Intermediary Channels Research Articles

Can the digital economy facilitate the optimization of industrial structure in resource-based cities?

With the continuous development of economy, resource-based cities in China are in urgent need of transforming and upgrading their industrial structures. This article utilizes panel data of 114 resource-based cities from 2011 to 2021 to explore the impact and mechanism of digital economy on optimizing and upgrading industrial structure. The findings, demonstrating a nonlinear relationship, reveal that digital economy promotes the advancement of the industrial structure in resource-based regions significantly. Technological innovation and financial development serve as the intermediary channel of facilitating the advancement of industrial structure in digital economy through intermediary effect analysis. Moreover, in terms of regional heterogeneity, digital economy is more effective in assisting inland resource-based cities in achieving advanced industrial structure compared to coastal areas in China.

Can provincial-pooling of urban and rural resident basic medical insurance improve the health performance of migrant population?

Enhancing the pooling level of medical insurance is an inevitable requirement to strengthen the mutual assistance capability of funds and achieving national health. In China, with the continuous expansion of the migrant population seeking medical treatment in other regions, the role of provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance is becoming increasingly prominent. While there is limited research on the impact and mechanism of provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance on the health of migrant population. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance on the health performance of migrant population and analyze the mediating role of social integration. Using data of three waves (2014, 2016 and 2018) of the China Labor force Dynamics Survey, this study focuses on a sample of migrant population enrolled in Urban and Rural Resident Basic Medical Insurance and employs the estimation methods of time-varying difference-in-difference and mediating effect model. The results of time-varying difference-in-difference show that provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance improves the health performance of migrant population by 9.6% (p < 0.05), and the event study method and placebo test all indicate that the research results are robust. The mediating effect analysis demonstrates that the provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance enhances health performance by fostering the subjective and objective social integration, and neighbourhood assistance, social equity, life happiness and trust in the majority are specific intermediary channels. The results of heterogeneity analysis indicates that provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance is more effective in improving the health performance of high-income (β = −0.090; P < 0.05), new-generation (β = −0.116; P < 0.1) and highly-educated (β = 0.130; p < 0.05) migrant population. Our results call for accelerating the promotion of provincial-pooling of basic medical insurance to improve health performance of migrant population.

Towards a low-carbon and beautiful world: assessing the impact of digital technology on the common benefits of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.

When ecology thrives, civilization thrives, and when ecology declines, civilization declines. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2021, this study used marginal abatement costs to estimate the co-benefits of pollution reduction and carbon reduction. Two-way fixed effect and two-stage intermediary effect models were used to evaluate the impact of digital technology on co-benefits and its indirect channels. The results indicated that China's total carbon emissions maintained a steady growth trend, while air pollution showed a fluctuating declining trend. Reaching peak carbon neutrality calls for more innovative solutions. Under joint emission reduction efforts, the study revealed marginal abatement cost savings of 535.8 million yuan/million tons and 6216.5 million yuan/μg/m3 for carbon reduction and pollution reduction, respectively. Most importantly, the study confirmed that joint emission reduction programs can reduce environmental governance costs more than individual emission reductions can, and the co-benefits increased from 37.983 to 44.757. The co-benefits generally showed a trend of fluctuation and increases and had the characteristics of phased transformation. Intragroup differences and cross-overlapping between regions made regional differences in co-benefits obvious. The subversive, permeable, and integrated features of digital technology have resulted in the all-around transformation of the economy and society, and the new technology-economy paradigm has significantly improved co-benefits. The conclusion remains valid after robustness testing and controlling for endogeneity problems. The results of the mechanism analysis suggest that digital technology can indirectly improve synergies through the intermediary channels of fostering green technology innovation, reducing energy consumption intensity and improving the energy structure.

Open innovation, overseas business income and the mediating effect of environmental, social and governance

AbstractWithin the context of the ‘go global’ strategy, for enabling enterprises to effectively form open innovation strategies to enhance overseas business income and assume environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities and to explore the importance and operational mechanisms of ESG, this paper adopts a three‐step method to analyse the panel data of Chinese multinational enterprises from 2011 to 2019. The results indicate that adopting open innovation can improve overseas business income and environmental and social performance. The environment and society are two critical intermediary channels for the impact mechanisms of open innovation on overseas business income. Based on these findings, we make some recommendations for enterprises and external investors. This research also expands the current understanding of the correlation between open innovation, ESG and overseas operation activities, providing evidence on open innovation strategy for managers and verifying the vital role of ESG in enterprise operations.

