University of International Business and Economics

"Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness." The Social Science Journal, 45(4), pp. 700–701

Abstract This research investigates how entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with inadequate capabilities and limited resources drove digital transformation in their companies, a phenomenon that remains under‐researched in the extant literature. We conduct qualitative research on digital transformation to cross‐border e‐commerce undergone by 7 SMEs on the Alibaba digital platform. We inductively derive a process model that aims to describe and explain how SME entrepreneurs, with support from the digital platform service provider, drive digital transformation through managerial cognition renewal, managerial social capital development, business team building, and organizational capability building. This model expands our understanding of both digital entrepreneurship and digital transformation. It also presents new insights into how digital platform service providers can help SMEs transform and compete.

Abstract In the context of sustainable development, countries around the world shed more light on green innovation in their environmental policies, and the digital economy may take a vital part in improving green innovation. Predicted on the panel data of 278 cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this research administrates the principal component analysis (PCA) to evaluate the advancement level of the urban digital economy and employs the number of urban green patent applications to represent green innovation level. Through the benchmark regression model, the mediating effect model, the spatial Durbin model, the dynamic threshold panel model, and the gradual difference‐in‐difference model, this paper explores the direct effect, indirect effect, spatial effect, nonlinear relationship, and policy effect of that digital economy has on green innovation. The development of the digital economy can improve green innovation levels in indirect ways, such as by boosting the degree of economic openness, optimizing the industrial structure, and expanding the market potential, and as economic openness, industrial structure, and market potential advance, the promotion intensity of digital economy on green innovation is becoming lower and lower. The development of green innovation has an obvious spatial spillover effect. Still, the enhancement of green innovation in more developed regions may inhibit green innovation in less developed regions due to talent flow and industrial transfer. Finally, the gradual difference‐in‐difference model founded on the ‘Broadband China’ pilot policy supplementarily verifies that digital economy enhancement can substantially advance urban green innovation.

This paper generalizes the gross exports accounting framework, initially proposed by Such a generalization requires a conceptual distinction between value added exports by forward and backward industrial linkages, and a non-trivial way to allocate bilateral intermediate trade flows into their final destinations of absorption. We present the disaggregated decomposition results among 40 trading nations in 35 sectors from 1995 to 2011 based on the World Input-Output Database and show how they help us to better understand the patterns of cross-country production sharing.

Abstract Prior literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) spillovers has mainly focused on how the presence of FDI affects the productivity of domestic firms. In this study, we advance the literature by examining the effect of the diversity of FDI country origins on the productivity of domestic firms. We propose that the diversity of FDI country origins can facilitate FDI spillovers by increasing the variety of technologies and management practices brought by foreign firms, to which domestic firms are exposed and that they can potentially utilize. Further, the extent to which domestic firms can utilize these technologies and practices depends upon their absorptive capacity. Using panel data on Chinese manufacturing firms during the period 1998–2003, our results support these propositions. We find that the diversity of FDI country origins in an industry has a positive relationship with the productivity of domestic firms in the industry. This positive relationship is stronger when domestic firms are larger, and when the technology gap between FDI and the domestic firms is intermediate. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract Significant difference in the emission–renewables nexus across countries with different income levels is frequently ignored in previous studies. To empirically investigate whether the effect of renewable energy consumption on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions differs across countries with different income levels, the emission–growth–renewables nexus for a global panel of 120 countries and four income‐based subpanels over the period 1995–2015 is examined. Fully considering the potential cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity, a series of econometric techniques allowing for cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity is utilised. Cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity are confirmed for the global panel as well as for all four subpanels. Only for the global panel, high‐income subpanel and upper‐middle‐income subpanel is the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis valid. Renewable energy consumption has a negative effect on CO 2 emissions, but its effect is not significant; the mitigation effect may be obscured by higher economic growth and increasing non‐renewable energy consumption. The global panel and four subpanels provide mixed directionality of causality among the variables, suggesting that for various income‐based subpanels, significant differences exist in the effect of renewable energy consumption on CO 2 emissions, especially highlighting in various direct and indirect influencing paths between renewable energy consumption and CO 2 emissions.

This paper makes two methodological contributions. First, it proposes a framework to decompose total production activities at the country, sector, or country-sector level, to different types, depending on whether they are for pure domestic demand, traditional international trade, simple GVC activities, and complex GVC activities. Second, it proposes a pair of GVC participation indices that improves upon the measures in the existing literature. We apply this decomposition framework to a Global Input-Output Database (WIOD) that cover 44 countries and 56 industries from 2000 to2014 to uncover evolving compositions of different production activities. We also show that complex GVC activities co-move with global GDP growth more strongly than other types of production activities.

