The contribution of high-growth firms to economic growth is gradually expanding, but its actual and subsequent effects on economy need to be further explored. This paper provides evidence for the study of the agglomeration externalities involving high-growth firms by analyzing their influence on non-high-growth firms’ productivity growth and input allocation within the same industry and region, as well as their spillover effects via both backward and forward linkages. The analysis shows robust proof of positive spillovers of high-growth firms on the labor productivity and inputs allocation of non-high-growth firms within the identical region and industry using manufacturing firm-level data on China between 2003 and 2013. The detailed mechanisms of agglomeration externalities associated with high-growth firms are further analyzed through three important channels, mainly including labor pooling, input sharing and knowledge spillover effects by the high-growth externalities.

By matching the DFI of Peking University with the CHFS household questionnaire data, this paper empirically finds that digital financial inclusion facilitates intergenerational income mobility, particularly for lower-income households. The mechanism analysis suggests that digital financial inclusion enhances intergenerational income mobility by alleviating household credit constraints, improving educational investment and intergenerational occupational mobility. This positive effect is more pronounced in urban areas, for low-educated fathers and male offspring.

The role of financial development has garnered significant attention. However, the pro-cyclicality of financial development has emerged as a contentious issue, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The micro-level impact of bank profitability on economic growth remains a topic of ongoing debate with inconclusive evidence. This study investigates the impact of bank profitability on firm productivity using a panel dataset comprising 131,021 firm-year observations, derived from microdata of industrial firms and banks. Our findings suggest that bank profitability diminishes the total factor productivity of firms by encouraging financialization, which in turn displaces productive investment, and attracts high-quality labor from firms to the banking sector. These consequences are particularly evident in firms located in central and eastern regions, as well as in foreign and private firms. Additionally, the impact is more pronounced in state-owned banks and large-scale banks, whereas high-technology firms and state-owned firms appear to be less affected. These findings emphasize the potential detrimental implications of excessive bank profitability on firm productivity, shedding light on crucial factors related to financialization, investment, and labor distribution. Policymakers are urged to meticulously assess these repercussions to achieve equilibrium between the financial sector and the real economy, thereby fostering sustainable economic growth.

Collaborating with climate justice practitioners, we conducted a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (n = 1,011) to measure and explore predictors of Americans’ climate justice beliefs and intentions to engage in related behaviors. We find that only about one-third of Americans have heard of climate justice, but about half of Americans support climate justice goals once they are explained. Support for climate justice is predicted by many factors, including views about global warming, perceptions of climate and racial injustice, cultural worldviews, and demographics including racial identity, gender, and political party/ideology. Our study suggests a need to build public awareness of the term “climate justice,” the disproportionate harms of climate change, and how climate justice initiatives will address these harms. Our study also illustrates how researchers might incorporate practitioner perspectives in national and international studies on climate justice.

This study employs a two-way fixed effects model to investigate the influence of bank competition on ESG performance of local firms and its underlying mechanisms based on the geographical distribution of bank branches and firms. Our results show that the increased level of competition among banks contributes positively to the ESG performance of firms and the promotion effect is more prominent in small firms, young firms, and nonstate-owned firms. Industry heterogeneity analysis indicates that bank competition could be more beneficial for the sustainable development of low-pollution, low-tech industries, and industries that have a higher linkage with the financial industry. The mechanism analysis further reveals the mediating effect of financial constraints, green innovation, and moral hazards on firms' ESG performance. This study extends the existing understanding of the firm-level consequences of bank competition and sheds light on the financial development drivers of corporate ESG performance in emerging market countries.

This paper constructs a three-stage dynamic pricing model to investigates a pricing problem of new products launched by an enterprise in the pre-sale mode with social learning (SL). When enterprises launch new products, they usually obtain more consumers' prior beliefs through a pre-sale mode, in which consumers engage in social learning (SL) to update their prior beliefs. The enterprise has to choose to publish all information including deposit amount, product price and preferential discount, either in advance (synchronous pricing strategy) or step by step (responsive pricing strategy). Meanwhile, the consumer can decide whether to purchase the product in the current period or defer it to a second sales period. A differential evolutionary algorithm is used to solve the equilibrium strategy between the enterprise and the consumer to maximize the profit of the enterprise and the utility of the consumer in this paper. Our simulation analysis demonstrates that enterprises may attain greater proactive control and higher expected profits by opting for a responsive pricing strategy under the presence of a social learning (SL) process. As the degree of consumer heterogeneity and the uncertainty of product quality information increase, the advantage of responsive pricing strategies over synchronous pricing strategies becomes more prominent. We further find that the adoption of a synchronous pricing strategy under the presence of a social learning (SL) process necessitates a sacrifice in partial revenue to mitigate the consumers' propensity for delayed purchase. This effect is particularly pronounced when the patience of consumers and the reputation of the enterprise are relatively poor, leading to greater sacrifices in benefits for the enterprise.

