Previous studies have shown that the buildup of systemic risk in the financial sector could predict downside economic activities in the US. This article collects and summarizes the systemic risk measures developed in recent years to investigate whether the inclusion of these “new” measures could improve the out-of-sample forecasting ability of existing aggregate index of systemic risk. We employ quantile regression and different dimension reduction methods to predict the economic downturns in the US and demonstrate that the “new” measures could provide additional information about the future real macroeconomy and lead to an improvement in forecasting ability. However, the inclusion of indicators that are individually predictive to the existing pool of indicators does not always provide incremental useful information and enhance the forecasting accuracy.

The planned inclusion of the steel and electrolytic aluminum sectors into China's Carbon Emission Allowance (CEA) market-initially limited to thermal power since 2021-will expand its coverage to approximately 70% of national carbon emissions, significantly influencing carbon pricing. This study employs a Variational Mode Decomposition-Support Vector Regression (VMD-SVR) model to forecast carbon price fluctuations under three post-expansion scenarios. The results indicate that, in addition to quota allocations, factors such as sectoral emission scales, the CSI 300 Power Index, and the Shanghai Energy Price Index substantially affect price trends. While market expansion induces a short-term price increase, it also stabilizes prices by reducing volatility. Furthermore, different quota allocation methods yield distinct outcomes: equal allocation facilitates a smoother market transition, whereas benchmarking provides stronger incentives for emissions reductions.

In this study, we examine the effect of personal guarantees in China's peer-to-peer lending market. We leverage a unique context where personal guarantees are not strictly relationship based. This setting reveals a significant economic effect of personal guarantees in enabling debt financing. Loans with guarantees are more likely to be funded, experience shorter intervals between posting and funding, attract greater bidding activity, and incur lower borrowing costs. However, such loans tend to have higher delinquency rates on average. Further analysis examines two potential mechanisms for this underperformance: adverse selection and moral hazard. The evidence supports the moral hazard theory, as non-relationship-based guarantees alter borrower incentives, leading to poorer loan performance. JEL Classification Codes: D53, D82, G2

PurposeSocial grooming behavior (SGB) is a significant mode of interaction that relies on social media. However, no research has explored the dimensions of SGB of net-entrepreneurs in the context of social commerce or examined potential impacts. Therefore, this study is the first to explore the sub-dimensions of SGB among net-entrepreneurs, as well as the effects and mechanisms of both higher-order and first-order constructs of SGB on performance.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted an empirical analysis of survey data from 412 Chinese agricultural net-entrepreneurs, using econometric methods as supplementary approaches to PLS-SEM.FindingsSGB is a positive factor influencing business performance, with network benefits acting as significant mediating factors, where the mediating effect of solidarity benefits is the strongest. Additionally, when net-entrepreneurs receive government subsidies, engage in government business cooperation, host visits from officials, or receive official media exposure, the positive impact of SGB on performance is stronger. However, joining an e-commerce incubation center has a negative effect. Moreover, different dimensions of SGB have distinct impacts and mechanisms. Specifically, the direct and total effects of member education on performance are greater than those of community management and relationship maintenance. Member education primarily influences performance through influence benefits, community management through information benefits, and relationship maintenance through solidarity benefits.Originality/valueWe develop a conceptual framework for SGB of net-entrepreneurs and robustly examine the impact and mechanisms of higher-order and first-order constructs of SGB on performance using multiple methods. The rich findings provide valuable insights for net-entrepreneurs on leveraging social grooming to enhance business performance.

