Region-wide comprehensive land improvement has expanded greatly in recent years and has become a critical tool for promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. However, as a brand-new and substantial systematic land institution provision, it presents a big room for exploration both in theory and in practice. From the perspective of public value creation, this article argued that the achievements of the government-promoted rural revitalization have the attributes of public goods, and the rural revitalization is a process of creating and realizing public values. As an important means of rural revitalization, region-wide comprehensive land improvement is essential for promoting the creation and realization of public values in rural revitalization through land institution innovation. Therefore, this article first summarized the practical experiences of land regulation in China and internationally, and analyzed the public value orientation of region-wide comprehensive land improvement. On this basis, this article further discussed the creation of public value and the realization of region-wide comprehensive land improvement. Of all the related issues, the creation of public value calls for conceptual innovation, methodological innovation, and science-technological innovation; and the realization of public value needs to realize property rights innovation, organizational innovation, and regulatory innovation.
As a strategic emerging industry, new energy vehicle industry is crucial for dealing with the environmental and energy dilemmas, but industry shakeouts may hinder the healthy development of the industry. In this study, we examined the causes and formation mechanisms of industry shakeouts from the upstream and downstream perspectives of the industry chain, and constructed a whole industry chain model of lithium-ion battery-new energy vehicle based on the system dynamics modeling method. The results show that: (1) New energy vehicles will experience three industry shakeouts, the longest and most violent shakeouts will occur in the middle stage of industry development, and the shakeouts will gradually weaken when the industry matures; (2) Subsidies, technology innovation, capital investment scale, and market access scale are important causes of industry shakeouts in new energy vehicle industry; (3) The adjustment of policy factors in different developmental periods can generate different effects of industry shakeouts mitigation. Therefore, this article argued that the industry shakeouts can be mitigated by adjusting subsidies, technology innovation, capital investment scale, and market access scale.
Scientifically understanding the evolution process and pattern of change of the economic resilience in energy-rich areas is urgently needed in order to promote economic transformation and sustainable development of these areas. From the perspective of evolutionary resilience, this study constructed a framework of analysis of industrial structure succession and economic resilience response of energy-rich areas, and used the measurement and decomposition model of regional economic resilience to examine the evolution process and mechanism of economic resilience in the energy-rich Yulin City from 1990 to 2019 from three aspects: dynamic changes of leading industries, succession of tertiary industrial structure, and transformation of regional economic resilience. The results show that: (1) The evolution of economic resilience in Yulin City has experienced three stages: restructure-development, development-maintenance, and maintenance-release. The regional economic resilience showed an inverted U-shape of weak in the early and late stages and strong in the middle stage. (2) From 1990 to 1999, the competitiveness and structural quality of the primary and tertiary industries were the main reasons affecting the economic resilience of Yulin City, and the economic development had a strong path breaking-through ability. From 2000 to 2019, the drastic fluctuation of economic resilience in Yulin City was mainly caused by the rapid strengthening and decline of the competitiveness of the secondary industry, and the path dependence of economic development was significantly enhanced. (3) The fluctuation of the competitiveness of the energy mining industry was the main driving force for the resilience evolution of the energy and chemical industries in Yulin City. The energy processing industry and chemical industry played an increasingly important role in the resilience evolution of the energy and chemical industries. The research results can help governments to enhance the resilience of regional economies and provide a scientific basis for exploring the path of economic transformation and sustainable development in energy-rich areas.
Changes in the structure of the trade network for products in the strategic mineral resources chain may have an impact on the price fluctuations of products in each link. Taking cobalt as an example, this paper selects the trade data of cobalt ore in the upstream, lithium cobaltate in the midstream and lithium battery in the downstream from 2007 to 2020, constructs a trade dependence network of the cobalt industry chain and analyzes the structural characteristics of the corresponding network. Combining the LASSO-PVAR model and impulse response function, the dynamic effects of changes in trade dependence network structure on the price fluctuations of upstream, midstream and downstream products in the industry chain are analyzed. The results indicate that: (1) The trade dependence network structure of the cobalt industry chain shows that the upstream cobalt ore trade is dominated by resource endowment countries, the midstream lithium cobaltate trade forms a network group among a few developed countries, and the downstream lithium battery trade is characterized by countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, the United States and China as major partner countries. (2) Upstream cobalt ore prices are mainly influenced by the intensity of upstream and downstream trade dependence, midstream lithium cobaltate prices are mainly influenced by the dominance of midstream and downstream intermediary control, and downstream lithium batteries are influenced by the number of upstream and midstream trade partners and the degree of downstream trade conglomeration. (3) The downstream lithium battery price of the industry chain is greatly affected by the change of trade network structure, with the maximum fluctuation of more than 20%; the upstream cobalt ore price is the second most affected, all within 10%; the midstream lithium cobaltate price is the least affected, all not exceeding 5%. The impact of trade dependence network structure changes on prices gradually fades after the third year. This study provides a new research perspective for exploring the influencing factors of resource prices, and provides relevant suggestions for monitoring the price of strategic mineral resources.