This study explores the relationship between digital economy and urban innovation from the perspective of economic agglomeration. Based on a panel data set of 285 Chinese cities from 2009 to 2019 and the classification of the digital industry by the National Bureau of Statistics, this study shows that an increased level of digital industry agglomeration significantly contributes to urban innovation, with more pronounced effects observed in larger cities and those in eastern and western regions. Further analysis of industry heterogeneity reveals that digital industry agglomeration not only boosts innovation within the digital industry but also enhances it in non-digital industries. Additionally, digital industry agglomeration appears more conducive to promoting innovation in green technology industries than in non-green technology industries. The mechanism analysis reveals the mediating effect of data capital accumulation, market size expansion, and digital technology spillover on urban innovation. The Sobel test reveals that data capital accumulation has the largest mediating effect on total patents, while digital technology spillover has the strongest mediating effect on invention patents. This study enriches the existing understanding of the agglomeration effect of the digital industry on urban innovation and sheds light on the mechanisms driving urban innovation in emerging economies.

How do citizens express environmentalism and lead sustainable change in an authoritarian country like China, where contentious political civic actions have limited saliency? Can we re-imagine what forms of citizen action build 'environmental movement' in this socio-political context? Based on 41 in-depth interviews and seven months of participant observations in China's zero waste community, this article proposes networked sustainable lifestyle activism as an important form of environmental movement in China's socio-political context. Drawing on lifestyle movement (Haenfler et al. 2012) and sustainable materialism (Schlosberg 2019) theories, I analyze the growth, characteristics, and limitations of the zero waste movement in China. It consists of sustainable lifestyle activism that adopts lifestyle change for broader sustainability, pursues anti-consumerism authentic identity and well-being as a site of change, and grows through social media and informal networks. Meanwhile, the movement goes beyond individual lifestyle change as networks of secondhand material flow and collective, non-contentious environmental actions. Difficulties to promote widespread, thorough sustainable lifestyle change and constrained political engagement are important factors that limit the movement's effects. My research contributes to the literature on new environmental movements, theoretical discussion of environmental movements in China, and empirical understanding of civic environmental actions in this socio-political context.

As climate change impacts increase, communicators must engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. One potentially underrated audience is video gamers. Two-thirds of Americans play video games, and video games are a potentially effective climate change communication tool. However, little research has examined whether video gamers have unique value as a target audience for climate communication, and if they do, what might be effective ways to reach them. To address this need, we use two surveys including self-identified video game players in the United States to measure their current engagement with climate change, including through video gaming. In Study 1, a nationally representative survey in the United States (N = 1,006), we found that being a video gamer was slightly positively associated with intentions to take collective action on global warming. In Study 2, restricted to gamers in the United States (N = 2,034), we found that having more friends and family who played video games, and/or being exposed to global warming content in gaming, were also positively associated with collective action intentions. These findings were consistent even after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age, political party, and global warming attitudes. Results suggest that video gamers are a worthwhile potential audience for future climate change communication, combatting the stereotype of video gamers as disengaged or antisocial, at least in the context of climate change. Our study also identifies several potential avenues for future communication with video gamers, particularly outreach to and engagement with gaming communities.

Zero waste movement has been gaining popularity in the recent decade and social media influencers' promotion is central to movement growth. How do influencers popularize zero waste lifestyle practices that counter the dominant consumption norms? Are their strategies successful? This article examines influencers' lifestyle advocacy as social performance, focusing on their scripts and visual presentations to social media audience. Based on content analysis of 250 Instagram posts, this article uses a cultural sociology lens to analyze zero waste influencers' strategies and the audience responses. Problematization of wasteful consumption norms and legitimization of zero waste alternatives through demonstrating its feasibility, attractiveness, and integration with socio-political concerns are four prominent strategies. Zero waste influencers employ performance elements such as textual and visual scripts, means of symbolic production, and mise-en-scene to enhance authenticity and mobilize zero waste practices. Meanwhile, insufficient accountability of corporate waste culprits, limited representativeness of the privileged influencers, and contradictory embeddedness in consumer culture still threaten the legitimacy of their performance. This article centers the analysis of sustainable lifestyle movement leaders and their social media presentation, which have been little discussed but increasingly important. It also provides practical strategies for promoting sustainable lifestyle on social media.