Социокультурная регуляция гражданской позиции молодежи в цифровой среде

The article is devoted to issues related to the problem of the formation and evolution of the civic position of youth in the digital environment. The authors consider traditional and digital mechanisms of sociocultural regulation of youth civic positioning. The article substantiates the need to search for methods of sociopsychological reinforcement in the process of forming a constructive civic position of young people. The authors point out that digital technologies create intermediary channels that, on the one hand, allow you to include in communication those participants who would not be able to interact without a digital environment, but on the other hand, reduce quality and weaken such effects as direct infection and copying. In this regard, an important issue for the modern digital society is the task of ensuring the transfer of knowledge and skills, the transfer of skills through the mediation of digital telecommunications technologies in remote work, study and online interaction.

Value‐added Tax and Leverage: Evidence from China's Value‐added Tax Rate Reform

AbstractThis paper uses China's value‐added tax (VAT) rate reform as a quasi‐natural experiment to identify the impacts of VAT rate shocks on corporate financial leverage. The results indicate that the reform reduced corporate total leverage significantly. There was a decrease in short‐term leverage, but long‐term leverage showed no significant change. These results remained robust across a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis shows that increasing profitability and improving cash flows acted as intermediary channels for the reform's impact on leverage. The reform also contributed to the mitigation of the asset–liability mismatch problem and the reduction of debt risk, while having no apparent impact on corporate investments. Finally, enterprises with more elastic demand and those with lower intermediate input ratios were affected most by the deleveraging effect of the VAT rate reform. This study suggests how the VAT rate cut shaped corporate capital structure. It thus helps to explain the economic consequences of VAT rate shocks.

China stock market liberalization and company ESG performance: The mediating effect of investor attention

As China has begun to promote a high level of opening up of its stock market, ESG indicators have gradually become one of the important decision-making tools for overseas investors to invest in China's stock market. Using the data of Chinese listed companies from 2011 to 2022, this paper examines the impact of stock market opening on the ESG of listed companies and the mediating role of investor attention in this process by using the Difference-in-Differences (DID) and mediating effect models. Research shows that the opening of the stock market improves the ESG performance of listed companies by attracting more investor attention. Investor focus, investor sentiment, and investor interaction all constitute the intermediary channels through which the stock market opening affects ESG. The above mediating effect is established in most industries and is stronger in state-owned enterprises. This mediating effect plays the largest role in improving corporate governance, followed by social and environmental responsibility. The opening of China's stock market provides a model for emerging market countries to improve their ESG performance. Based on the research conclusions, we propose suggestions for addressing the mediating effect of investor attention, expanding the opening of the stock market to provide sufficient channels for investors to fully participate in market transactions, and differentiated ESG information disclosure.

How Can the Digital Economy Promote the Integration of Rural Industries—Taking China as an Example

The rapid development of China’s digital economy has promoted the digital transformation of Chinese society and become a new driving force for China’s social development. Furthermore, increasing farmers’ income is the central task of China’s “three rural issues” project, and the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary rural industries is an important way to revitalize rural industries and broaden farmers’ income channels, so it is very important to promote the integrated development of rural industries. In the context of the rapid development of China’s digital economy, it is of great significance to study how the digital economy promotes the integration of rural industries. Therefore, this study analyzed how China’s digital economy promotes the integration of rural industries by using the panel data and regression models of 30 provinces (municipalities and districts) in China from 2011 to 2021. The results show that (1) there is a significant positive relationship between the development level of the digital economy and the level of rural–industrial integration and that the development of the digital economy promotes the process of rural–industrial integration; (2) intermediary effect analysis shows that as the digital economy promotes rural–industrial integration, scientific and technological innovation levels and rural human capital are important intermediary channels; and (3) spatial analysis shows that the development of the digital economy can not only promote the integration of rural industries in the province but also have a positive spatial spillover effect on neighboring provinces. Therefore, it is necessary to create a good atmosphere for the development of the digital economy, constantly promote the development of the digital economy, pay attention to scientific and technological innovation and rural talent training, and promote the integration and coordinated development of the digital economy and rural industries between regions in order to improve the level of rural–industrial integration and contribute to the rural revitalization strategy.