In the process of achieving peak carbon emissions by 2030 and the carbon neutrality targets by 2060 in China, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is taking the lead in realizing low-carbon development, which is of great practical significance for supporting and leading the high-quality development of China. In the context of the further promotion of urban agglomeration development strategy, will the gradual expansion of the integrated region of the Yangtze River Delta, which has reduced administrative barriers and optimized the allocation of factors, have any impact on the urban carbon emission intensity? Based on the prefecture level panel data of the Yangtze River Delta, this study regarded the expansion of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Economic Coordination Committee as a quasi-natural experiment and used the difference-in-differences model to estimate the impacts of regional integration area enlargement on urban carbon emission intensity from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, we identified the mechanisms by using the mediation effect model and moderation effect model. The results show that regional integration area enlargement significantly reduced urban carbon emission intensity, and after considering a series of robustness tests such as parallel trends, endogeneity, external shocks, and differentiated carbon emission measurement method the results were still significant. Further research revealed that there were multiple heterogeneous impacts of regional integration area enlargement on urban carbon emission intensity. For example, the longer the integration into the urban agglomeration, the more significant the reduction of carbon emission intensity; Regionally, there were significant negative impacts of cities in Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces, and a non-significant positive impact of cities in Zhejiang Province; Compared to low hierarchical level cities, regional integration area enlargement had a greater impact on the carbon emission intensity reduction of cities of high hierarchical level. Mechanism verification showed that regional integration area enlargement reduced urban carbon emission intensity through the strengthening of market integration, the upgrading of the industrial structure, the promotion of green innovation technology, and the deepening of urban collaborative governance. In addition, the promotion of marketization degree and industrial structure upgrading could amplify the positive impact of the regional integration area enlargement on the reduction of urban carbon emission intensity. This study verified the feasibility of promoting green development of urban agglomeration through regional integration, and from the perspective of better achieving the goal of high-quality integration in the Yangtze River Delta, the formulation and implementation of relevant policies aimed at promoting coordinated development should adapt to local conditions.
Under the background of coordinated development of urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Delta, inter-city industrial transfer is frequent. Due to the connection of the economy and carbon emissions, the impact on urban carbon emission intensity has become an important strategic issue to be considered for regional low-carbon development. In this study, the dynamic shift-share model was employed to measure the amount of industrial transfer in and out of the cities. Based on the spatial global autocorrelation, the spatial Durbin model of inverse distance spatial weight matrix, and economic geographical weight matrix, this study examined the industrial transfer dynamics and the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of carbon emission intensity of 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2005 to 2017, and analyzed the influencing factors of urban carbon emission intensity from the spatial spillover perspective. The results show that: (1) Carbon emission intensity shows significant spatial autocorrelation and spatial spillover effects. (2) Most of the frequently transferred industries in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration are non-energy-intensive industries. Industrial transfer does not produce significant carbon emission reduction effect. It is worth noting that the economic impact of industrial transfer is beginning to emerge, but industrial transfer is not conducive to carbon emission reduction. (3) The relationship between per capita GDP and carbon intensity is inverted U shaped. Technological development level and carbon intensity shows a U-shaped relationship, which indicates the “rebound effect” of the technological progress. Population growth lowers the carbon emission intensity. Proportion of the secondary industry has positive effects on carbon emission intensity. When making carbon emission reduction plans, the production efficiency, energy intensity, and human capital in different regions need to be taken into account. Local governments should monitor the carbon emission intensity when industries are transferred in and out, avoid blind transfer of industries, strengthen competitive industries, improve industrial structure, cultivate new growth points, and develop low energy consumption industry in accordance with cities’ resource endowment.