Financial agglomeration contributes to energy efficiency improvement and carbon emission reduction, but more micro-level evidence is needed to further support it. Based on the data of high-growth enterprises and bank branches in China using panel regression analysis, this study examines the impact of bank agglomeration on carbon intensity of high-growth enterprises. The results suggest that bank agglomeration facilitates the reduction of carbon intensity in high-growth enterprises. Specifically, bank agglomeration significantly reduces carbon intensity in non-state-owned enterprises, while it has no significant effect on state-owned enterprises. Compared with state-owned commercial banks and small banks, the agglomeration of joint-stock commercial banks has the strongest promoting effect on enterprise carbon reduction. Bank agglomeration has a particularly significant effect on the carbon reduction of enterprises in high-energy-consuming industries and high-polluting industries. Mechanism analysis shows that bank agglomeration reduces enterprise carbon intensity by promoting innovation, changing energy structure, and mitigating financial constraint. These findings carry important policy implications, suggesting that policymakers should leverage financial agglomeration as a tool for carbon reduction and sustainable development.

Understanding public attitudes toward China's carbon neutrality goal is important to inform policy-making and mobilize climate actions. This article investigates public awareness, policy support, and confidence regarding the carbon neutrality goal based on a 2022 survey of 4,162 people across China. We find high awareness, support, and confidence in achieving the goal while analyzing differences in responses by gender, age, location, education, income, occupation, and health.

当前,第四次全球产业链重构正在加速演进,第四次全球产业链重构与前三次全球产业链重构的背景、策源和底层逻辑有明显区别.本文在系统回顾了相关研究文献的基础上,总结分析了四次全球产业链重构的主要特点和演变发展趋势,深入探讨了和第四次全球产业链重构对中国产业链升级的影响,提出了以扩大内需为产业链升级的战略基点,以高水平开放的双循环新发展格局推进产业链升级,以国内外协同创新推动产业链与创新链深度融合,以高质量发展促进"一带一路"建设布局全球产业链,加快实施产业链补短板、锻造长板工程,加快推进数字产业化和产业数字化转型升级等中国产业链升级的战略着力点及政策建议.

Community gardens provide a viable path for urban placemaking as they offer multifaceted socio-ecological benefits and emphasize public participation in place-based actions. Most community gardens research is done in the west, and despite the growing popularity of community gardens in urban China, there has not been a systematic analysis of governance models. This paper examines the various governance models of community gardens in China and their implications for placemaking. Through field research of community gardens in Beijing and Shanghai, we summarize three governance models: state-led, resident-led, and business-led. Identity of actors who initiate the gardens determines the way of garden development and management as well as challenges to gardens' long-term thriving. State-led gardens in residential neighborhoods are aimed at neighborhood regeneration and community governance. This model is currently the most recognized one, but the biggest challenge is having committed resident volunteers for long-term management. Resident-led gardens contribute to personal well-being and neighborhood regeneration, yet gardeners must navigate through the legitimacy issue of grassroots gardening initiative, including land use legitimacy and neighborly conflicts. Business-led gardens enable citizens to rent plots for farming, which enhance personal well-being, reconnection with nature, and food safety, but the market and policy support for business-led gardens are nascent so long-term profitability is key to gardens' thriving. We conclude that community gardens are a feasible way for placemaking in urban China and grassroots passion for gardening should be channeled into placemaking. We recommend further support of community gardens through strengthening residents' autonomy in garden management, coordinating resident-led gardens in neighborhoods, and developing tailored policies for business-led gardens.

Community gardens have emerged as community development initiatives with proven environmental, social, and public health benefits. While many studies evaluate the benefits of community gardens, fewer studies evaluate the success and failure of gardens, especially in China. This research uses four case studies of state-sponsored community gardens in Beijing and Shanghai to analyze social and organizational factors that help and hinder the success of community gardens. Factors impacting success are multi-faceted and interactive, and relations between residents and local government staff determine success throughout different development stages. In the design stage, the involvement of residents and their vision are important to success. In the maintenance stage, the leadership of key actors, including Residents’ Committee staff and volunteers, residents’ preparedness for self-governance, and external recognition are the most significant factors. The findings corroborate literature on factors of community gardens’ success while contributing new insights about the organization and governance of community gardens in the context of a top-down political system.

财务共享服务中心建立以后,如何保持其健康平稳的发展,成为我们亟待思考的问题.本文结合国内企业推行财务共享中心的实践经验,对如何提升财务共享服务质量提出了设想,并从服务理念、服务对象、服务内容、服务领域、服务方式几个方面,分析了企业财务共享中心的服务转型方向.

The total trade volume of a country is an important way of appraising its international trade situation. A prediction based on trade volume will help enterprises arrange production efficiently and promote the sustainability of the international trade. Because the total Chinese trade volume fluctuates over time, this paper proposes a Grey wave forecasting model with a Hodrick–Prescott filter (HP filter) to forecast it. This novel model first parses time series into long-term trend and short-term cycle. Second, the model uses a general GM (1,1) to predict the trend term and the Grey wave forecasting model to predict the cycle term. Empirical analysis shows that the improved Grey wave prediction method provides a much more accurate forecast than the basic Grey wave prediction method, achieving better prediction results than autoregressive moving average model (ARMA).