The impacts of casual environmental regulation on carbon intensity in China: Dual mediating pathways of energy low-carbon reconstitution and industrial structure upgrading

In the new era of global net zero, how to reduce carbon intensity became a hot topic, while few attentions had been paid to the impacts of casual environmental regulation, especially in the emerging economy such as China. In this regard, this study uses the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2019 to study the impacts of causal environmental regulation on the carbon intensity, with the adoption of multiple econometric models. The empirical results show that causal environmental regulation has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon intensity, while at current stage, causal environmental regulation cannot inhibit carbon intensity through the mediating of green innovation and renewable energy production. Fortunately, energy low-carbon reconstitution and industrial structure upgrading are proved to effectively act as the intermediary channels. In addition, the spatial spillover effects and the spatial heterogeneity are supported in the empirical analysis. In a summary, this study starts with the case of China to provide a realistic reference case for the international community, enriches the theory, policy and practice related to environmental regulation, and provides a realistic reference example for emerging economics in a developing country.

George Chin's Editorial Cartoons: Analysis of Political Issues in Sabah Newspaper

This study aims to analyse political issues through the work of cartoonist George Chin or more synonymous with the title 'Mingo'. It focuses on George Chin's cartoon work from 1966 to 1967. This study uses the Visual Metaphor approach or theory in classifying and identifying current issues in Mingo's editorial cartoons. The results of this study found that George Chin's ideas and drawings, which are quite cohesive and energetic, can reflect his and the community's views on an issue. Editorial cartoons not only act as criticism and satire on an issue but indirectly give awareness to the local community in order to try to eradicate passive attitudes in the community. In addition, editorial cartoons are able to be an intermediary channel between the community and the government in conveying their thoughts figuratively through their two-dimensional works.

Analysis on spatial structure characteristics and influencing factors of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region MICE cities.

Industrial upgrading and transfer is one of the three key areas in the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) are important means of promoting industrial upgrading. Urban MICE industry, as an important carrier of event activities, become an important gripper for coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. City exhibition space structure plays an dominant role in regional economic development, and it will greatly promote smooth implementation of the coordinated development strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. In this paper, 13 prefecture-level cities in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei were selected as research objects, and the data from 2012 to 2018 were selected to establish a gravity model of the attractiveness of MICE cities. With the help of UCINET software, the network density, centrality, cohesive subgroup and core-edge of nodes researches were obtained to analyze the spatial structure characteristics of the attractiveness of MICE cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. The influencing factors of the spatial characteristics of MICE city attractiveness are analyzed by using geographically weighted regression model. The results show that: (1) Beijing, as the overall core area, act as a prominent role. Beijing strengthens the attraction to the superior resources of the surrounding areas, but the network of MICE cities tends to be unbalanced. (2) Overall space forms a subgroup from a single independent subgroup to a subgroup that is spatially separated from each other and acts as an intermediary channel to connect each other, and the core region decreases from 3 to 2. Langfang was removed from the list, leaving Beijing and Tianjin as the core. (3) The influence of supporting facilities, urban environment and population factors on the MICE city attractiveness of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region is increasing gradually. The influence of tourism development level on the MICE city attractiveness of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region is decreasing gradually. The influence of economic development level and Internet development level on the MICE city attractiveness of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region remains unchanged.

The Impact Mechanism of Digitalization on Green Innovation of Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises: An Empirical Study

With the rapid development of the digital economy, promoting green innovation through digitalization has become an important means for manufacturing enterprises to improve their core competitiveness. However, the existing studies focus more on enterprise green technology innovation than green innovation, and the empirical tests mostly use regional-level data rather than enterprise-level data. This paper empirically examines the impact effect and mechanism of digitalization on green innovation in manufacturing enterprises using a sample of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2013–2019. It is found that: digitalization significantly promotes the improvement of green innovation level in manufacturing enterprises; digitalization promotes green innovation more prominently in labor-intensive industries and manufacturing enterprises in central China than in capital- or technology-intensive industries and enterprises in eastern China; and digitalization can influence green innovation in manufacturing enterprises through three intermediary channels: promoting enterprise value chain upgrading, empowering industrial structure optimization, and enhancing technological innovation.

