The Dual Impacts of Specialized Agricultural Services on Fertilizer Application Intensity

The overuse of fertilizers has caused significant environmental pollution. In this paper, we aim to improve fertilizer utilization and promote sustainable agricultural development. Based on panel data at the flag (county) level in Inner Mongolia from 2001 to 2020, we analyzed the spatial heterogeneity and correlation of fertilizer application intensity using a two-stage nested Theil index and Moran’s I, and employed a Durbin model to elucidate its spatial spillover effects. The results show that overall disparities in fertilizer application intensity showed a decreasing trend, with league (city) disparities being the main reason for the overall disparities. In terms of spatial patterns, there is a positive spatial correlation between flags (counties), with the western region exhibiting a “high-high” type that gradually shifts towards the eastern region, particularly the cities of Tongliao and Chifeng. The central and eastern regions exhibit a “low-low” type. Future endeavors to decrease fertilizer application intensity are mainly focused on establishing “high-high” clusters. Policymakers should leverage these spatial interactions to diminish fertilizer usage and mitigate environmental pollution. Farmers, affluence, agricultural economic development, and grain yield positively influence fertilizer application intensity while agricultural modernization and land size have negative effects. All these factors demonstrate significant spatial spillover effects.

Agricultural subsidies have an important effect on the farmer’s fertilizer application behavior, but the differences in the effect on different farmers and its mediating mechanism have not been sufficiently studied. Using relevant data from the CFHS database in 2015, this paper focused on the differences in the effect of agricultural subsidies on fertilizer application intensity among farmers with different operation scales and planting structures, as well as the mediating mechanism of the effect of agricultural subsidies on farmers’ fertilizer application intensity. It was found that agricultural subsidies in general helped farmers reduce fertilizer application. This finding still held after replacing the explanatory variables. However, the effect of agricultural subsidies on fertilizer application intensity varied significantly across farmers with different operation scales and planting structures. The fertilizer reduction effect of agricultural subsidies was weakened by the increase in the operation scale and the share of food crop cultivation, i.e., the fertilizer reduction effect of agricultural subsidies on smaller farmers and cash crop cultivation was greater relative to larger farmers and food crop cultivation. Farmers’ operation scale, planting structure and farm machinery inputs are important mediating variables of the effect of agricultural subsidies on farmers’ fertilizer application intensity. The agricultural subsidies played a role in reducing fertilizer application intensity by encouraging farmers to expand their operation scale and increase food crop cultivation, and increased fertilizer application intensity by incentivizing farmers to purchase farm machinery and adopt mechanical farming. Finally, some suggestions were put forward to play the fertilizer reduction effect of agricultural subsidies based on the findings of the study.

Introduction: Economic development is not simply the accumulation of elements, but the improvement of efficiency, which is supported by infrastructure construction. In particular, the urban green and smart development (UGSD) in recent years has put forward higher requirements for infrastructure, and domestic trade as well as opening-up are of great significance during the process.Methods: Based on the panel data of 221 prefecture-level cities in China from the year of 2005 to 2019, this paper adopts the undesirable SBM model and GML index to measure the level of UGSD. Then the spatial Durbin model is conducted to explore the direct spatial spillover effects and the spatial decomposition effects of energy, transportation, and information infrastructure on UGSD. Considering the context of dual cycle, the indirect effects of domestic trade and opening-up between infrastructures and UGSD are further analyzed.Results: Results show that UGSD demonstrates strong spatial agglomeration and maintains a stable spatial positive correlation with different spatial matrices. In general, energy and transportation infrastructure show positive spatial spillover effects on UGSD. By contrast, information infrastructure presents positive spatial spillover effect on UGSD on the whole, while shows insignificant and negative spatial spillover effect with geographical distance matrix. Furthermore, the mediation effect indicates that both transportation and information infrastructure mainly promote local and adjacent cities’ UGSD through domestic trade with economic distance matrix. By contrast, energy infrastructure exerts positive spatial spillover effect on UGSD through weakening the negative impact of opening-up.Discussion: The conclusions of the research show that it is necessary to construct infrastructure in a reasonable way, strengthen the positive spillover effect of intercity factors, and promote the two-wheel driving effect of domestic trade and opening-up on the relationship between infrastructure and UGSD.