Carbon neutrality in construction industry is one of the most important parts in the process of realizing national carbon neutrality. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the high-carbon dependency pattern of regional construction industry in the process of economic development. This study quantified carbon lock-in effect in provincial construction industry from the four dimensions of technology, environment, economy, and society. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China’s mainland from 2000 to 2018, this study examined the carbon lock-in effect in provincial construction industry by using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method. Furthermore, this study uncovered the spatial-temporal evolutionary process and dependence pathways of carbon lock-in in provincial construction industry by adopting the panel data set theory. The results show that: (1) The six high-carbon paths that drive carbon lock-in effect in provincial construction industry can be categorized into four typical types: Institutional lock-in, industrial lock-in, technology lock-in, and social lock-in. Improvement of industrialization level, growth of residents’ consumption, rapid expansion of urbanization, and lack of environmental regulation are the main driving factors leading to the high carbon lock-in of the construction industry. (2) The four low-carbon paths of the construction industry can be categorized into three types: low urbanization and low innovation, high technology investment and low innovation, and high technology investment and high innovation. (3) There exists great temporal and spatial heterogeneity in the carbon lock-in effect of provincial construction industry. The carbon lock-in effect has been strengthened while the low carbon model has been weakened over time. Moreover, there are great differences in the high-carbon dependence pathways between different provinces. The results of this research are helpful for formulating the carbon peaking time map, road map, and implementation map in the construction sectors at the local level, and are of great significance for realizing the regional independent exploration of low-carbon development path and the realization of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
It is of great significance to guide smallholders to participate in the implementation of the “carbon emission peaking and carbon neutrality” action goals, and to pay attention to their responsibilities in agricultural sector responses to climate change. Considering the reality of smallholder dominance in agricultural production in China, we took a bottom-up evaluation perspective to evaluate the performance level of agricultural low-carbon production. Through comprehensive control of the uncertainty of agricultural carbon accounting technology, the stochastic frontier model in the form of multi-output Translog distance function was mainly used to estimate the technical efficiency of smallholders’ low-carbon production process, and the influencing factors were further analyzed to explore the measures to improve the technical efficiency of smallholders. The results show that under the scenario of considering carbon emission constraints and expected output from carbon sinks, the average technical efficiency of smallholders for producing wheat and maize are 0.88 and 0.90, respectively, and there is a potential increase of 15%. Land scale, land fragmentation, aging of agricultural laborers, and non-farming employment have a non-linear impact on the technical efficiency of low-carbon production of smallholders, and there are differences in the improvement path of technical efficiency for different types of food crops. Guiding farmers to achieve moderate scale operations through land transfer, transferring surplus family labor, reducing the cost of agricultural social services, and increasing the adoption rate of low-carbon technologies are important measures to promote the development of low-carbon agriculture.
The key to balancing carbon emissions and economic growth in China lies in industry. This study introduced the time-varying parametric C-D production function modified logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition method and the Tapio decoupling model to empirically analyze the drivers of carbon emissions and their decoupling effects in the Chinese industry and its subsectors in 2004-2019. The results show that: (1) In addition to the continuous reduction of energy intensity to promote carbon emission reduction, the direction and intensity of carbon emission impact of energy consumption carbon intensity, industrial structure, technological progress, capital stock, and labor input were unstable in each year. During the sample period, the cumulative carbon emission reduction effect of decreasing energy intensity is the strongest, the carbon intensity effect of energy consumption is the second strongest, the carbon emission increase effect of capital stock expansion is the strongest, and the carbon emission increase effect of labor input is the second strongest. The phased cumulative impact of capital stock on industrial carbon emissions showed a clear U-shaped trend of increase first, followed by a decrease and then an increase, while the impact of labor input changes in the opposite direction. (2) Thanks to the increased role of energy intensity, energy consumption carbon intensity, and labor input carbon reduction, carbon emissions and industrial growth are changing from weak decoupling to strong decoupling; mining industries and electricity, heat, gas, and water industries are improving from connected or negative decoupling to strong decoupling, and manufacturing industries are improving from weak decoupling to strong decoupling. Therefore, strengthening institutional design and policy regulation, guiding industrial investment to restructure, improving energy efficiency, optimizing energy consumption structure, and amplifying the carbon reduction effect of technological progress are conducive to reducing carbon emissions while promoting industrial growth and achieving synergy between China’s economic growth and carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
From the perspective of subdivided industrial sectors and regions, this study explored the spatiotemporal evolution of China’s industrial carbon emission performance and the mechanism of influence of technological innovation on industrial carbon emission performance by using the super-SBM (slacks-based measure) model and double fixed effect model, and draws the following conclusions: (1) China’s industrial carbon emission performance showed a fluctuating upward trend, with a large space for improvement. There were certain differences in the changes of industries and regions, with an average annual growth rate of 11.38% and 9.66% respectively. The carbon emission performance of ferrous metal smelting and calendering industry and paper and paper products industry is low, while the computer, communication, and other electronic equipment industry is high. (2) China’s industrial carbon emission performance shows obvious spatial differentiation and spatial association features, roughly decreasing from the eastern coastal areas to the central and western regions. Moran’s I increased from 0.338 in 1999 to 0.509 in 2019, and the type of spatial agglomeration gradually changes to high-high type. China’s industrial carbon emission performance can be divided into 14 types, of which the “low-low-low-low” type is most common. (3) There are significant positive correlations between the intramural expenditure on R&D, full-time equivalent of R&D personnel, and the number of patent applications and industrial carbon emission performance. Technological innovation mainly promotes the optimization of industrial structure, the improvement of energy utilization efficiency, and the steady improvement of carbon emission performance through energy substitution, process optimization, and product innovation. Finally, this study put forward some countermeasures and recommendations from the aspects of innovation input, policy system, and regional coordination, so as to provide a reference for improving the level of technological innovation and promoting green and low-carbon development in China’s regions and industrial subsectors.
