China Provincial Research Articles

Fintech, Financing Pathway and Regional Innovation Performance: Based on China's Provincial Panel Data from 2011 to 2020

Based on the panel data of 30 provincial administrative planning regions in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper examines the impact of fintech on the achievement of regional innovation, and further studies the regulatory effect and interaction of Foreign Direct Investment and Industry-University-Research Collaboration on the relationship between them. The results show that: fintech is positively correlated with the achievement of regional innovation; further research shows that Foreign Direct Investment makes an inhibitory role on fintech, Industry-University-Research makes a promotive role on fintech and there is a substitution effect between Industry-University-Research and Foreign Direct Investment in a long-term planning. The analysis of regional innovation efficiency of our country shows that regional independent innovation is still in the stage of Economies of scale, and the allocation of social resources has not reached the optimal level.

Effect Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Achievements Transformation Policy Mix: Evidence from China's Provincial Panel Data

Nations and regions are increasingly focusing on the transformation of scientific and technological (S&T) achievements. To accomplish this, they look for reasonable paths for policy optimization, and improve the efficiency of transformation. Replying on the panel data of thirty-one provinces in mainland China from 2010 to 2019, this study uses the panel fixed-effects model to analyze the effects of R&D subsidies, intermediary services, intellectual property protection policy tools and their interaction terms on the transformation efficiency of S&T achievements. All results indicate that the interaction between the two policy tools can enhance the efficiency of such transformations. The interaction between R&D subsidy and intermediary service is the strongest, which is the most effective tool combination; the interaction between R&D subsidy and intellectual property protection, the interaction between intermediary services and intellectual property protection, have relatively weak impact on transformation. The combination effect of policy tools will vary depending on the regional innovation capability level. Therefore, it is necessary to tailor the policy mix pattern to suit local conditions.

Allocation of carbon emission quotas among provinces in China: efficiency, fairness and balanced allocation.

This paper constructs the ZSG-SBM model, comprehensive fairness allocation model, and balance allocation model from the perspectives of efficiency, fairness, and balance. Making use of the actual input-output data of China's provincial economic system in 2019, and the above three models to study the reasonable scheme of China's provincial carbon emission quota allocation in 2019. The results show that ZSG efficiency allocation can significantly improve the carbon emission efficiency of inefficient provinces, and the carbon emissions of inefficient provinces after allocation reach the efficiency frontier. The carbon emission quota of 16 provinces which located in the central and western regions of China with underdeveloped economy and relatively low carbon emission efficiency need to be decreased, while the eastern coastal provinces with more developed economy and high carbon emission efficiency in China should increase their carbon emission quota. On the one hand, comprehensive fairness allocation reduces the carbon emission reduction target constraints of economically underdeveloped provinces; on the other hand, it strengthens the carbon emission reduction target constraints of low-carbon technology backward provinces. As a result, the carbon emission quota of economically developed provinces and provinces with high carbon intensity per unit GDP is reduced in this method. The result of balancing efficiency and fairness lies between ZSG efficiency allocation and comprehensive fairness allocation. In order to alleviate the huge pressure on the emission reduction of provinces with low actual carbon emission efficiency under the ZSG efficiency allocation mode, the Chinese government can gradually increase the weight of ZSG efficiency allocation results, and finally adopt a complete ZSG efficiency allocation scheme in the carbon peak year to realize the transformation of low-carbon economy.

Inter-region Economic Collaborations Through Leadership Visit Networks: A Nonparametric Matching Model

Public managers play critical roles in initiating and sustaining inter-region collaborations. Recently, some scholars began to recognize the importance of public managers in decisions on collaboration, exploring how public managers’ characteristics, collaborative leadership and personal as well as transfer networks affect the extent of collaboration. However, very few studies have investigated how the official interactions between public managers through leadership visits affect inter-region economic collaborations. To fill this lacuna, this paper tries to shed new light on the question: To what extent do the leadership visit networks channel inter-region economic collaborations? We argue that the network of leadership visit paths provides a direct channel for collaboration through information exchange and regional policy integration, but the effects vary in the different time periods and between heterogeneous jurisdictions. Based on the China Provincial Leadership Visit Database and the Inter-Provincial Trade Database, we adopt a new nonparametric matching method to estimate the marginal average treatment effects of provincial leadership visit networks on inter-provincial trade flows in China. These results demonstrate that leadership visit networks channel the collaborations of inter-provincial trade significantly, and the impacts of leadership visit networks decrease in the long term but still positive and significant. Also, leadership visits affect inter-provincial trade more significant when initiated by relatively less developed jurisdiction.

