Indirect Spillover Effects Research Articles

The evolution and driving mechanism of education inequality in China: From 2003 to 2020.

Although China's education development has made great progress, there are obvious regional differences in China's educational development. A systematic investigation of the regional inequality in China's educational development and its driving factors is of great significance for optimizing the allocation of educational resources and giving full play to the critical role of education in regional development. In addition, the research on the evolution and internal mechanism of educational development inequality in China can also provide experience and reference for the Global South. Therefore, we construct a comprehensive evaluation index system to measure the level of regional educational development, reveal the regional inequalities in China's educational development, and employ spatial econometric model to dissect the factors influencing the regional inequalities. The results show that China's educational development level continues to increasing from 2003 to 2020, but a significant decrease in its growth rate. In this process, regional differences in education inequality in China have gradually narrowed, which can be confirmed by changes in the Gini coefficient and Theil index. In terms of direct spillover effects, the per capita fiscal expenditure on education and urbanization rate have positive effects. In terms of indirect spillover effects, per capita GDP and per capita fiscal expenditure on education have negative effects, while population density and urbanization rate have positive effects. After replacing the weight matrix and removing the extreme values, the model also passes the robustness test. However, this mechanism is heterogeneous in different regions, therefore, we put forward the corresponding policies and measures according to the regional driving effects of influencing factors.

Does Green Finance Enhance the Ecological Value Level of Cultivated Land? Evidence from Mainland China

The ecological value of cultivated land contributes to a harmonious agricultural environment. Green finance support is essential to promoting the ecological value of cultivated land. Nevertheless, research specifically centered on cultivated land as a primary focus remains limited in exploring the relationship between ecological value and green finance, ignoring the fact that green finance can bolster ecological functions and drive sustainable practices. To address this gap, an objective indicator of the cultivated land ecological value level was introduced, and its variations at both the provincial and national levels from 2003 to 2022 were investigated. Results indicate that the cultivated land ecological value level increased over time, with higher values clustering spatially in southern regions. Subsequently, specific spatial correlations between the cultivated land ecological value level and green finance support were revealed using a spatial Durbin model. The results show that green finance support enhanced the cultivated land ecological value level, with its spatial lag term being particularly pronounced. These correlations were evident in eastern regions but were insignificant in western regions. Furthermore, a detailed range of spatial indirect spillover effects was estimated, demonstrating that the spatial effects on other provinces were positive when the geographic distance between them was close. In summary, these conclusions offer practical recommendations for the eco-friendly management of cultivated land, including strategies for vertical collaboration between central and local administrations and horizontal adaptation by governments in the east, central, and west regions based on local conditions.

Assessing the spillover effects of various forms of energy on CO2 emissions — An empirical study based on dynamic spatial Durbin model

Previous studies ignored the geospatial dynamics spillover effects of energy consumption on CO2 emissions while assessing such impacts in developed and developing countries. Moreover, most studies wrongfully assess spillover effects in its aggregated format rather than decomposing by its components. This is important as not all energy sources share the same characteristics. We fill these gaps in the literature by investigating the spillover effects of various forms of energy, including fossil fuels, renewable energy, and nuclear power, on CO2 emissions in 135 developed and developing countries from 2000 to 2019. We used the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model (DSDM) to better understand the results. A series of indicative tests confirmed using the DSDM model and including spatial interaction of CO2 emissions in the analysis. Our findings show evidence of indirect spillover effects of the various energy sources on CO2 emissions. Further considering the spillover effects of the energy sources of neighbouring countries, the paper finds that the driving increase in CO2 emissions mainly came from the energy consumption of the country itself and neighbouring countries' energy consumption. Nevertheless, the results indicate that the direct effects of energy consumption often exceed its indirect effects. The results also confirm that total and fossil energy consumption harms the environment, whereas adopting renewable and nuclear energy sources reduces CO2 emissions. Lastly, we find nuclear energy is the most environmentally sustainable energy source. The study concludes that the Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model is paramount in estimating the environmental impact of energy consumption in our sample. The practical policy implications drawn from this study could be used to promote increased collaboration to hasten the energy transition process and address global warming and climate change.

