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Innovation ability has become one of the core elements in the pursuit of China’s green growth, and high-tech industries are playing a leading role in technological innovation in China. With the rapid development of China’s high-tech industries, their innovation efficiency has attracted widespread attention. This article aims to illustrate a shared inputs two-stage network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), to measure the innovation efficiency of high-tech industries in China’s 29 provinces from 1999 to 2018. The results indicate that there are obvious differences in the innovation efficiency of the provinces. The technology development efficiency, the technical transformation efficiency, and the overall innovation efficiency of the developed east coast provinces are generally higher than those of the backward central and western provinces. This article further applies the spatial econometrics model to analyze the factors influencing the innovation efficiency of high-tech industries. We have found that government support, R&D input intensity, industries aggregation, economic extroversion, and the level of development of the modern service industries cause varying degrees of impact on innovation efficiency.

AbstractThere is close relationship between science & technology inputs and economic growth. Based on the data of science & technology input and economic growth, the paper makes the econometric models analysis on the economic growth and science & technology input of the three major coastal economic regions of China. The paper analyzes and compares the contribution rate of science & technology inputs to economic growth of the three major economic regions.

In recent years, food security, especially supply, has been an important issue in China’s agricultural production. The stability of grain prices is related to the stability and development of the grain market. Based on agricultural production data from 1970 to 2015, this paper explores the influence of agricultural product price fluctuation on grain production by using the cobweb theory and vector error correction (VEC) model. The results show that changes in grain production in China are affected by fluctuations in agricultural product prices, that the production change lags behind the price change, and that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between grain yield and agricultural product price. A Granger causality test shows that the change in agricultural product price is the Granger cause of grain yield change.

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 upsurge in higher education is considered a key determinant for enhancing green growth. Moreover, ICT development is also the main catalyst of green growth. This research explores the role of higher education and ICT on green growth for China from 1995 to 2020. The study employs auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach for short-run and long-run estimates of green growth. The effect of higher education and ICT on green growth is significantly positive in the long run and short run. The outcomes of the empirical models reveal that financial inclusion is positively associated with green growth in both long run and short run. Moreover, renewable energy consumption is found to have a positive impact on green growth. The findings thus point to the need for policies that promote human capital and ICT infrastructure as a way of accelerating green growth.

Under the “new normal”, China is facing more severe carbon emissions reduction targets. This paper estimates the carbon emission data of various provinces in China from 2008 to 2014, constructs a revised gravity model, and analyzes the network structure and effects of carbon emissions in various provinces by using social network analysis (SNA) and quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) analysis methods. The conclusions show that there are obvious spatial correlations between China’s provinces and regions in terms of carbon emissions: Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong are in the center of the carbon emission network, and play the role of “bridges”. Carbon emissions can be divided into four blocks: “bidirectional spillover block”, “net beneficial block”, “net spillover block” and “broker block”. The differences in the energy consumption, economic level and geographical location of the provinces have a significant impact on the spatial correlation relationship of carbon emissions. Finally, the improvement of the robustness of the overall network structure and the promotion of individual network centrality can significantly reduce the intensity of carbon emissions.

Were the large investments in energy and transportation infrastructure effective in fostering economic growth? Or did economic growth trigger these infrastructure developments? To answer these questions, we develop a simple model of production capacity constraints and use China’s Western Development Strategy (WDS) as an example to investigate how the relationships among energy investment, transportation infrastructure expansion and economic growth differ in the pre- and post-WDS periods. Our Granger causality analysis uses a panel data sample for China’s 30 provinces in the Western and non-Western regions for the period of 1991-2012. We find Granger causality only in the post-WDS period from transportation infrastructure expansion to economic growth and from economic growth to energy investment. These results suggest energy and transportation capacity constraints in the post-WDS period but not the pre-WDS period. Their policy implication is that China should continue its energy and transportation infrastructure investments with improved coordination.

This research examines the role of poverty and logistical operations under the circumstance of environmental deterioration with panel data of ASEAN states from 2007 to 2017. The system-generalized method of moments (GMM) was adopted due to the presence of endogeneity. The results indicate that poverty and logistical operations have significant and positive relationship with greater environmental degradation. Because poor people are not skilled, they have to consume natural resources in original and unsustainable way for their survival and profits, which results in greater level of deforestation. On another hand, lacking fuel-efficient/green vehicles and green practices in logistical operations of ASEAN countries, logistics activities mainly depend on fossil fuel consumption, which generates greater carbon emission, methane, and greenhouse emissions that can directly damage the environment and become a primary source of climate change. Therefore, reduction in environmental degradation can be achieved through reduction in poverty and encouraging renewable energy and green practices in logistical operations. In addition, this study also provides detailed policy implications to regulatory bodies and corporate sector in order to improve environmental sustainability through adoption of green practices and reduction in poverty.