,government digital public goods procurement also intensifies the"Matthew effect"in the main business performance between firms in central cities and peripheral cities.From the perspective of policy synergy,the sequence of implementing digital procurement first,followed by digital subsidies,better improves firms' main business performance.This paper verifies the positive role of expanding public demand in the digital sector on the development of the real economy from the perspective of procurement suppliers,providing empirical reference for government procurement to support firm development and promote market integration in the digital economy era.
Lowcarbon development has increasingly become an international consensus.Carbon border adjustment mechanism advanced by developed economies such as the European Union have,in effect,created green trade barriers that threaten China's foreign trade and industrial production.Due to differences in industrial specialization and energy structures,various regions in China can experience heterogeneous impacts,and their decarbonization costs and benefits likewise differ,requiring nuanced strategies considering both overall economic implications and regional disparities.This paper constructs a spatial structure model that integrates China's domestic carbon market,international carbon tariffs,global input-output linkages,and interregional factor mobility.It quantitatively evaluates,under unilateral and plurilateral policy scenarios,how carbon tariffs affect regional economic disparities and explores China's strategic options.This paper finds that the EU's carbon tariff imposes significantly uneven shocks across regions:northern provinces that supply energy-intensive upstream products are hardest hit,thereby widening the north-south income gap.The emergence of a climate club among major developed economies delivers a pronounced negative shock to China's trade interests.Conversely,China's participation in such a club and the acceleration of its own green lowcarbon transition can substantially mitigate overall-and particularly southeastern-income declines,even as they exacerbate economic losses in the northwest and northeast.Finally,this paper examines the effectiveness of horizontal compensation mechanisms and policies to strengthen domestic circulation,offering insights for effectively responding to shifts in global green trade rules and for jointly advancing green,lowcarbon transformation and regional coordinated development.
This paper uses data from the random classroom assignment sample of the China Education Panel Survey to examine the spillover effects of classmates' siblings' gender composition on students' outcomes.We find that a higher proportion of female siblings among classmates is associated with significant improvements in students' academic performance,cognitive skills,and non-cognitive skills.These results remain robust after accounting for potential reflection problems and omitted variable concerns.We further explore the underlying mechanisms and show that students' effort and learning attitudes serve as key mechanisms through which the gender composition of classmates' siblings generates spillover effects,with student diligence playing a particularly central role.In addition,explanatory power analyses indicate that students' effort and learning attitudes account for a substantial share of the observed effects.This study provides a new perspective for understanding the impact of gender composition on human capital accumulation.
This paper empirically examines the impact of intelligent applications on capital flows.The study finds that artificial intelligence(AI)has facilitated the establishment of subsidiaries by firms across diverse locations.Key mechanisms through which AI drives capital flows include reducing off-site investment management costs,expanding high-skilled employment,optimizing the skill structure of the workforce,enhancing the allocation efficiency of technological and scientific talent,and promoting the diffusion of technical knowledge.The off-site investment effect of AI is particularly significant in non-state-owned enterprises,manufacturing firms,and businesses located in regions with pronounced labor market segmentation and advanced digital infrastructure.Further analysis reveals that AI applications transcend spatial constraints,encouraging firms to invest in more distant cities.Additionally,AI applications contribute to the flow of capital from smaller to larger cities.This paper provides empirical evidence and policy insights on how intelligent transformation can facilitate the smooth flow of capital in the new era.