China initiated a major reform for capital taxation in 2004. Completed in 2009, it introduced permanent tax incentives for firms’ investment in fixed assets. We explore a unique firm-level dataset from years 2005–2012 and utilize a quasi-experimental design to test the impacts of the reform on firms’ investment and productivity. We find that, on average, the reform raised investment and productivity of the treated firms relative to the control firms by 38.4 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. We also show that the positive effects tend to be strengthened for firms with financial constraints. (JEL D24, D25, G31, H25, O25, P31, P35)

The primary purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of export marketing capabilities on export performance. Drawing on the resource-based view, the authors develop a model that links an exporter's product development capability, distribution capability, communication capability, and pricing capability with its positional advantages (low-cost advantage and branding advantage) and its performance in the export market. On the basis of a survey of Chinese export ventures, the authors find general support for their proposed model. The authors discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of their findings.

This study aims to analyze the effects of natural resources, human capital, financial development, industrialization, technological progress, and international trade on the economic growth of the Next Eleven countries between 1990 and 2019. The novelty of this study lies in its approach to explore the indirect economic growth impacts of human capital development via the transmission channel of the natural resource utilization in these counties. The econometric methods involved are robust for accounting the cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity concerns in the data. The results authenticate the resource curse hypothesis since higher natural resources rent are found to inhibit economic growth of the Next Eleven nations. In contrast, human capital development, financial development, industrialization, technological innovation and international trade participation are found to synthesize economic growth. Besides, another interesting finding in this study shows that human capital and natural resources jointly exert positive impacts on economic growth. Hence, it can be said that human capital development assists to mitigate the resource curse impacts in the case of the Next Eleven countries. Therefore, these findings necessitate the pertinence of boosting investments in human capital development, enhancing the strength of the financial sector, expediting industrialization, facilitating technological innovation, and amplifying international trade volumes for achieving higher economic growth in the Next Eleven countries. More importantly, human capital development should be prioritized for transforming the curse of the natural resources into blessing for these nations.

Abstract China has entered the economic transition in the post-financial crisis era, with unprecedented new features that significantly lead to a decline in its carbon emissions. However, regional disparity implies different trajectories in regional decarbonisation. Here, we construct multi-regional input–output tables (MRIO) for 2012 and 2015 and quantitatively evaluate the regional disparity in decarbonisation and the driving forces during 2012–2015. We found China’s consumption-based emissions peaked in 2013, largely driven by a peak in consumption-based emissions from developing regions. Declined intensity and industrial structures are determinants due to the economic transition. The rise of the Southwest and Central regions of China have become a new feature, driving up emissions embodied in trade and have reinforced the pattern of carbon flows in the post-financial crisis period. Export-related emissions have bounced up after years of decline, attributed to soaring export volume and export structure in the Southeast and North of the country. The disparity in developing regions has become the new feature in shaping China’s economy and decarbonisation.

Abstract This study examines the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) attributes on sustainable performance, environmental performance, and environmental reporting, which are motivated by institutionally driven environmental policies, regulations, and management in the context of Chinese listed firms. With the use of a comprehensive dataset of 2,854 Chinese listed firms over the 2010–2017 period (i.e., making over 16,000 individual firm‐year observations), our findings are fourfold. First, our overall findings reveal that CEOs with research background tend to engage more in activities that improve sustainable performance, environmental performance, and environmental reporting than do those without research background. Second, CEOs with financial expertise are positively linked with increased sustainable performance and environmental reporting. Third, CEOs with foreign exposure are more eager to engage in activities that enhance sustainable and environmental performance than do those without foreign exposure. Fourth, young CEOs tend to take actions that reduce both sustainable and environmental performance than do their older counterparts. We interpret our results within upper echelons theoretical perspective. The results are robust to alternative measures, potential endogeneities, and sample selection problems.

Abstract Policymakers face a daunting task when it comes to achieving sustainable environmental development and avoiding additional environmental degradation. This study examines the significance of green technology innovation and green financing in creating a more sustainable environment. The impact of green technology innovation and green investment on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions has yet to be empirically and theoretically examined in the literature, especially in conjunction with a moderating component, particularly social globalisation. Accordingly, this research examines the role of green technological innovation and green financing in reducing CO 2 emissions in the G7 countries. Our study uses empirical research data from a panel of the G7 countries covering the period 1995 to 2019. We employ advanced panel approaches to address panel data analysis concerns, such as cross‐sectional dependence, structural break, and slope heterogeneity (the Banerjee and Carrion‐i‐Silvestre unit root and cointegration test and cross‐sectional augmented ARDL). This study shows that green technology innovation (GINV) as well as green financing (GFIN) have a negative but significant impact on CO 2 emissions. Whilst economic growth has shown a positive and significant impact on CO 2 emissions in the G7 countries, social globalisation positively moderates the relationship between CO 2 emissions and GDP, but negatively and significantly causes GFIN and GINV with CO 2 emissions amongst the G7 countries. According to our study, countries would be able to meet the United Nations' SDG‐7 and SDG‐13 targets if they implemented green financing and green technology policies.

