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With rapid progress in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) theories and the up-gradation of the global market information disclosure system, enterprises have increased their attention toward relevant stakeholders and social responsibility. CSR exerts a substantial impact on the sustainable development of enterprises and markets in the economic and social fields. On the one hand, the increasingly perfect supporting facilities promote the financial growth of the entire society. While on the other hand, the profit-seeking trend of capital is also on the rise. The incongruity between the rapid progress of enterprises and the lack of social responsibility limits the benign development of the market. This study discusses the antecedents of CSR from the variable combination perspective using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. It also investigates which combination of characteristics has better CSR performance. After the configuration analysis, it is identified that four paths lead to high CSR performance. These include the market-developed type, political link type, financial performance type, and state-owned enterprise subsidy type, and the level of each type is explained in-depth. Finally, this study provides management inspiration for the government and enterprises to formulate a sound social responsibility strategy and improve CSR performance by optimizing the matching of CSR activities and business objectives.

The energy resource is an essential input of economic growth, which has an important impact on the ecological environment and social welfare. From the perspective of social welfare, considering the radial and non-radial characteristics of different input and output indicators, and the inseparability of the energy input and undesirable output, this study employs the non-separable hybrid DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model to evaluate the total energy efficiency of Chinese provinces between 2012 and 2016. Furthermore, this study calculates the energy saving and emission reduction potentials of China. The results reveal that the average total factor energy efficiency in China from 2012 to 2016 is 0.694, which means that there are still 30.6% energy efficiency losses. There is great potential for China to save energy, reduce pollutant emissions, and increase the output of social welfare. There are great differences in the total factor energy efficiency among provinces. The average energy saving potential of the whole country is 60.5%. If the energy efficiency of all provinces can reach the frontier, the whole country can save more than half of the energy consumption. The highest national average emission reduction potential is SO2, followed by dust, CO2, and NOX. The implication of the conclusion is that in the development of regional economy, we cannot sacrifice the social welfare and sustainable development and take the growth rate of GDP as the only objective. Different energy saving and emission reduction policies should be put forward according to the characteristics of different provinces.

Digital financial inclusion (DFI) plays an increasingly important role in raising residents’ income levels and optimizing income structures. Using data from the 2015–2019 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), this paper examines the impact of DFI on residents’ income and income structure from a microeconomic perspective using OLS fixed effects models and panel Tobit models. It was found that (1) DFI significantly raises residents’ income, increasing their total annual per capita household income by CNY4200, and increasing their annual per capita household wage income, business income and property income by CNY2430, CNY1030, and CNY450, respectively. In terms of different functions of DFI, the use of digital payment, digital lending and digital financing can raise the annual per capita household income of residents by CNY4250, CNY10,360 and CNY3050, respectively. (2) DFI increases wage income by enhancing residents’ household employment level, increases business income by promoting residents’ entrepreneurship, and increases property income by improving the financial market participation. (3) DFI has a more significant effect on increasing income for higher income groups as well as rural residents. The findings of this paper provide theoretical and practical support for optimizing the design of financial inclusion policies and exploring new drivers of income growth for residents.

This paper examines the impact of digital inclusive finance development on labor productivity and its transmission channels using panel data from 30 provinces in China during 2011–2020. According to empirical findings, the growth of digital inclusive finance significantly improves labor productivity in China. This conclusion holds even after taking into account endogeneity problems and robustness tests. Regarding transmission channels, digital inclusive finance development enhances labor productivity by promoting capital deepening. From the perspective of the three dimensions of the current digital inclusive finance development stage, the coverage width significantly boosts labor productivity. From a regional perspective, digital inclusive finance development has a more significant impact on labor productivity in the eastern region compared to the central and western areas. From an industry perspective, digital inclusive finance development significantly enhances labor productivity in the primary and tertiary industries.

