2025 Vol. 40, No. 1

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Digital Economy Theory and Application
Digital Government Development and Consumption in Middle-aged and Elderly Households
YI Xingjian, LI Qingyuan, YANG Biyun
2025, 40(1): 4-17.
[Abstract](32) [FullText HTML] (12) [PDF 1210KB](18)
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With the serious population aging, the consumption of the middle-aged and elderly households has become increasingly important. Can the digital government, as a key initiative to modernize China's system and capacity for governance promote consumption in middle-aged and elderly households? This study empirically examines this question based on the Digital Government Index and data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). The findings indicate that the building of a digital government significantly enhances the consumption of middle-aged and elderly households, mainly through three mechanisms: increasing household income, alleviating precautionary savings pressure, and easing liquidity constraints. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the building of a digital government has a more pronounced effect on improving consumption levels among the rural low-income and middle-income households, and the families with middle-aged male householders. This study provides empirical evidence on the importance of building a digital government in promoting consumption and enhancing social welfare.
Data Element Marketization and Corporate ESG Performance
XUAN Ye, LI Yang
2025, 40(1): 18-31.
[Abstract](42) [FullText HTML] (13) [PDF 1435KB](12)
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The influencing factors of corporate ESG performance have become a hot issue in academia. Seeing the establishment of urban data trading platforms as the exogenous policy impact, this study empirically tests the impact and mechanism of data element marketization on corporate ESG performance by differences-in-differences. The research shows that the data element marketization promotes ESG performance by promoting the digital transformation of enterprises; based on the regulatory burden, heavy-polluting enterprises tend to use the accurate decision-making of big data to improve ESG performance, and enterprises with high online media attention have higher transaction efficiency of data elements, owning the information advantage of ESG performance improvement. In addition, in regions with strong financial support from local governments and high-degree marketization, enterprises have the advantages of resource support and system guarantee, and the data element marketization has a stronger role in improving corporate ESG performance. The data element marketization has spatial heterogeneity in its spillover effects on the sustainable development of surrounding regional enterprises, exhibiting a pattern of initially decreasing, then increasing, and finally decreasing again with geographic distance. The research findings offer insights into promoting high-quality development of enterprises in the digital economy era, providing a reference for the sustainable development driven by data elements.
Economic Theory and Exploration
The Impact of Information Consumption on China's High-Quality Exports
ZHAO Hongyan, YIN Tianbao, ZHANG Shengbo
2025, 40(1): 32-48.
[Abstract](50) [FullText HTML] (25) [PDF 1335KB](3)
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Unleashing consumption potential is a crucial step of facilitating domestic circulation and promoting the new development paradigm with "dual circulation". It has significant strategic implication for promoting the technological complexity of export, driving high-quality exports from China, and pursuing high-level opening up. Based on panel data from 269 prefecture-level cities from 2009 to 2022, this study analyzes the impact of information consumption on China's high-quality exports, utilizing pilot reform on the national information consumption to build a difference-in-differences model. The research shows that the consumption can significantly promote the technological complexity of export, thereby advancing China's high-quality exports. This conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the promoting effect of information consumption is more pronounced in cities with large-scale, non-resource-based, and highly developed information infrastructure, low-income disparity, and low pollution. Mechanism analysis reveals that the effects of technological innovation, foreign capital inflow, consumption multiplier, and market competition are the important channels through which information consumption promotes the technological complexity of export to push forward China's high-quality exports. The effect of information consumption in promoting the technological complexity of exports is positively up-regulated by human capital, financial development, and intellectual property protection. Extension analysis finds that information consumption has a diffusion effect on high-quality exports, significantly increasing the technological complexity of export in neighboring cities.
Buyer Power in Market Power Assessment: Theoretical Logic and Practical Approaches
HOU Liyang, LI Jin
2025, 40(1): 49-60.
[Abstract](28) [FullText HTML] (27) [PDF 1040KB](1)
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The counteraction or cooperation between buyers and sellers who have market power will lead to unpredicted interaction of upstream and downstream market power. It requires that buyer power should be considered in antitrust cases and integrated into the market power assessment. In such cases, buyer power specifically refers to the structural monopsony power from the buyer, excluding situational bargaining power. In conjunction with different strategic behaviors, buyer power may strengthen or counteract the upstream seller's market power, and may also directly strengthen or indirectly counterbalance the downstream buyer's market power. Incorporating buyer power into the market power assessment framework requires addressing institutional barriers in both regulations and enforcement. In order to properly take into account buyer power in market power assessment, it is necessary to add buyer power to antitrust regulations and conduct market study on buyer power issues in addition to building a feasible analytical framework.
Management and Corporate Performance
Enterprises' Overseas Investment Risk-taking and the Development of New Quality Productive Forces
PENG Cheng, CHEN Yuansheng
2025, 40(1): 61-76.