Nonoptimal temperature exposure is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Sphingolipids, a class of bioactive lipids, play a significant role in the pathophysiology of CVD. This study investigated associations between temperature and markers of sphingolipid metabolism and explored their biological implications in a panel study of 251 participants in Beijing, China. Personal-level environmental temperature was continuously monitored, and transcriptomic and lipidomic analyses were performed to characterize sphingolipid metabolism. Generalized additive mixed models revealed a near "V-shaped" relationship between daily average temperature and most sphingolipids, including ceramides C18:0/C20:0/C24:1, sphingomyelins C18:0/C24:1, hexosylceramides C16:0/C18:0/C20:0/C22:0/C24:0/C24:1, lactosylceramides C16:0/C18:0/C24:0/C24:1, and sphingosine-1-phosphate. Other sphingolipids, such as ceramides C16:0/C22:0/C24:0 and sphingomyelins C16:0/C20:0/C22:0/C24:0, showed a negative linear relationship with temperature. Each 1 °C decrease (cold exposure) or increase (heat exposure) in temperature was associated with up to a 1.4% and 0.9% increase in sphingolipids, respectively. Both exposures were significantly associated with the upregulation of genes encoding enzymes of sphingolipid metabolism. Moreover, Spearman's correlation analysis found that various sphingolipids correlated significantly with established markers of CVD. Our findings suggest that nonoptimal temperature has a significant impact on human sphingolipid metabolism, and sphingolipids may serve as markers indicating nonoptimal temperature-induced cardiovascular risks.

Although product environmental information serves as an effective tool for promoting green consumption which is a critical lever for advancing broader sustainability goals, its varied impacts across product categories (durable goods vs. fast-moving consumer goods) and the underlying mechanisms remain unexplored. Grounded in the theory of consumption values (TCV), this study investigated the heterogeneous effects and mediating pathways of such information through a comparative analysis of representative products: organic milk (fast-moving consumer goods, FMCGs) and energy-efficient air conditioners (durable goods). The results show the following: (1) epistemic value, which exhibits the strongest association with product environmental information, demonstrates significantly different influence patterns between purchases of green durable goods and green FMCGs across both online and offline channels; (2) in the e-commerce context, green FMCG consumption is mainly driven by product environmental information through the mediating effect of conditional value. For green durable goods, product environmental information influences green consumption through multiple pathways including functional value, conditional value, and epistemic value. This study extends the classic theory of consumption values, and the results suggest that differentiated information strategies of emphasizing conditional value for FMCGs and integrating multi-dimensional values for durables can optimize green consumption promotion. Such strategies hold substantial potential to strengthen the green development of the omnichannel retailing sector, reinforcing its contribution to reaching sustainability objectives.

Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) triggers inflammatory responses that contribute to adverse health effects like cardiovascular disease, particularly in vulnerable populations. However, as a complex mixture of various chemical constituents in PM2.5-including carbonaceous fractions, inorganic ions, organic acids, and metal elements-the relative toxicity of PM2.5 depends on its specific components. In this longitudinal panel study conducted in Beijing during winter 2016 and summer 2017, we investigated how total PM2.5 and specific PM2.5 chemical components affect respiratory and systemic inflammation in elderly adults, with special attention to hypertension as a susceptibility modifier. Associations between PM2.5 and inflammatory biomarkers were evaluated using mixed-effects models, initially conducted on the entire population and subsequently stratified by hypertension status. The contributions of individual components were further assessed using weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression. Results showed that acute PM2.5 exposure significantly increased fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO, 5.03 % per interquartile range increase) and systemic inflammation biomarkers. Hypertensive individuals showed distinct response patterns: weaker respiratory but stronger systemic inflammation, including elevated monocytes (0.92 % per interquartile range increase) absent in normotensive participants. Component-specific analyses identified water-soluble metals (e.g., water-soluble Bi, Ca, Ba, Fe, Sr) as major contributors to respiratory inflammation, while systemic inflammation was driven by broader metal species, including both soluble and insoluble forms. Overall, these findings underscore the critical yet understudied role of water-soluble metals within PM2.5, particularly highlighting hypertensive populations as more susceptible to component-specific systemic inflammatory responses.

The atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions are intertwined. It is necessary to fully utilize the existing ecological environment system to promote coordinated pollution and carbon reduction. A panel data from A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2019 is used to empirically test the enterprise-level pollution reduction effect of the carbon emissions trading policy, using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) methods. The findings are as follows. First, carbon emissions trading significantly inhibited pollution emission intensity but not the total volume of air pollutants. The policy effect was more effective in state-owned enterprises and the mining and manufacturing sectors. Second, the carbon emissions trading policy mainly promotes the total factor productivity of enterprises, improves input-output efficiency, and thereby reduces the intensity of pollutant emissions. Third, from a policy coordination perspective, carbon trading and command-and-control policies have yet to show significant synergies in pollution reduction, with the latter remaining dominant. To improve the national carbon market's effectiveness, broader industry inclusion is advised. Policy execution requires administrative backing and a blend of command-control policies, particularly in critical sectors. refining carbon trading mechanisms could strengthen economic incentives for corporate air pollutant reductions.

This article investigates how the buildup of systemic risk in the financial sector affects the real macroeconomic shocks in China. Apart from the systemic risk measures studied in the previous literature, this paper further collects and constructs the systemic risk measures developed in recent years. We employ the quantile regression to analyze the effects of the changes in the 26 different measures on the distribution of the industrial production shocks. We find that these 'new' systemic risk measures could improve the predictability of aggregate systemic indexes constructed by Principal Component Quantile Regression on the real macroeconomic activity significantly out-of-sample.

Product environmental information is considered a useful strategy to translate consumers’ intention into actual green product purchase behaviors. The underlying theoretical explanations of the importance of information await exploration. This research applies a theory of planned behavior lens to study the theorical mechanism of how product environmental information affects consumer behaviors in the e-commerce context. E-commerce product environmental information is covered in the theoretical model as a new variable which can be studied for its impact on consumer behaviors. As results show, the intention and perceived behavioral control can both positively impact behavior. Specifically, information on behavioral consequences, mediated by perceived control of behavior, can significantly improve purchase behavior for durable products such as air conditioners. Meanwhile, information frequency can positively moderate the relation of perceived behavior control to behavior. For fast-moving consumer goods, information such as online buyer reviews and product ratings can enhance behavior through a chained mediation effect due to intention linked with subjective norms. Information also has heterogeneous impacts on consumers with different demographic attributes. These results can provide practical implications for market practitioners adopting diverse information presentation strategies to promote green products on e-commerce platforms and addressing the gap between intention and behavior.

In 2015, the Chinese government set ultra-low emission standards for thermal power to alleviate the pressure of increasing total pollutants from energy demand. This paper analyzes the policy effect of ultra-low emission in different regions based on panel data of 1202 thermal power enterprises, and the results of hierarchical linear model show that the total amount of air pollutants emitted by thermal power enterprises showed a decreasing trend during 2017-2021, realizing the dual control of concentration and total amount. Due to the differences in primary energy structure, industrial structure and economic development level of different regions, the total emission reduction of thermal power pollutants is affected differently. First, the proportion of the region's secondary industry in the region's GDP is negatively correlated with the decrease of the total pollutant emission of local thermal power enterprises. Second, the higher the per capita GDP of the region, the more significant the decrease in the total amount of pollutants, economic development is conducive to pollutant emission reduction. Third, the higher the proportion of thermal power in local energy, the more obvious the reduction of total pollutant emissions of thermal power enterprises, indicating that the implementation of ultra-low emission policies in these regions is more thorough. In addition, the environmental protection tax plays a positive role in the total emission reduction, and the higher the sulfur dioxide tax rate, the more significant the reduction of total pollutants of thermal power enterprises. To further reduce the total amount of pollutants in thermal power, more coordinated efforts of environmental and economic policies are needed.

With the increase of social network users, using social media platforms has become an indispensable part of every individual's life, but the explosive growth in the amount of information has also increased the difficulty of governing detrimental content on social media platforms. Maintaining a good network environment requires not only proper guidance from the government but also the joint efforts of social media platforms and online users. This paper innovatively divides network users into information producers and information consumers and establishes a tripartite game model with social media platforms. This paper aimed to find out the important factors that are affecting the dissemination of detrimental information by analyzing the changes in equilibrium. The paper suggests that the government can directly influence the operation of social media platforms by adopting different policies, and it is important to grasp the strictness of the policies. Secondly, ordinary social media users are a force to be reckoned with in the process of governing negative information. Finally, what kind of content an information producer publishes depends not only on the revenue but also on the risk he will face. Based on the above findings, this paper offers suggestions on the governance of bad information from the perspectives of the government and the three game players.