The impact of factor market integration on carbon emission performance? – evidence based on spatial econometric model

Drawing from panel data spanning 2003 to 2019, encompassing 30 provinces in China, this study employs the relative price method and the super-efficiency EBM technique to assess the market integration index and the level of carbon emission performance, respectively. Furthermore, it employs the Spatial Durbin model to delve into the spatial impact and mechanisms of factor market integration on carbon emission performance. The findings indicate that the integration of factor markets significantly enhances carbon emission performance. Notably, the integration of labor markets has a more profound impact on the enhancement of carbon emission performance compared to capital market integration. Furthermore, the spatial decomposition effect reveals that the indirect spillover effects of factor market integration surpass its direct effects. Heterogeneity analysis shows that factor market integration in the eastern region has a greater promoting effect on the level of carbon emission performance. In the areas with high industrial quality, the promoting effect of labor market integration on carbon emission performance is more significant. The analysis of the spillover effect indicates that as the spillover distance increases, the impact of factor market integration on the marginal effect of carbon emissions exhibits a positive U-shaped pattern. This pattern manifests as a marginal decreasing trend within a distance of 600 km, followed by a marginal increasing trend beyond 600 km. This study has important reference value for government departments to formulate unified large-market construction policies to achieve high-quality development.

The Spillover Effects of the Spouse's Retirement on Depression: Evidence From Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adult Couples.

The present study expands on previous research by examining whether the spouse's retirement affects individual depression both directly, by the changes in individual health investment, and indirectly, through the social interaction effect of the couples' depression. Using the panel data from the 2010-2018 China Family Panel Studies, we investigate the direct and indirect spillover effects of the spouse's retirement on depression among Chinese urban-worker couples (men aged 50-70, women aged 40-60; n = 10,466). To address the potential endogeneity and reflect the social interaction effect of the couples' depression, we combine the Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity method with simultaneous equations. Overall, a spouse's retirement would improve an individual's depression, with the direct spillover dominating compared to the indirect spillover. Gender heterogeneity indicates that husbands' depression is improved by wives' retirement mainly because husbands might receive more healthcare and companionship provided by their retired wives, while wives' depression is aggravated by husbands' retirement because of the decline in household income and the lesser health investment. This difference is more evident when wives retire earlier and both spouses retire in the same year. With the spouse's retirement years increasing, husbands' depression improves and wives' depression declines each year. Moreover, spouses' depression is significantly interactive, and wives' depression is more vulnerable to husbands' depression. The results highlight that the health spillover effects of the spouse's retirement need greater attention in future research and retirement reform.

Early national trends in non-abortion reproductive care access after Roe.

Roe was overturned in 2022. No peer-reviewed evidence exists for the indirect spillover effects of overturning Roe on non-abortion reproductive care access for diverse patient populations. National data were from 2013-2023 HHS Title X Directory, 2013-2020 CDC Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ART) Surveillance and 2021-2023 manual collection, and Guttmacher Institute. Outcome measures included numbers of ART clinics and Title X entities. Title X entities are those that receive federal funds to establish and operate voluntary family planning projects, especially for low-income patients. We reported pre-and post-Roe changes, associations between changes in measures and abortions, and characteristics of changed measures by region and political geography. Post-Roe America witnessed national declines of 1.03% in ART clinics and 18.34% in Title X entities, and average state decreases of 0.08 ART clinics (p < 0.05) and 18 Title X entities (p < 0.001). State-level ART clinic closures and abortion reductions had little association except for Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New York, and California. Plummets in Title X entities and abortions were positively associated: Reducing 100 abortions was associated with defunding two Title X entities (p < 0.05). The South experienced the largest losses of both, while 83.39% of lost Title X entities were in states that voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election, disproportionate to the 49.02% of states that voted Republican and the 42.52% of US population residing in these states. We provide one of the first few evidence of spillover impacts of overturning Roe on non-abortion care access for diverse populations: low-income men and women, single parents by choice, and biologically and socially infertile patients. Early evidence warns of worsening challenges of inequities and calls for immediate policy actions.