Regional green development level and its spatial spillover effects: Empirical evidence from Hubei Province, China

The high-quality development of agriculture is an important driving force for accelerating the construction of a modern socialist country. The digital economy with digital technology as the core has provided new opportunities for advancing the high-quality development of agriculture. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper uses the spatial Durbin model to empirically test the impact of digital economy on the high-quality development of agriculture. The results indicate that: Firstly, the level of the digital economy and the high-quality development of agriculture in various regions have significantly increased, and both exhibit obvious spatial auto-correlation and spatial agglomeration characteristics. Secondly, the digital economy significantly promotes the high-quality development of agriculture in the local region, and simultaneously fosters such development in the neighboring regions through spatial spillover effect. Thirdly, the spatial spillover effect of the digital economy is related to geographical location, there is a positive spatial spillover effect in the eastern and central regions, while the western regions have no spatial spillover effect on the neighboring regions due to the "digital divide" problem. Finally, the mediating effect analysis indicates that the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of agriculture by increasing the consumption of agricultural products by urban residents. The research conclusions of this paper offer valuable policy insights for fully releasing the digital dividend and advancing the high-quality development of agriculture.

Based on partial differential analysis of Spatial Durbin Model (SDM), this paper selects provincial panel data of 11 coastal provinces in China from 2006 to 2014 to empirically study the spatial spillover effects of financial development on regional marine economy. The results show that there are significant spatial correlations in China's marine economy, and it is manifested as spatial exclusion, that is, there is a certain “congestion effect”. At this stage, Financial Interrelations Ratio (FIR) and Venture Capital (VC) have positive direct effects and negative spatial spillover effects on the development of marine economy. Government investment, on the contrary, has a negative direct effect and a positive spatial spillover effect on it. The impact of insurance on the marine economy is not significant.

The rapid expansion of the digital economy has garnered significant attention because of its potential to drive high-quality advancement in traditional sectors, particularly manufacturing. This study examines the spatial dynamics and potential spatial disparities between the digital economy and green total factor productivity (GTFP) in China’s manufacturing sector. We utilize a novel set of indicators to assess the advancement of the digital economy during Chinese provinces and apply spatial econometric models to investigate its spatial influence on GTFP. The main research content and conclusions of this study are as follows. (1) By employing a novel index system to quantify the digital economy’s advancement level within the manufacturing sector across various provinces in China, and utilizing it as the primary explanatory variable, the index system demonstrates significant efficacy in empirical analysis and is both scientifically robust and methodologically sound. (2) Using the spatial Dubin model, this study analyzes the spatial effects of the digital economy on the GTFP of the manufacturing sector and finds that it has a dominant positive spatial spillover effect on the GTFP of the manufacturing industry nationwide. (3) The results show that the effects of digital economy advancement on GTFP in the manufacturing industry have a positive spatial spillover effect in the eastern and central area, whereas it is negative in the western area. This study extends the applicability of the new economic geography and imperfect competition theories to the digital economy era, thereby contributing to these academic fields. Moreover, it introduces a novel analytical framework for assessing the digital economy’s influence on manufacturing advancement. The findings provide valuable insights and policy recommendations for fostering the development of the digital economy advancement across diverse regions in China.