Proving the quality and efficiency of energy conservation and emission reduction in the construction industry and providing high-quality products and services are important forces in achieving the goal of ‘double carbon’. They play a crucial role in the sustainable development of human society and nature and are the typical embodiment of the high-quality development of Chinese modernization. This paper analyzes the proportion and importance of China’s construction industry policy system, spatial characteristics, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions in achieving the ‘double carbon’ goal. The life cycle assessment (LCIA) method identifies that the materialization, operation, and use stages are the key stages of the whole process and the influencing factors of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, this paper explores and creates China’s construction industry’s ‘1 + 5 + N’ high-quality development index system by proposing four stages: top-level design period, deep development period, consolidation achievement period, and summary planning period. These stages aim to facilitate quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, innovation drive, and whole life cycle sustainability. This system’s principles are ‘systematic planning, one type of one policy, collaborative efforts, safety, and economy’. The proposed system aims to enhance the policy and standard system, strengthen the implementation of policy tools, increase the investment and application of energy-saving and efficiency-increasing technologies, improve the development of energy consumption and carbon emission monitoring systems and platforms, reinforce green finance, standardize information disclosure, accelerate the renovation of outdated infrastructure, and intensify efforts to promote and guide green consumption, lifestyles, and production methods.

The world has witnessed the rapid development of digital finance and its significant contribution to the economy. Under the theoretical model of criminal economics, this paper explores the social effects of digital finance from the perspective of crime using the unique household survey data in China. The results show that the local total crime incidence rate can be reduced, and the inhibitory effect is more pronounced in areas: (a)with a high mobile phone usage rate and (b) with a low proportion of older adults. However, the reducing effect is limited to property crimes such as theft and robbery and has no significant effect on fraud and crimes against personal rights. There are also significant heterogeneous effects between various digital finance services and property crimes as well as non-property crimes. In addition, the mechanism could be that digital finance reduces cash payment and promotes entrepreneurship by lowering the expected utility and increasing the opportunity cost of committing the property crimes. Overall, these findings provide new evidence on the social influence of digital finance, and wider implications for countries with the unprecedent development of digital finance.

BACKGROUND:Environmental temperature is negatively associated with blood pressure (BP), and hypertension may exacerbate this association. The aim of this study is to investigate whether hypertensive individuals are more susceptible to acute BP increases following temperature decrease than non-hypertensive individuals. METHODS:The study panel consisted of 126 hypertensive and 125 non-hypertensive (n = 251) elderly participants who completed 940 clinical visits during the winter of 2016 and summer of 2017 in Beijing, China. Personal-level environmental temperature (PET) was continuously monitored for each participant with a portable sensor platform. We associated systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) with the average PET over 24 h before clinical visits using linear mixed-effects models and explored hourly lag patterns for the associations using distributed lag models. RESULTS:We found that per 1 °C decrease in PET, hypertensive individuals showed an average (95 % confidence interval) increase of 0.96 (0.72, 1.19) and 0.28 (0.13, 0.42) mmHg for SBP and DBP, respectively; and non-hypertensive participants showed significantly smaller increases of 0.28 (0.03, 0.53) mmHg SBP and 0.14 (-0.01, 0.30) mmHg DBP. A lag pattern analysis showed that for hypertensive individuals, the increases in SBP and DBP were greatest following lag 1 h PET decrease and gradually attenuated up to lag 10 h exposure. No significant BP change was observed in non-hypertensive individuals associated with lag 1-24 h PET exposure. The enhanced increase in PET-associated BP in hypertensive participants (i.e., susceptibility) was more significant in winter than in summer. CONCLUSIONS:We found that a decrease in environmental temperature was associated with acute BP increases and these associations diminished over time, disappearing after approximately 10 hours. This implies that any intervention measures to prevent BP increases due to temperature drop should be implemented as soon as possible. Such timely interventions are particularly needed for hypertensive individuals especially during the cold season due to their increased susceptibility.