The role of spillovers when evaluating regional development interventions: evidence from administrative upgrading in China

Direct effects of regional development interventions on targeted areas may be amplified by positive spillovers from elsewhere or offset by negative spillovers. Yet spillovers are often ignored in the applied literature, where impact analyses based on difference-in-differences typically treat spatial units as independent of their neighbours. We study spatial spillovers from a popular regional development intervention in China—converting counties to cities. China’s top-down approach lets only central government bestow city status on an area, with over ten percent of counties upgraded to cities in the last two decades. A growing literature estimates impacts of these conversions, with spatial units typically treated as independent of their neighbours. In contrast, our spatial econometric models use a 20-year panel for almost 2500 county-level units to allow indirect spillover effects on indicators of local economic activity. The positive direct effects on GDP and luminosity of a county being upgraded are amplified through positive indirect effects, especially in the eastern regions of China where economic activity and population are more densely concentrated. The models without spatial lags that ignore spillovers give estimated effects of converting counties to cities that are only two-fifths to two-thirds as large as the estimated effects coming from the spatial models.

Ripple effect: Disentangling the global impact web of US monetary policy

This paper uses a GVAR model to analyze the direct and indirect (via commodity prices and cross-country interactions) spillover effects of US monetary policy on foreign economies and the ensuing spillbacks to the US. A ten basis points cut in the US interest rate directly boosts an average foreign economy's output by 0.06 percentage points, but indirect effects amplify this to 0.47 percentage points. These findings underscore that the recent increase in spillovers is primarily driven by global, rather than US-specific, integration. Indirect cross-country effects are most pronounced in financially open countries, regardless of their exchange rate regime.

Unveiling the Spatial Effects of Climate Change on Economic Growth: International Evidence

Climate change represents one of the most serious threats to the well-being of humanity. In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the amount of research dedicated to analysing the economic impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, the spatial aspect of climate change has not been addressed. This research is the first to empirically assess both direct and indirect (spillover) effects of climate change, as measured by temperature variations, on economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on a balanced dataset for 86 countries between 1980 and 2019. The preliminary analysis suggests the presence of spatial autocorrelation and the suitability of the dynamic spatial autoregressive model to assess the spillover effects of climate change. The results for the full sample reveal that there are no substantial short- or long-run effects of climate change on economic growth. When the sample is decomposed by income, the analysis indicates that climate change has direct and indirect spillover effects on economic growth only in low–middle-income countries over the short- and long run. The decomposition according to the climate regime also yields interesting findings as climate change exerts adverse direct and indirect spillover effects on economic growth only in the hottest countries over the long run. These findings are robust since they hold regardless of whether the contiguity weight matrix or the inverse distance weight matrix is used. The research advocates for international collaboration in the design and implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The impact of Medicaid expansion on spending and utilization by older low-income Medicare beneficiaries.

To examine indirect spillover effects of Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansions to working-age adults on health care coverage, spending, and utilization by older low-income Medicare beneficiaries. 2010-2018 Health and Retirement Study survey data linked to annual Medicare beneficiary summary files. We estimated individual-level difference-in-differences models of total spending for inpatient, institutional outpatient, physician/professional provider services; inpatient stays, outpatient visits, physician visits; and Medicaid and Part A and B Medicare coverage. We compared changes in outcomes before and after Medicaid expansion in expansion versus nonexpansion states. The sample included low-income respondents aged 69 and older with linked Medicare data, enrolled in full-year traditional Medicare, and residing in the community. ACA Medicaid expansion was associated with a 9.8 percentage point increase in Medicaid coverage (95% CI: 0.020-0.176), a 4.4 percentage point increase in having any institutional outpatient spending (95% CI: 0.005-0.083), and a positive but statistically insignificant 2.4 percentage point change in Part B enrollment (95% CI: -0.003 to 0.050, p = 0.079). ACA Medicaid expansion was associated with more institutional outpatient spending among older low-income Medicare beneficiaries. Increased care costs should be weighed against potential benefits from increased realized access to care.

How does innovative city policy break carbon lock-in? A spatial difference-in-differences analysis for China

Innovative cities, as spatial containers of innovation, help to accelerate the agglomeration of innovation factors. Hence, they tend to rely on knowledge, science, and technology, rather than traditional energy to realize development. Based on a panel dataset of 283 Chinese cities for the period 2003–2017, we empirically investigate the impact of innovative city policy (ICP) on carbon lock-in (CLI) using the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) method. Moreover, we examine the direct and indirect spillover effects of this policy. We also discuss the dynamic effect, heterogeneity, mediating mechanisms, and the spatial effect within different distance bands. We find that: (1) accelerating innovation in cities can not only mitigate CLI locally, but can also inhibit CLI in neighboring cities; (2) both short-term and long-term policy effects are verified, and ICP shows a long-lasting policy effect with more impetus; (3) ICP has a greater restraining effect on CLI in cities that are non-resource based, have smaller populations, and higher physical, human, and social capital; and (4) technology and industry structure effects are two influence mechanisms. And the policy effect attenuates when distance bands are expanded. Based on the above findings, we put forward several specific policy recommendations to boost innovation and curb CLI.