Based on panel data from 20 provinces in China's three major economic regions from 2012 to 2021, this study explores the impact of environmental regulation on green technology innovation and its spillover effects. The results show differences in the impact of environmental regulation on green technology innovation in different economic regions, and the environmental regulation in the Pan-Pearl River Delta significantly promotes green technology innovation. In contrast, the impact of environmental regulation in the other two economic regions is not significant. The early green technology innovation in the three major economic regions has a significant impact on the future green technology innovation. Further using the spatial Durbin model, it is found that environmental regulation has a positive spillover effect on green technology innovation in the three major economic regions. There are spatiotemporal spillover effects in green technology innovation: there are negative temporal and spatiotemporal spillover effects in the Bohai Economic Rim, positive temporal and spatiotemporal spillover effects in the Yangtze River Delta, and only positive spatiotemporal spillover effects in the Pan-Pearl River Delta. JEL classification numbers: C10, C87. Keywords: Green technological innovation, Technological path dependence, Environmental regulation, Dynamic spatial Durbin model, Spatial spillover effect.

This study focuses on producer services based on data from 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2018. The spatial panel STIRPAT-Durbin model was used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and spatial effects of CO2 emissions. The empirical results reveal four key findings. First, there are significant differences in CO2 emissions between eastern and western China, and the agglomeration areas gradually evolved from east to central and south China. Second, the increase in industrial agglomeration level leads to increased carbon emissions from producer services and produces negative spatial spillover effects. Third, urbanization, employment scale, and per capita wealth significantly increase the provinces' carbon emissions and produce positive spatial spillover effects. Fourth, technology can significantly reduce CO2 emissions, but the positive spatial spillover effect is not significant.

The spatial spillover effect and nonlinear relationship analysis between land resource misallocation and environmental pollution: Evidence from China

Rural financial development is deemed essential for eliminating poverty. In China, successive governments have initiated a series of financial development plans to reduce poverty since the launch of economic reform in the late 1970s. However, there is a rising concern about whether financial development can reduce poverty in China. This study uses a panel dataset of 30 provinces (out of 31) in mainland China from 1997 to 2015 to examine the effect of rural financial development on poverty reduction. We employ a spatial panel model to investigate whether rural financial development has a positive spatial spillover effect. Moreover, we use the instrumental variable method to address the possible bidirectional causal effect between rural financial development and poverty reduction. Our study confirms that rural financial development does reduce poverty and simultaneously widen the urban-rural income gap. We further find that rural financial development has a positive spatial spillover effect on poverty alleviation and that the conventional panel model (e.g., fixed effects method) may underestimate the effect of rural financial development, as it ignores the spatial spillover effect.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2020, the degree of green financial agglomeration is measured by location entropy, and the spatial diffusion and polarization effects of green financial agglomeration on sustainable development (SD) are analyzed by using the double-fixed spatial Durbin model. By testing the intermediary effect of green technological innovation and the threshold effect of green financial agglomeration, this study confirms the impact of green financial agglomeration on SD. The study demonstrates that green financial agglomeration’s impact on economic quality development can be evaluated from a regional heterogeneity perspective. Specifically, in the eastern region, the green financial agglomeration exerts a significant polarization effect on the economic quality development of neighboring regions, resulting in a negative spatial spillover effect. In contrast, the central region has not yet exhibited a spatial spillover effect, while the western region’s green financial agglomeration has a noteworthy diffusion effect and a positive spatial spillover effect, significantly promoting the economic quality development of the neighboring regions. Moreover, the study identifies that green financial agglomeration in both the eastern and western regions can enhance economic efficiency and contribute to SD through green technological innovation, as analyzed through the path mechanism. Notably, there is a non-linear relationship between green financial agglomeration and SD. Received: 23 April 2023 | Revised: 6 June 2023 | Accepted: 2 July 2023 Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work. Data Availability Statement Data are available on request from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Author Contribution Statement Jichao Geng: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition. Meng Cai: Methodology, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft.

Comprehensive performance analysis of deep integration and innovative development of logistics and manufacturing industries: A comparison analysis between coastal and inland regions in China

Path mechanism and spatial spillover effect of green technology innovation on agricultural CO2 emission intensity: A case study in Jiangsu Province, China

Dynamic spatial spillover effect of new energy vehicle industry policies on carbon emission of transportation sector in China