The geographical distribution characteristics of villages characterised by ethnic minorities are determined by the selection of the site when the village was initially established. The location of inherited and well-preserved minority villages must be exceptionally compatible with the natural terrain, with a logical relationship. Nonetheless, the issue of village location, which is directly related to the development of the features of the geographical distribution, has received little attention from scholars. The average nearest proximity index, Voronoi, kernel density analysis, proximity analysis, and the Geographical Detector (GeoDetector) were used to analyse the geographic distribution characteristics of villages and their correlation with terrain, as well as the difference between the influence of each terrain factor. The findings indicated the following. (1) The geographical distribution of minority villages in Fujian Province is of the agglomeration type, with a significant “mononuclear” feature, and the topography has a facilitating effect on the clustering distribution of villages. (2) The geographical distribution of minority villages in each city of Fujian Province coexisted with the agglomeration type and the dispersion type, and the role of topography in promoting the agglomeration-type distribution of villages was not affected by the distribution density of villages. (3) The site selection of Fujian-minority villages is characterised by medium altitude, moderate slope, sun exposure, and no obvious hydrophilicity. Minority villages are mainly located in areas with an elevation of 202–647 m; a slope of 6–15°; a flat land aspect with a south slope, southeast slope, or southwest slope; and distance of 500–1500 m from 5–20 m wide rivers of level 2. (4) The site selection of Fujian minority villages is influenced by various topographic factors, such as elevation, slope, aspect, river buffer, river width, and river level, among which river width has the most substantial effect. (5) All topographic factors have a two-factor enhancing relationship with each other, aspect and slope have the most substantial effect and play a dominant role in site selection. The research findings illuminate the internal logic of the geographical distribution differentiation of villages characterised by ethnic minorities, which is critical for promoting the protection of modern ethnic-minority villages.

We selected the Chinese A-share listed companies during period of 2007 to 2017 as the research subject, and from the perspective of information and reputation effects, we examined the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) information disclosure and innovation sustainability. The results show that CSR information disclosure has a significant positive relationship with innovation sustainability. Analysis of the effects channel suggests that the information effect plays a dominant role; CSR information disclosure can alleviate the information asymmetry between managers and investors, controlling shareholders and minority shareholders, and alleviate the financing constraint problems, thereby improving innovation sustainability. Our findings support the information hypothesis but not the reputation hypothesis. The relationship between CSR information disclosure and innovation sustainability is more significant in non-state-owned companies. The moderating effect shows that managerial stock incentives can strengthen the positive relationship between CSR information disclosure and innovation sustainability. A series of robustness test results show that the conclusions are reliable. The research is important for promoting the fulfillment of CSR, improving corporate innovation, and promoting the healthy development of the capital market.

The educational equality policies vary in terms of different spatial, cultural, economic, and social dynamics. Despite a great deal of discussion on how to implement equality policies into the Chinese education system, very little research has explored how the Chinese education equality policy responds to social inequalities. To address it, applying Rawls’ theory of justice, this study investigates the macro-level landscape of education equality in China through Dynamic Topic Models to examine their evolution of (unobserved) social equalities imbedded in different political documents over time. The findings present the key policies, the key historical period, the core themes of China’s equality education development, and its responses to social inequalities. In addition, the discussion and conclusion have been offered in the last section.

Urban-rural integrated communities (URICs) are transitional areas for agricultural transfer population (ATP) in the process of urbanization in China. In the current urban renewal context, the demolition and renovation of communities often result in ATP living in a precarious situation and being marginalized in the city. Sustainable urban renewal should change this situation, take the transformation of URICs as a breakthrough, and promote the urban integration of the ATP. Based on the survey of the National Health Commission of China in 2017, this paper investigates the effects of community participation and community identity on community integration, using the ordered probit model with data of the ATP living in URICs. The results show that both community identity and community participation positively influence community integration, and there are intergenerational differences. The mediating effect test shows that community identity plays a mediating role in the process of community participation, influencing community integration. The findings of the study provide possible ideas for the practical promotion of community integration and urban integration of the ATP, facilitate the implementation of sustainable urban regeneration to reduce the costs of citizenship, and maximize the benefits of the cumulative effects of urbanization for all segments of the population.