Conducted in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms at the university level in China, this quasi-experimental study compared the effects of three different corrective feedback treatments on 72 Chinese learners’ use of regular and irregular English past tense. Three classes were randomly assigned to a prompt group, a recast group, or a control group and then participated in form-focused production activities that elicited the target forms. In the two feedback groups, teachers consistently provided one type of feedback (i.e., either recasts or prompts) in response to learners’ errors during the activities, whereas in the control group, the teacher provided feedback only on content. Pretests, immediate posttests, and delayed posttests administered 2 weeks after the treatment assessed participants’ acquisition of regular and irregular past tense forms in both oral and written production. Comparisons of group means across testing sessions using a repeated-measures ANOVA consistently revealed large effects for time. Post hoc within-group analyses of the eight immediate- and delayed-posttest measures revealed significant gains by the prompt group on all eight measures, the recast group on four, and the control group on three. The effects of prompts were larger than those of recasts for increasing accuracy in the use of regular past tense forms, whereas prompts and recasts had similar effects on improving accuracy in the use of irregular past tense forms.

This paper considers the maximum likelihood estimation of factor models of high dimension, where the number of variables (N) is comparable with or even greater than the number of observations (T). An inferential theory is developed. We establish not only consistency but also the rate of convergence and the limiting distributions. Five different sets of identification conditions are considered. We show that the distributions of the MLE estimators depend on the identification restrictions. Unlike the principal components approach, the maximum likelihood estimator explicitly allows heteroskedasticities, which are jointly estimated with other parameters. Efficiency of MLE relative to the principal components method is also considered.

This paper evaluates the impact of climate policy uncertainty on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in the United States over the quarterly data from 2000Q1 to 2021Q3. Economic growth and crude oil prices are added to the energy consumption functions as control variables. The paper considers several approaches to model both renewable and non-renewable energy demand. It is found that crude oil prices promote non-renewable energy demand and climate policy uncertainty reduces it. Surprisingly, the impact of economic growth on non-renewable energy consumption is positive but insignificant. It is also observed that economic growth promotes renewable energy demand, and crude oil prices reduce it. Furthermore, climate policy uncertainty positively affects renewable energy demand in the long run. Some policy implications are provided for reducing non-renewable energy consumption and promoting renewable energy use in the United States through climate policy implementation.

We develop a new set of country-sector level indicators of Global Value Chains (GVCs) characteristics in terms of average production length, and relative "upstreamness" on a production network, which we argue are better than the existing ones in the literature. We distinguish production activities into four types: those whose value added is both generated and absorbed within the country, those whose value-added crosses borders only once for consumption, those whose value added crosses borders only once for production, and those whose value added crosses borders more than once. Based on such an accounting framework, we further decompose total production length into different segments. Using these measures, we characterize crosscountry production sharing patterns and their evolution for 56 sectors and 44 countries over 2000-2014. While the production chain has become longer for the world as a whole, there are interesting variations across countries and sectors.

Many countries have undertaken large and high-profile payment-for-ecosystem-services (PES) programs to sustain the use of their natural resources. Nevertheless, few studies have comprehensively examined the impacts of existing PES programs. Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) is one of the few pastorally focused PES programs with large investments and long duration, which aim to improve grassland quality and increase herder income. Here we present empirical evidence of the effects of GECP on grassland quality and herder income. Through a thorough and in-depth econometric analysis of remote sensing and household survey data, we find that, although GECP improves grassland quality (albeit to only a small extent) and has a large positive effect on income, it exacerbates existing income inequality among herders within their local communities. The analysis demonstrates that the program has induced herders to change their livestock production behavior. Heterogeneity analysis emphasizes the importance of making sure the programs are flexible and are adapted to local resource circumstances.

China’s rapid expansion of digital financial inclusion in the last few years has dramatically augmented the accessibility and affordability of financial services, predominantly serving formerly financially excluded people, and positively contributes to higher economic growth. Despite the importance of digital financial inclusion in promoting economic growth, empirical evidence is relatively thin. Moreover, none of the studies has considered human capital in the nexus. Therefore, this study examines the impact of digital financial inclusion and human capital on China’s provincial economic growth. Unlike previous studies, this study uses the new proxy of digital financial inclusion based on breadth of coverage, depth of usage, and digitalization level. The empirical findings show that digital financial inclusion and human capital significantly affect China’s provincial economic growth. Based on this study’s findings, we recommend investment in human capital development and, at the same time, upgrading digital financial inclusion to attain higher economic growth.

Abstract The high pace of economic growth has posed many challenges. These challenges include depletion of natural resources, globalization challenges, and environmental degradation. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economies are rich in mineral resources. Economic globalization has put the MENA countries in the spotlight for the developed world. Despite the status of being a hotspot for mineral resource richness, there is limited research on the effect of natural resources and economic globalization on the environmental degradation of the MENA countries. This paper examines the effects of natural resource abundance and economic globalization on environmental quality by considering trade openness, urbanization, and economic growth from the year 1980 to 2018. We apply second‐generation panel cointegration techniques along with continuously updated fully modified (Cup‐FM) and continuously updated bias‐corrected (Cup‐BC) techniques. The findings show that natural resource abundance significantly improves environmental quality. Likewise, economic globalization also mitigates emissions levels in the MENA countries. In contrast, trade openness, urbanization, and economic growth significantly deteriorate environmental quality. The unidirectional link indicates natural resources and economic globalization create trade openness. The paper provides novel empirical evidence and policy recommendations for sustainable development goals.