[Abstract](34) [FullText HTML] (21) [PDF 1126KB](5)
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Under the trend of Chinese enterprises going global on a large scale, promotion of the smooth flow of global high-quality factors of production to the development of new quality productive forces in the context of risk prevention and control has become an important issue of great concern at present. Based on the sample data of Chinese listed companies from 2015 to 2022, the study explores the mechanism of overseas investment risk-taking on corporate new quality productive forces. This study finds that there is an inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship between overseas investment risk-taking and corporate new quality productive forces, and as the level of overseas investment risk-taking rises, corporate new quality productive forces show a significant characteristic of rising first and then falling later. Based on the samples of this study, it is found that within the risk range of 0 to 0.399, overseas investment risk-taking can significantly enhance corporate new quality productive forces, and if it exceeds 0.399, it negatively impacts these forces. Mechanism analysis reveals that innovation efficiency improvement, investment return compensation, and internal control strengthening are the important mechanisms through which overseas investment risk-taking affects corporate new quality productive forces. Further research finds that contextual factors such as mimetic isomorphism, policy orientation, and the nature of property rights significantly moderated the non-linear relationship between overseas investment risk-taking and corporate new quality productive forces. This study can also provide empirical evidence for the optimizing enterprise foreign investment decisions and formulating government policies to promote high-quality development of firms.
Government Environmental Attention and Corporate ESG Performance
CHEN Xiaoshan, CHEN Simin
2025, 40(1): 77-92.
[Abstract](36) [FullText HTML] (34) [PDF 1130KB](3)
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Local governments play a pivotal role in fostering a harmonious coexistence between ecological conservation and high-quality economic growth. Their focus on the environment profoundly influences the ESG strategic choices of businesses within their jurisdiction. Based on the organizational attention theory and the matching data of Chinese provincial Government Work Reports from 2010 to 2022, and Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies, this paper empirically examines the impact of local government environmental attention on corporate ESG performance and its mechanism. The results show that the environmental attention of local governments contributes to the improvement of corporate ESG performance, with an average increase of 0.512% for every one standard deviation increase in government environmental attention. And it mainly plays a role through channels such as increasing investment in regional environmental pollution control and enhancing the green awareness of corporate executives. Further analysis shows that this positive effect is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, non-heavy pollution enterprises, and mature enterprises. Economic consequence analysis shows that the local government environmental attention can improve the quality of corporate information disclosure, alleviating financing constraints and promoting the high-quality development of enterprises by improving corporate ESG performance. The research conclusion offers a theoretical foundation and strategic guidance for local governments to enhance the efficiency of environmental attention allocation, steer enterprises towards robust ESG system development, and ensure the realization of "dual carbon" goals.
Green Economy and "Three Rural Issues"
Can a People-Centered New Urbanization Strategy Alleviate Household Energy Poverty
ZHAO Ziwei, HU Yunyun
2025, 40(1): 93-111.
[Abstract](47) [FullText HTML] (17) [PDF 1328KB](3)
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Using the comprehensive pilot policy for new urbanization as a quasi-natural experiment, this study employs a multi-period difference-in-differences approach to examine the impact of new urbanization on household energy poverty and its underlying mechanisms. The findings are as follows: implementing a people-centered new urbanization strategy significantly alleviates household energy poverty, and this conclusion remains robust across a series of tests; increasing resident income, improving energy efficiency, and enhancing social capital are the critical channels through which new urbanization mitigates energy poverty; the suppressive effect of new urbanization on household energy poverty is more pronounced for rural households, those with lower education, households in declining periods, those with lower regional resource dependence and higher energy demands. Extended analysis explores the impact of women's relative status in households on energy purchasing and usage decisions from the perspective of informal institutions. The results reveal that the impact of new urbanization on household energy poverty is more significant in rural households, which are more deeply influenced by Confucian culture. This study provides valuable insights for further promoting relative poverty governance and common prosperity in the context of China's new era.
How Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Can Promote Common Prosperity for Farmers and Rural Areas
GAO Jing, LI Dan, CHEN Feng
2025, 40(1): 112-128.
[Abstract](23) [FullText HTML] (19) [PDF 1078KB](3)
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The robust growth of rural innovation and entrepreneurship has provided ample endogenous momentum for farmers and rural areas to steadily progress towards common prosperity. Utilizing the Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Index published by the Zhejiang University Carter-Qian research team, and grounded in balanced panel data from 1650 counties in China spanning from 2014 to 2022, this study establishes a double machine learning model to discern the causal effect and underlying mechanism between rural innovation and entrepreneurship and farmers' common prosperity in rural areas. This analysis encompasses three dimensions: the absolute value of farmers' income, the urban-rural income gap, and the regional income disparity among farmers. The findings reveal that rural innovation and entrepreneurship significantly boost farmers' income, bridge the urban-rural and regional farmers' income gaps, foster common prosperity for farmers and rural areas and notably curb the "elite capture" phenomenon. This conclusion remains valid even after various robustness tests. Mechanism analysis indicates that rural innovation and entrepreneurship primarily achieve common prosperity among farmers in rural areas by facilitating the growth of the new rural collective economy, refining the urban-rural employment structure, expediting industrial structure upgrading, and attracting labor and capital elements back to rural areas. Heterogeneity analysis highlights that rural innovation and entrepreneurship play a more pronounced role in advancing common prosperity among farmers and rural areas, particularly in central and western regions, e-commerce demonstration counties in rural areas, former national poverty-stricken counties, and regions with substantial government support. This study offers a reference for putting forward rural revitalization in all aspects and fulfilling common prosperity for farmers and rural areas.

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