The central environmental protection inspection is an institutional innovation in China that aims to supervise enterprises by monitoring government environmental enforcement. This paper examines the effectiveness of central environmental protection inspection in improving enterprise environmental performance by using a quasi-natural experiment of the first round of central environmental protection inspection. The study reveals that the central environmental protection inspection improves enterprise environmental performance by strengthening local government environmental enforcement and environmental attention. This is evidenced by the increase in enterprise environmental capital expenditure and the decrease in pollution discharge fees. The impact of central environmental protection inspection on enterprise environmental performance is strengthened by local governments’ environmental regulation and environmental fiscal expenditure, as well as by public participation. Under the pressure of central environmental protection inspection, heavily polluting enterprises engage in production process improvement and R&D investment, which can improve their economic performance. This can ultimately lead to a competitive advantage for enterprises, promoting a win-win situation for both environmental and economic performance.

E-commerce is regarded as a sustainable purchasing method with a large carbon emission reduction potential. Therefore, comparing the influencing factors of consumers’ decision-making in traditional and online channels is helpful to understand consumers’ purchasing behaviors in different channels and guide consumers to shift to green consumption. This study aims to investigate the differences in the factors impacting the fresh food purchase behavior of online and offline consumers and provide implications for relevant stakeholders based on the study results. The data from 402 questionnaires were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method within the theoretical framework of the theory of consumption values. The results show that two groups are significantly different in emotional value and conditional value, with the offline group focusing more on shopping immediacy and a pleasant shopping experience, and the online group focusing more on convenience and trust in well-known channels and brands. The insignificance of green labels and green product information suggests that consumers have not acquired the habit of referring to green product information to help them make green purchasing decisions in terms of fresh food. Relevant companies should differentiate their marketing strategy to attract target consumers, and the role of product green information should be emphasized in future.

With the deepening of China's aging process, changes in the age structure of the population affect the industrial structure and consumption structure in different ways and have a knock-on effect on the whole economic system. Therefore, aging is one of the objective factors affecting future carbon emissions in China. This study analyzes the impact mechanism of aging-related consumption trend on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) based on panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2019. The results show that the aging-related consumption trend is conducive to the improvement of regional CEE, and the mediation transmission mechanism of industrial structure adjustment is obvious, with a coefficient of 0.1496. The core industry closely linked to the demand for aging-related consumption is consumer services. The promotion of the consumption demand of the aging in the eastern region on the CEE and the transmission stimulation of the industrial structure adjustment are the most obvious. The mediation effect in the central and western regions is relatively weak, and the aging-related consumption demand has not formed a positive interaction with the aging industry. Therefore, improving the market construction of products and services for the aging is beneficial to achieve a virtuous cycle of aging-related consumption upgrading and carbon emission efficiency. This research can provide insights for China to promote industrial structure transformation within the aging trend and also help China meet its carbon neutrality target on schedule.

With the advent of the "information age," investors are now faced with the challenges of the "mobile age," which has had a profound impact on the daily lives of people worldwide. Investors must process more information while experiencing increasing mobile phone-related distractions, particularly those generated by the fast-growing entertainment-type app industry. Attention is a limited cognitive resource that is vital for deliberate and thoughtful analysis. We analyzed data from an online peer-to-peer lending market to evaluate the impact of mobile distractions on investment performance. Our findings revealed that investors with a large number of mobile phone entertainment apps were more likely to exhibit higher default rates and lower investment returns. The results are robust, even when using exogenous internet service outage of the entertainment server and instrumental variables. We observed that the negative impact of distraction was more pronounced on Fridays and in regions with high-speed Internet access. A further examination of the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon revealed that investment decisions made while being distracted by mobile apps were influenced by information neglect and familiarity biases.