Can digital investment improve corporate environmental performance? -- Empirical evidence from China

Enterprise environmental performance has always been the core topic of enterprise environmental management. Under the promotion of the new generation of technological revolution, whether enterprise digitalization can help improve enterprise environmental performance has become a new research hotspot. Taking Chinese A-share listed industrial enterprises as the research sample, this paper discusses the influence mechanism of digitalization on corporate environmental performance. The results show that:(1) digital investment has a significant U-shaped relationship with corporate environmental performance; (2) Technological innovation is an important intermediary channel through which digital investment promotes enterprise environmental performance: digital investment can positively promote technological innovation, and there is also a significant U-shaped relationship between technological innovation and corporate environmental performance; (3) The hometown identification degree of executives positively moderates the relationship between technological innovation and corporate environmental performance. Accordingly, we suggest that companies need to adopt hedging policies in the early stage to reduce the adverse environmental effects caused by digital technology and accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises and promote the development of technological innovation to achieve the goal of coordinated environmental protection. Finally, we hope that executives will actively participate in this activity and jointly promote the development of this cause.

Research on the Influence of Web Live Broadcast on Traditional Media News Transmission in the New Era

As a media intermediary channel for news information dissemination, news dissemination methods play a supporting role in developing traditional media. The continuous change and development of news dissemination methods require the support of solid information technology resources. Based on the concept and development process of webcasting, this paper explores in detail the influence of webcasting on traditional media news dissemination in the new era. The study found that influenced by live broadcasts, traditional media news dissemination methods have gradually reduced the brand linkage effect, the correct guidance role has gradually weakened, and rational identification has been significantly eliminated. In response, it is necessary to standardize the live broadcast environment and enhance traditional news dissemination capabilities by enhancing the comprehensive quality of the main body of communication, optimizing live broadcast content, building a positive energy live broadcast platform, and increasing the supervision of live broadcasts.

Comparative Performance of Distribution Channels of Public and Private Life Insurers in India

Selling products through an intermediary has always been advantageous for the manufacturer of goods or service providers. This becomes more relevant when you are selling services and particularly a financial service. The selling of insurance products is in the ambit of financial services. Therefore, the relevance of intermediary channels has increased to the highest, because selling insurance product is a subject of persuasion, so personal contact to increase market efficiency become relevant. In the present study, an emphasis has been made to study the marketing channels exhausted by the life insurance industry for selling their products, further, a comparison has been made between the public and private sector companies concerning to channels these two companies are using to sell their insurance products. The span of the study is 2016-17 to 2021-22 because during this period a few new marketing channels came into existence in the insurance market. The performance of these channels has been measured in terms of first-year individual premiums collected and policies issued by these commonly used distribution channels. At last, it is found that in the case of Life Insurance Corporation of India, the channel ‘Individual Agent’ is more significant as compared to other channels; whereas Corporate Agent-bank is significant for private life insurance companies. To conclude two way ANOVA and Tukey Post Hoc test have been applied to the data.

Digitalization, income inequality, and public health: Evidence from developing countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the awareness and demand of public health worldwide. Based on the panel data of 81 developing countries from 2002 to 2019, this study probes into the effect of digitalization on public health and explores the mechanism through which digitalization affects public health from the perspective of income inequality. The results show that digitalization significantly enhances public health in developing countries, and this conclusion still holds after the robustness test. The heterogeneity analysis based on geographic location and income level indicates that the enhancing effect of digitalization on public health is most evident in Africa and middle-income countries. A further mechanism analysis suggests that digitalization can positively impact public health through the intermediary channel of suppressing income inequality. This study enriches the research on digitalization and public health and provides insights for comprehending public health needs and the powerful empowering effects of digitalization.