Research on the Green Efficiency Measurement and Spatial Difference of China Provincial Thermal Power Industry

Research on the Green Efficiency Measurement and Spatial Difference of China Provincial Thermal Power Industry

Revisiting Chinese resource curse hypothesis based on spatial spillover effect: A fresh evidence

This paper aims to revisit Chinese resource curse hypothesis in the recent era of globalization. The study used provincial panel data of China ranging from year 2005–2018. Spatial regression partial differential method has been employed to test the resource curse hypothesis to reveal the relationship between China's economic growth and natural resources with new features in recent era of globalization. Empirical findings show that there is significant spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity in China's provincial economic growth under the spatial correlation model; the intra-regional spillover effect, regional spillover effect and total spatial spillover effect of natural resources on economic growth are significantly negative. Similarly, it confirms the existence of resource curse hypothesis. Moreover, the total effect, indirect effect and direct effect of material capital investment and technological innovation on economic growth are positive. It means that the regional economy will grow due to technological innovation and physical capital investment. Correspondingly, this growth will radiate to the surrounding areas. However, the decomposition effect of the labor supply situation on economic growth is negative. So, it can be pointed out that the regional economic growth rate will slow down due to the expansion of the labor force population. But, the overall effect of human capital investment is positive, which means it can significantly promote economic growth. Although, the direct effect of opening to the outside world on economic growth is negative, but its overall effect on economic growth is positive which shows whether opening to the outside world can stimulate the economy varies from different places.

The Impact of Macro-tax Burden on China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment—An Study Based on China Provincial Dynamic Panel System GMM Method

Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2004 to 2017, the relationship between macro-level tax burden and China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is investigated by using the system Generalized Matrix estimation (SYS-GMM) of dynamic panel data. The results show that the macro-level tax burden has a significant promoting effect on OFDI. Finally, this paper argues that the government should implement structural tax reduction, clean up and standardize government charges, and cancel unreasonable charges in order to reduce the burden of enterprises and prevent the large-scale outflow of OFDI.

Party Institutions and Authoritarian Power-Sharing: Evidence from China's Provincial Leader Appointment

AbstractRecent scholarship of comparative authoritarianism suggests that party institutions contribute to regime resilience by facilitating power-sharing among the party elites and preventing the paramount leaders’ abuse of power that undermines political stability. Existing studies tend to focus on the empirical association between party organizations and regime resilience, whereas the actual effects of institutions on elite behavior receive less attention. This paper conducts an in-depth study of China's appointment system to examine whether the CCP's power-sharing institutions indeed constrain the person- nel authority of the party's paramount leader. Using a unique dataset of provincial leadership appointment from 1992 to 2014, the empirical analysis reveals that the General Secretary enjoys what can be described as ‘constrained supremacy’ in the making of personnel decisions: the leader can boost his own position by providing favorable treatment to key supporters, but the formal arrangement of collective decision-making constrains rampant reward of patronage that would unsettle the balance among the regime's top elites. The findings of the paper lay bare the diffculty of capturing the inner workings of authoritarian politics with broad, cross-national indicators of regime type; they also illustrate the complicated interaction between formal institutions and informal, personal logic of exercising power in authoritarian regimes.

Impact of China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Its Regional Economic Growth

AbstractThis paper investigates the impact of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on its economic growth. By using a provincial‐level panel dataset and applying fixed‐effects and instrumental variable regression techniques, the study finds that both OFDI from provincial firms and OFDI from state‐owned enterprises have a positive impact on China's provincial economic growth. The positive impact of OFDI on provincial economic growth may be the result of reverse knowledge spillovers from OFDI to the home provincial economy through demonstration and imitation, labor movement, and backward and forward industrial linkages, thus increasing the productivity and the efficiency of home firms and promoting the growth of the home economy.

Environmental Regulation, Government R&D Funding and Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from China Provincial Data

The “environmental pollution–economic development” circle is a problem in the process of national sustainable development. As a complex concept of environmental protection and technology innovation, green technology innovation is the key to cracking this strange circle. This paper divides green technology innovation into green product innovation and green process innovation and measures green technology innovation based on the perspective of energy saving and emission reduction. Furthermore, we examine the effects of environmental regulation and government R&D funding on green technology innovation. The empirical findings are as follows: (1) from the dynamic point of view, we test whether there is a significant ”U-shaped” relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation, and we find there exists an “inflection point” in the role of environmental regulation in green technology innovation, and China is at the stage of inhibition before the “inflection point”; (2) direct government funding and tax incentives can promote green technology innovation, but the promotion of government tax incentives to green technology innovation is not significant; (3) the interaction between environmental regulation and government R&D will promote green product innovation and inhibit green process innovation, which is closely related to the imbalance of environmental regulation intensity in energy saving and emission reduction. In addition, this paper also gives out three kinds of control variables (the level of regional development, the proportion of the regional manufacturing industry, and the development level of regional export-oriented economy) and presents their effects on green technology innovation.