Financial development, institutions, and economic growth nexus: A spatial econometrics analysis using geographical and institutional proximities

AbstractThis paper investigates the nexus between financial development (FD), institutions, and economic growth using a spatial autoregressive model on a panel dataset of 82 countries from 1990 to 2019. We measure the dependence between countries through geographical and institutional proximity. The latter has not been widely explored in the finance‐growth literature. The concept of institutional proximity proposes that countries with similar institutions will have similar levels of economic growth and larger spillovers once spatial effects of FD and institutional quality are controlled. Overall, our findings support this proposition, as FD and political institutions are shown to have significant positive effects on growth. However, the growth‐effect of FD becomes negative beyond a certain threshold. We also find significant positive spatial lag growth in the model, indicating the presence of indirect spillover effects of FD and institutions on the growth of neighbouring countries in both geographical and institutional spheres. Furthermore, the spatial growth model with the institutional proximity matrix exhibits a higher rate of convergence and larger size of spillover than the model with geographical proximity. These findings are robust to various model specifications, and the paper concludes with some policy recommendations.

FDI, indirect horizontal spillover and firm productivity in China’s manufacturing industry

ABSTRACT The indirect spillover effects of manufacturing foreign direct investment (FDI) through upstream suppliers are often ignored by academia. This paper first explains theoretically the mechanism of indirect horizontal spillovers from foreign-funded firms and matches China Industry Business Performance Data and the China Customs Dataset, then empirically analyzes the indirect horizontal spillover effects of China’s manufacturing FDI through upstream suppliers. The results show that China’s manufacturing FDI generates significant positive technology spillovers to local firms through an indirect horizontal mechanism; the vertical spillover effects of China’s manufacturing FDI are asymmetric; the indirect spillover effects are influenced by firm ownership, whether it trades or not, and firm size; and the indirect spillovers generated by FDI restrain the quality of products for exports by local firms in the intra-industry but significantly improve the quality of products for export of upstream suppliers through backward linkages.

Direct and Indirect Spillovers from Content Providers’ Switching: Evidence from Online Livestreaming

Content providers in online social media platforms, particularly livestreaming, often switch content categories. We propose a theory-based framework to study the direct and indirect spillover effects of content switching for livestreamers—individuals who broadcast content through livestreaming platforms. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we propose two positive spillover effects that are unique to the social media platform setting: (a) the entrant streamers do not just increase competition among streamers, but they also bring their own viewers to the new category (direct spillover), and (b) the entrant streamers influence incumbent streamers’ viewer size by boosting category visibility through indirect network effects (indirect spillover). We also propose that the two spillover effects are contingent on the size of the entrant streamers’ follower base. Our findings show that average content switching is associated with a 1.3% net increase in direct net viewer flow and a 2.6% net increase in indirect net viewer flow. Our results provide managerial implications for livestreaming platforms on how to maintain a healthy and fair community among streamers, such as encouraging popular streamers to switch to a category with many promising small streamers.

Does the agglomeration of urban producer services promote carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry?

Does agglomeration of space lead to carbon efficiency? This paper uses spatial models to analyze the impact and mechanism of producer services agglomeration on carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry based on the data from 286 prefecture-level cities and above in China. As urban spatial agglomeration is strongly influenced by the land-use policy and characterized by variegated degrees of industrial agglomeration, it shows various carbon efficiencies in China’s context. The results indicate that urban producer services agglomeration has both direct and indirect positive effects on carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry, whilst the indirect spillover effects have prominent spatial attenuation characteristics with an effective boundary of 350 kilometers. Moreover, the agglomeration of low-end producer services shows a significant positive indirect effect on carbon efficiency, whilst the high-end has both direct and indirect significant positive impacts. In addition, the direct and indirect impacts of producer services agglomeration on carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry is different under city sizes. The mechanism analysis reveals that urban producer services agglomeration improves carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry through scale, technology spillover, and competition effects. And the marginal impact of these three effects on carbon efficiency of manufacturing industry increases as the producer services agglomeration rises. Besides, among the marginal impact of these three effects, the technology spillover effect is greater than the scale and competition effects.