The way that the new-type urbanization affects carbon emission intensity is related to the realization of the “dual carbon” goals and path selection, and more importantly, to the sustainable development of lake areas, which is sensitive in ecological security. Taking the county units around the Poyang Lake as the research object, a spatial weight matrix of ecological security distance was constructed, and the spatial panel Durbin model (SPDM) was used to empirically analyze the spatial spillover effect and attenuation characteristics of new-type urbanization on carbon emission intensity in the study area from 2000 to 2019. The results show that: (1) New-type urbanization has a significant positive impact on reducing carbon emission intensity, indicating that promoting new-type urbanization and reducing carbon emission intensity can be achieved simultaneously. (2) New-type urbanization has a significant spatial spillover effect on carbon emission intensity. The ecological safety distance is the main factor affecting the spatial spillover effect, but to a lesser extent than the economic distance. (3) Under the constraint of ecological security, the spatial spillover effect of new-type urbanization on carbon emission intensity in the lakefront region presents a “three stages” attenuation characteristic from near to far. Therefore, we recommend to formulate new-type urbanization policies in accordance with local conditions and reasonable positioning to accurately promote the new-type urbanization in county areas; optimize the regional spatial layout and improve the coordinated development mechanism of urban agglomerations; and integrate ecological revitalization with the new-type urbanization and give full play to the ecological advantages of each region.
Effectively stimulating the level of resettler’ aspiration is the foundation of internal motivation for self-development. Based on the data from the resettlement survey in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area in 2019, this study examined the level of aspiration inspired by supportive policies and explored the heterogeneity of aspiration under different resettlement scenarios with ordinary least squares (OLS), Shapley, and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methods. The results show that both cash compensation policy and environmental improvement policy can significantly improve the level of resettlers’ aspirations, but the contribution rate of environmental improvement policy is greater than cash compensation policy. The supporting effect of cash compensation policy and environmental improvement policy is different due to the different resettlement mode and resettlement duration. Cash compensation policy plays a greater role in improving the aspiration level of nearby resettled population, while environmental improvement policy plays a greater role in improving the aspiration level of interprovincial resettlers. With the passing of time of resettlement, the supporting effect of cash compensation policy weakens, while the supporting effect of environmental improvement policy increases. When supporting policy is not taken into account, the difference of aspiration level between resettlers and non-resettlers is mainly due to the discrimination against resettler identity. The development aspiration level of resettlers is still lower than non-resettlers under the intervention of supportive policies, but the difference in aspiration level is mainly due to the reasonable difference in resource endowments of the two groups. The policy implications of our research results include taking supportive policy as an important tool to improve the level of resettlers’ development aspirations, using different types of supportive policies according to resettlers’ characteristics and adjusting them dynamically when necessary, and narrowing the aspirations gaps between resettlers and non-resettlers in the process of policy support provision.
Clarifying the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and causes of municipal solid waste classification policy diffusion can accelerate the policy implementation and improve urban environmental governance. This study took the municipal solid waste classification policy diffusion in 261 prefecture-level cities as the research object, and constructed a model that includes four dimensions: problem demand, policy entrepreneur, legitimacy, and capability. The study found that: (1) The diffusion of municipal solid waste classification policy presents a S-shaped curve in the temporal dimension, and shows regional demonstration and proximity effects in space. (2) The diffusion of municipal solid waste classification policy is affected by multiple factors. Peer competition pressure, financial capacity, coercive pressure from superiors, and the salience of the problem are the main driving forces for the policy diffusion, while government attention of mere formality may hinder the policy diffusion. (3) The influencing factors vary in time and space. Specifically, financial capacity and superior pressure, peer competition pressure and financial capacity, and peer competition pressure are the main driving factors in the time periods from 2003 to 2011, 2012 to 2016, and 2017 to 2020 respectively. The mix of factors influencing regional policy adoption also varies between the eastern, central, and western parts of China. The lessons are as follows: (1) Local government policy adoption should take the initiative to “tailor-made” according to the actual governance of the jurisdiction. (2) It is urgent to give full play to the key role of government entities in policy agenda setting and policy implementation. (3) Finally, it is necessary to objectively assess the strong driving effect of superior coercive pressure on policy diffusion. An incentive provision and assessment mechanism should complement superior pressure to create an innovative atmosphere of “competing for the first place”.