Geologic structure, mechanism, and conditions for rock topples on cataclinal slope, Jinchuan, China

Two rock topples with the opposite dip direction, observed in the Ribangliangzi hill and facing the China Provincial Highway S211, are located on the upper stream of the planned dam of Jinchuan Hydropower Station in China. The new site for submerged part of Highway due to reservoir impoundment is designed to be a tunnel crossing the Ribangliangzi hill. However, at this hill, the stratum facing the Dadu River dips southwestward, whereas the stratum facing the Xinzha Gully dips northeastward. Therefore, it’s regarded as an important slope structure that may lead to an occurrence of landslide directly threatening the future tunnel excavation stability and slope stability along the highway. This paper reports for the geologic structures of the overturned strata, formative processes and mechanism for toppling on cataclinal slopes. It was concluded that the toppling on cataclinal slopes was caused by a combination of toppling and sliding. Furthermore, to analyse the conditions for toppling on cataclinal slope, the cantilever beam model was established and analyzed the minimum strata dip angle required for toppling more prone to occur on cataclinal slope and the critical length of rock stratum. The results reveal that the toppling will be more prone to occur on cataclinal slope while the strata dip angle is greater than 60°even if under a very small external force or without the assistance of external forces.

Characteristics and Influence Factors of Water Consumption in China Pro-vincial Capital Cities by Means of Multivariate Regression Algorithm

The city is a typical natural and social dual water circulation area. The water use characteristics of the city have obvious dual attributes, and there are many factors (both on nature and social side) affecting the urban water consumption (UWC). This article aimed to research the structure and characteristics of the UWC. Taking the provincial capital cities of China as the research objects, 24 index factors and data of the year 2015 were selected to construct a multivariate regression model between urban UWC and index factors. The results showed that the combination of correlation analysis and full subset regression could effectively screen the prediction variables of UWC. Principal component analysis could effectively reduce variable dimensions of UWC while preserving raw dataset information as much as possible. The main factors affecting UWC on the social side include the built-up area, the urban population, road cleaning area, residential electricity consumption, and per capital water consumption, and the main factors of the natural side include per capital green land and precipitation.

The Spatial Network Structure of China's Provincial Economic Growth: Re-examination Based on Nonlinear Granger Causality Test

This paper considers the nonlinear trend of spatial condution of economic growth and uses the newly developing nonlinear Granger causality test to identify the spatial spillover relationship of economic growth at provincial level, and reveals the characteristics of its network structure within an analytical framework of social network. It comes to the results as follows: firstly, linear Granger causality test underestimates seriously spatial association of provincial economic growth in China, while the nonlinear Granger causality test method not only reveals more spatial relationships, but also identifies more possible spatial spillover channels, providing further empirical support for promoting spatial synergies of China's economic growth; secondly, China's provincial economic growth shows a state of closer and more stable network structure as a whole, and no one province can be independent on the overall network in maximum likelihood network (ML-Network) of provincial economic growth in China. Those who do not seek the global cannot seek a domain, we must re-examine China's coordinated regional economic development from overall and global perspectives, explore and create more spatial spillover channels, exert different functions of different plates of economic growth and realize the spatial coordinated development of regional economy.

How Does Trade Openness Affect Regional Demographic Transitions? Evidence from China's Provincial Panel Data

AbstractThis paper investigates the effect of trade openness and other variables on the demographic transition in China using the instrumental variables regression method based on provincial panel data for the period between 1981 and 2013. The results indicate that trade openness is one of the determinants of China's demographic transition and has two distinct effects: (i) an income effect that accelerated the demographic transition by increasing per capita income; and (ii) a human capital effect that suppressed the demographic transition by reducing human capital accumulation. The effects of trade on demographic transition vary across different regions. This study identifies the important determinants of demographic transition in China's regions, and has rich policy implications for demographic transition and the upgrading of trade structure.