The Contribution of High-Skilled Immigrants to Innovation in the United States

We characterize the contribution of immigrants to US innovation, both through their direct productivity as well as through their indirect spillover effects on their native collaborators. To do so, we link patent records to a database containing the first five digits of 160 million of Social Security Numbers (SSN). By combining this part of the SSN together with year of birth, we identify whether individuals are immigrants based on the age at which their Social Security Number is assigned. We find that over the course of their careers, immigrants are more productive than natives, as measured by number of patents, patent citations, and the economic value of these patents. Immigrant inventors are more likely to rely on foreign technologies, to collaborate with foreign inventors, and to be cited in foreign markets, thus contributing to the importation and diffusion of ideas across borders. Using an identification strategy that exploits premature inventor deaths, we find that immigrant collaborators create especially strong positive externalities on the innovation production of natives, while natives create especially large positive externalities on immigrant innovation production, suggesting that combining these different knowledge pools into inventor teams is important for innovation. A simple decomposition suggests that despite immigrants only making up 16% of inventors, they are responsible for 30% of aggregate US innovation since 1976, with their indirect spillover effects accounting for more than twice their direct productivity contribution.

Emerging agricultural expansion in northern regions: Insights from land-use research

Emerging agricultural expansion in northern regions: Insights from land-use research

The effects of the Eurasian Economic Union on regional foreign direct investment and implications for growth

The positive direct and indirect spillover effects of foreign direct investment on growth are often case specific and not necessarily uniform nor easily predicted. Effects of FDI due to international investment policy changes are often confounded by free trade and customs union agreements that occur simultaneously because trade may be a complement to or substitute for FDI. We review the effects of regional trade agreements on FDI and focus on the new Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). With annual data from 1995 to 2019 for post-Soviet countries, three members, the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Kazakhstan and nine non-members, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, we estimate the EAEU integration effect on country FDI flows, post-2010. We control for other determinants, including infrastructure development, natural resource rents, potentially confounding trade flows, the financial crisis, sanctions against Russia and country fixed effects. The formation of the EAEU did not stimulate FDI and while GDP grew it was not associated with higher FDI. Further growth opportunities via FDI lie with relationships with countries outside the EAEU.

Learning at Home and Abroad: How Competition Conditions the Diffusion of Party Strategies

How do parties decide when to campaign on valence issues given high degrees of uncertainty? Although past studies have provided evidence of transnational emulation of parties' position-taking strategies, these findings do not directly apply to saliency strategies. Moreover, the exact diffusion mechanism remains largely elusive. Based on the issue saliency literature, this study develops novel theoretical propositions and argues that conscious learning enables parties to infer the relative utility of emphasizing consensual issues during an electoral campaign. The proposed theory gives rise to different expectations at the domestic and transnational levels because of the distinct logic of issue competition. By analyzing environmental issue emphasis in party manifestos, the authors find direct transnational dependencies and indirect spillover effects among the parties' saliency strategies. They identify conscious learning, rather than mere imitation or independent decision making, as the diffusion mechanism at work. Yet, in line with saliency-based theories, electoral competition mutes the diffusion of electoral strategies domestically.

Does the Development of the Internet Contribute to Air Pollution Control in China? Mechanism Discussion and Empirical Test

With the continuous development of cloud computing and internet of things technology, the integration of internet and haze governance has broad prospects and infinite potential. Through the internet platform and technology, environmental monitoring can be done by the internet, and realize the intellectualization of environmental management, improve the early warning ability of environmental pollution emergencies, and facilitate the public’s in-depth participation in environmental supervision. The dynamic spatial Durbin model and the quantile regression model are employed to analyze the effect and mechanism of the internet development on China’s haze pollution on the basis of provincial panel data in China from 2006 to 2017. The results indicate that there is an inverted “U” curve between internet development and haze pollution in China, and the conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. There is significant heterogeneity between direct and indirect spillover effects. Meanwhile, from the perspective of different regions in China (such as the east-central region and western regions), the inverted “U” curve between internet development and air pollution still exists. Besides, quantile regression results also show that the suppression effect of the internet on haze pollution is getting stronger with the increase of haze concentration. The regression results of the mediation effect indicate that internet development mainly affects haze pollution by improving technological innovation and environmental governance efficiency.