Against the backdrop of open innovation system, analyzing the structures of China’s intercity knowledge innovation networks and exploring the underlying proximity mechanism are of great significance for improving the efficiency of urban innovation and promoting the construction of the national innovation system. Drawing on the collaborative publications and patents data of 285 cities at the prefecture level and above in China, this study examined the intercity knowledge innovation networks for 2011 and 2019 through summing up publication and patent collaboration networks by weights, and analyzed the structural characteristics and spatiotemporal evolution of the networks. Furthermore, the multiple regression quadradic assignment procedure (MRQAP) model was employed to explore the evolutionary mechanism of the networks from the perspective of proximity. The results show that: (1) The density of China’s intercity knowledge innovation networks increased from 2011 to 2019. The networks presented declined preferential attachment but increased polycentric development. The intercity collaborative patterns transformed from being dominated by Beijing and Shanghai to being led by Beijing and Shanghai and supported by regional centers, forming multiple regional sub-networks. (2) In addition to being positively influenced by urban economic level, technology and education expenditures, and administrative level, intercity knowledge collaboration was also significantly promoted by geographical, organizational, cultural, social, and institutional proximities. The proximity mechanism could well explain the evolution of China’s intercity knowledge innovation networks. (3) The impacts of different proximities on the intercity knowledge innovation networks were dynamic and interactive. Excessive geographical, social, and cognitive proximities could hinder the collaboration between cities. Cognitive proximity could compensate geographical distance while social contacts were frequently located in geographical vicinity. On these bases, policy recommendations were proposed for the construction and coordination of innovative cities.
Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) that introduces deliberation into a survey process has been proved to have high potential in improving the validity of the valuation of environmental goods. However, inequality in participation of deliberation makes the valuation of DMV controversial. In this research, we applied DMV in a case study of valuing ecological damage of the reclamation in the Jiaozhou Bay. Our results show that there were obvious differences in respondents’ participation in deliberation. The binary variable representing whether they are opinion leaders was the most important factor leading to the differences in participation of deliberation. Income level and age also had a certain degree of contribution to the deliberation participation inequality. Comparing the respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) before and after deliberation, we found that deliberation intervention made respondents’ willingness to pay decline significantly. After deliberation, variables such as income level, educational level, and respondents’ subjective well-being of the marine ecological environment began to have a significant impact on willingness to pay. With regard to the influence of deliberation on the validity of WTP estimation, the result shows that deliberation intervention would enable interviewees to obtain additional information on the one hand, and on the other hand, the group action mechanism of deliberation made individual preferences converge to the inertial center of the group’s collective preferences. The above two factors jointly drive the interviewees to change their initial preferences after deliberation, which means that the deliberation provided sufficient information support for respondents to form their real preferences. However, due to the existence of unequal participation, the final valuation results reflect more the will of individual participants, which affects the valuation validity of the DMV. The conclusion has guiding significance for standardizing the valuation process of the DMV to improve the valuation validity and provides a reference for the application of DMV in China.
As a regional complex system with integrity, authenticity, and landscape aesthetics, the effective realization of the value of landscape resources is an important carrier to implement the public sharing and public welfare functions of national parks. It is necessary to establish a comprehensive research method of landscape multi-dimensional value evaluation and its utilization effects. In this study, through the analysis of relevant literature and further combined with the results of research of landscape utilization of national parks, we conducted a comprehensive review on the landscape research of national parks in the past three decades from the aspects of evaluation methods, development and utilization, management and protection, among others. We found that the international research on landscape evaluation of national parks mainly focuses on the method and framework of landscape evaluation, and the evaluation dimension is becoming increasingly more refined. The protection and utilization of national park landscape should fully consider the relationship between recreational activities, land use change, community development, and landscape protection, and promote sustainable development through the joint implementation of economic and social values of landscape use. For the utilization of landscape resources in national parks in China, a landscape comprehensive evaluation and utilization framework of “identification-evaluation-management” is constructed, in order to provide some reference and implications for the national park landscape evaluation, protection, and utilization in the country.