Identifying Drivers of China's Provincial Wastewater Reuse Outcomes Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis

SummaryIn water‐scarce regions of China, wastewater reuse is increasingly considered as a potential component of China's future water resource management strategy. Currently, the percentage of wastewater reuse varies substantially across Chinese provinces, but conditions leading to a high rate of wastewater reuse have not been elucidated clearly. In this work, we use fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the drivers of high and low percentages of wastewater reuse in water‐stressed Chinese provinces in 2013. We find that among the five conditions studied (per capita water availability, urban population, access to sea, access to urban space, and access to agricultural land), a high percentage of wastewater reuse is primarily driven by water stress and access to urban green space. Consequently, policies should consider targeting provinces with these attributes where wastewater reuse is more likely to be successful. Further, our results show that there is asymmetry in the conditions that lead to high and low percentages of wastewater reuse, and that the drivers for and against reuse identified in this study are not completely analogous to those identified in previous studies. As such, the drivers for and against wastewater reuse should not be generalized without due consideration of the local context.

Do Administrative Boundaries Matter for Uneven Economic Development? A Case Study of China's Provincial Border Counties

AbstractThis paper uses China's provincial border counties as samples to explore the role played by administrative boundaries in uneven regional economic development. The results indicate that the gap between provincial border counties and other regions is increasing and that economic diffusion to provincial border counties from developed regions is extremely weak. Moreover, provincial border counties have become economically backward. A regression analysis model that includes certain novel factors that are likely to influence economic growth confirms the significant effects of government intervention and administrative boundaries on economic growth in provincial border counties. This paper concludes that administrative boundaries' effects should be nullified by limiting preferential development policies and implementing policies that instead help provincial border counties engage in sustainable development.

The Impact of Population Age Structure on Real Estates Price—Evidence from China Provincial Panel Data

As “demographic dividend” gradually disappears, and two-child policy boosts, and the prototype of the aging society gradually shows, changes in population age structure in our country may appear. While the change of population age structure will affect the demand for housing, and then affect the price of housing. This article will make use of 2004-2014 provincial panel data of 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions, in the control of variables: per capita income, housing supply factors, inflation, whole population to study the effects of population age structure on real estate prices. With the study, it was found that total dependency ratio and elderly dependency ratio are on an inverse relationship towards ordinary residence price. In particular, elderly dependency ratio is negatively related to high-grade residential property prices. On the further study, I found that the eastern region real estate price is most sensitive to the changes in the dependency ratio.

Network analysis of tourist flows: a cross-provincial boundary perspective

ABSTRACTIn contrast to the extensive research regarding tourist flows on the international, intranational, interregional, intercity, intracity and tourism-spot scales, little attention has been paid to the cross-provincial boundary perspective. In view of the fact that China's provincial administrative boundaries have a long history and a profound influence on the society, culture and economy of neighboring provinces, this study focuses on tourist-flow networks in China that cross ‘provincial’ boundaries. Tourist-flow data from a questionnaire survey and travel-agency-recommended routes were acquired, and the social network analysis method and boundary effect analysis were adopted for the first time to study the cross-boundary tourist flows. Lugu Lake in China was selected for the case study. The spatial distribution and impact factors of cross-boundary tourist flows are discussed, and a scientific basis for future collaborations among cross-boundary tourism destinations is provided. The following conclusions are reached. (1) The spatial structure of cross-boundary tourist-flow networks is complex. There is a core–periphery structure, and each node assumes different roles and functions. (2) Cross-boundary tourist flows are significantly influenced by the boundary-shielding effect, and the properties, direction and extent of the effects are diverse and depend on accessibility, resource endowments, resource heterogeneity and the extent of regional integration. (3) Cross-boundary tourist flows are affected by a boundary-mediating effect, and structural holes play a critical role in the boundary-mediating effect and drive the integration of regional tourism.

Verification for Mediating Effect of Informal Finance between Social Capital and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Analysis Based on China's Provincial Panel Data

Despite the growing acknowledgement that social capital has positive influence on entrepreneurship, former researches mainly focus on individual and group level, and how social capital impacts entrepreneurship has been less formally examined. This paper investigates the mechanism of social capital raising entrepreneurship on a provincial level by using a panel data set of 30 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2012. Since SMEs have some troubles to finance through former financial organizations in China, and informal finance based on social relationship may help them solve this problem, informal finance are added as the mediating variable in this article. We estimate the amount of informal finance by indirect method, and classify entrepreneurship into two categories: business entrepreneurship and innovation entrepreneurship. System generalize methods of moments is used to test the regression, and the result suggests that informal finance has mediating effect on social capital and both business entrepreneurship and innovation entrepreneurship. This research has theoretical value on China’s “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” policy, and we suggest Chinese government could stimulate entrepreneurship by supporting informal finance and fostering social capital.

Evaluation of China's Provincial Regional Innovation Performance as Exemplified by Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang

Evaluation of China's Provincial Regional Innovation Performance as Exemplified by Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Zhejiang