Ю.М. Лотман и А. Бергсон (семиотика искусства – философия жизни)

In 1980–90s. Lotman’s scientific interests were mainly focused on discovering the processes taking place in the semiosphere. He was interested in the relation of space and time as two semiotic languages irreducible to each other, the prob­lem of emptiness as an object and language of description, the role of explosions and unpredictable processes in the dynamics of culture, the function of historical memory in culture, etc. Many of these ideas turn out to be consonant with Berg­son’s intuitive metaphysics with its concept of duration as the basis of creative evolution. At the same time, the name of Bergson is not mentioned in the works of Lotman. We can only speak of the intermediary channels through which Berg­son’s ideas reached Lotman. He was greatly influenced by V.I. Vernadsky’s doc­trine of the biosphere and I. Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures. Each of these scientists was influenced by Bergson. For Vernadsky, the idea of irre­versibility of time and duration as a creative process of life was important. Prigozhin, developing Bergson’s ideas about the unpredictability, made the pro­cesses of irreversibility and instability an object of study. But his research was mostly on the chemical and biological level. Lotman extended the study of ran­dom processes to the level of cultural history. A comparison of Lotman’s theoret­ical approaches to understanding the nature and function of art with Bergson’s intuitive philosophy reveals an undeniable similarity, which allows the late Lot­man’s scientific ideas to be considered within the philosophical paradigm origi­nating from Bergson.

China's experience in developing green finance to reduce carbon emissions: from spatial econometric model evidence.

The objective of this study is to attempt to assess the effect of green finance in reducing carbon emissions in China, analyze the transformative role of policy impact in the development of green finance markets, and investigate the impact mechanisms of how green finance affects carbon dioxide emissions. Our time frame from 2007 to 2018 is selected for the empirical study by integrating the availability of data due to the scarcity of relevant statistics in the early days of green finance. Location of this study is in China where 30 provinces are included, excluding Tibet due to severe data shortage. As for methodology, we construct a green finance evaluation index system containing five indicators by entropy weight method, choose dynamic spatial Durbin model (DSDM) for empirical research, and perform mechanism analysis of restructuring industry and greening technology as intermediary channel. Our findings demonstrate that green finance in China does significantly reduce carbon emissions, and its spatial spillover effect and long-term effect are also verified. Furthermore, green finance tends to reduce CO2 emissions through restructuring industry and greening technology. Correspondingly, policy implications are recommended. First, improving green financial market and strengthening information disclosure of green financial market are crucial to facilitate green finance development. Local governments formulate carbon emission reduction strategies focusing on space by joint conference or coordination mechanism like river head system. Lastly, a mechanism should be developed to strengthen the transformation of industrial structure and to promote greening technology.

New energy demonstration city pilot and green energy consumption: Evidences from China

This paper measures the green energy consumption levels of 30 provinces and 221 cities in China from 2009 to 2019 by using the entropy method and comprehensive evaluation model. The natural breakpoint method is applied to divide the data into three intervals corresponding to the low-level interval, medium level interval, and high-level interval and explore the spatial distribution pattern of green energy consumption levels. Secondly, a difference-in-difference model is built to assess the effect of the establishment of new energy demonstration cities on green energy consumption levels. The establishment of new energy demonstration cities significantly contributed to improving the level of green energy consumption, The construction of new energy demonstration cities can have a positive impact on the level of green energy consumption through three intermediary channels: technological innovation, industrial structure, and special financial support.

Application of Blockchain Technology in Production Scheduling and Management of Human Resources Competencies.

Today, enterprises are multitasking, with branches set up all over the world. Virtual enterprises are created to make better use of existing resources, improve the quality of manufactured products and agilely respond to customer requirements. In order to fully meet the requirements of enterprises, a decentralized structure of data registration and transmission and authentication of network users is needed. The information collected via the Internet of Things and flowing based on the properties of the Blockchain (BC) network facilitates enterprise resource planning and enables the integration of internal processes, especially when planning, changing the current or introducing new production. The aim of this paper is to present the concept of using a common data register in BC technology, which enables a number of applications related to the automation of the process of selecting human resources for production tasks. The paper presents an analysis of the problem related to the integration of production scheduling and human resource management with blockchain technology. Also presented is a literature analysis on scheduling, blockchain technology and data storage in the blockchain network. The analysis presents how the blockchain network works and how exactly it fits into production engineering with its advantages and disadvantages. An employee evaluation method based on the resource work history and determination of its current value within individual competencies is presented. The integration of production scheduling and human resource management with the use of BC technology is simulated. The most important advantage is faster and more effective planning thanks to the elimination of all intermediary channels in the flow of production transactions. Production tasks are balanced with production capacity in entities belonging to the virtual enterprise in parallel. For future research, different online planning algorithms will be developed and compared to achieve consortium members’ consensus on production and human resources planning.