Contemporary Finance & Economics

Research on the Impact of National-Level Urban Agglomeration Policies on Pollution Reduction and Carbon Emission Decrease in China

Cui Lian-biao, Wang Jia-xue

2025, 0(8): 3-16.

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The Chinese government is actively promoting the construction of national-level urban agglomerations, but there has been limited attention on their potential role in pollution reduction and carbon emission decrease in the academic circles. Based on the panel data from 19 urban agglomerations in China from 2005 to 2021, this study conducts an empirical study using a difference-in-differences model. The findings show that the national urban agglomeration policy has a pollution reduction and carbon reduction effect, which becomes more pronounced as the policy is implemented for a longer period of time. The driving range of pollution reduction and carbon reduction by central cities is within a radius of 350 to 450 kilometers. The national urban agglomeration policy promotes pollution reduction by increasing the number of environmental practitioners and improving energy utilization efficiency, and promotes carbon reduction by promoting industrial restructuring. However, the mechanisms of pollution reduction and carbon reduction have not demonstrated synergistic effects. The effect of national-level urban agglomeration policies on pollution reduction and carbon reduction is heterogeneous. The urban agglomerations in Chengdu-Chongqing and Central Plains exhibit significant effects on pollution reduction and carbon reduction, while the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration shows a significant effect on pollution increase. The central and western cities, the cities with a permanent resident population of over 3 million, and the cities with strong government governance efforts in pollution reduction and carbon reduction demonstrate more significant effects on pollution reduction. The pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction effects of national-level urban agglomeration policies exhibit spatial spillover characteristics, and these spillover effects are more significant compared to the direct effects. Therefore, it is recommended that local governments should accelerate the formulation of urban agglomeration development plans, establish a long-term mechanism driven by the dual goals of pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction, and implement a regional cooperative emission reduction mechanism, jointly promoting the high-quality environmental and economic development in urban agglomerations.

How Can Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy Reduce Household Energy Poverty?

Jiang Feng, Wei Xia-hai, Li Hu-jian

2025, 0(8): 17-28.

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Energy poverty is an important manifestation of multidimensional poverty, and alleviating energy poverty is of great significance in promoting social equity and realizing common prosperity for all people. It is worth conducting in-depth research on how targeted poverty alleviation policy can have an impact on alleviating household energy poverty. Taking the implementation of the targeted poverty alleviation policies as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper conducts an empirical study that constructs a multidimensional energy poverty index using the micro-level household data. The findings show that the targeted poverty alleviation policies have significantly reduced the incidence of household energy poverty. The mechanism analysis indicates that this policy has effectively alleviated household energy poverty through relief-based and self-sustaining poverty alleviation, proving the effectiveness of various measures such as transfer payments, social security guarantees, and employment-based poverty alleviation after the implementation of the targeted poverty alleviation policies. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the targeted poverty alleviation policy has a more pronounced alleviating effect on energy poverty in households with a higher proportion of women, but the policy effect is relatively limited in households with heavier dependency burdens, unhealthy individuals, and lower educational levels, indicating that the release of poverty alleviation dividends does not benefit all households evenly. The reason is that the insufficient human capital of vulnerable households limits the employment assistance effect of poverty alleviation policies. Therefore, in the post-poverty alleviation era, the government should more precisely adjust the targets of assistance and policy tools, promote the continuous improvement of low-income groups' income-generating abilities, and take multiple measures to alleviate household energy poverty.

The Impact of Economic Growth Target Management on the Scientific Nature of Local Budget Preparation: An Empirical Analysis Based on Provincial Budget Deviation

Feng Hui

2025, 0(8): 29-43.

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The scientific nature of budget preparation is a basic principle and requirement for establishing a modern budget system. Fully leveraging the macro-guiding role of economic growth target management on budget preparation is of great significance for improving the modern budget system. Using the provincial panel data from China for the period 2003-2022, this paper empirically investigates the impact and mechanism of the economic growth target management on the scientific nature of local budget preparation. The results show that the formulation of economic growth targets and their different characteristics have significant differences in their impact on the deviation of the revenue budget. Both the intensification of growth targets and the hard constraints of growth targets have an expansionary effect on the deviation of the revenue budget, while the soft constraints of growth targets have an inhibitory effect. The mechanism analysis reveals that the intensification and hard constraints of growth targets will prompt local governments to expand the scale of land transfers and strengthen tax collection, which may increase the deviation of the revenue budget. In contrast, the soft constraints of growth targets will encourage local governments to adopt a prudent land transfer policy and flexibly adjust tax efforts, which may reduce the deviation of the revenue budget. Further analysis shows that the completion degree of growth targets has an expansionary effect on the deviation of expenditure budgets, while the intensification and soft constraints of growth targets have an inhibitory effect. Therefore, it is recommended to continue to play the stabilizing role of the economic growth targets, and scientifically and rationally set economic growth targets; improve the efficiency of land resource allocation and standardize the enforcement of corporate income; advance the reform of zero-based budgeting for project expenditures, and unify the standards for budget disclosure.

Research on a New Round of Tax Reform to Promote Chinese-Style Modernization

Liao Yun-qi, Xi Wei-qun

2025, 0(8): 44-56.

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Currently, China's economic and social development has entered a new stage, and advancing Chinese-style modernization has raised new and higher demands for improving the tax system and optimizing its structure. The fiscal and tax reform is the core of the reform of the socialist market economy system. Since the reform of the tax distribution system in 1994, significant achievements have been made in tax system construction, forming a unified, complete, and efficient tax system. However, compared with the goal of achieving Chinese-style modernization, there is still a significant gap in the current tax system. This gap is particularly evident in the following aspects: the tax structure lags behind the economic development, the tax system construction has not fully adapted to the needs of the unified national market, the integration of the current tax system with the digital economy is not high, and the construction of the local tax system lags behind. With the commencement of the new journey of Chinese-style modernization, the new round of tax system reform aims to build a modern tax system with Chinese characteristics, accelerate the process of tax legislation, optimize the tax system structure, improve the local tax system, strengthen the tax system to promote high-quality economic development and green and low-carbon development, enhance the function of tax revenue distribution, achieve the unity of modern tax system construction and modern tax functions, and promote the high-quality development of the socialist market economy.

Global Green Finance Governance: Logical Framework and Optimized Path

Wu Wei-xing, Jiang Xu-hang

2025, 0(8): 57-68.

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A mature and well-functioning green finance governance system has become an essential mechanism for guiding the global economy toward a green and low-carbon transition while addressing escalating environmental crises. According to the collective action theory, the nature of the green finance governance constitutes a form of global public goods, thus requiring robust international cooperation. Over the past three decades, global green finance governance has undergone significant development and refinement, resulting in a relatively mature institutional framework. However, the emerging global green finance governance framework remains insufficient in resolving distributional imbalances and continues to face challenges stemming from regional disparities and negative externalities in implementation. Overall, the global green finance governance faces challenges such as inconsistent governance standards, inadequate information disclosure mechanisms, insufficient regulatory coordination, imperfect green finance incentive mechanisms, and insufficient motivation for international cooperation. Therefore, countries should accelerate the harmonization of green finance standards, utilize emerging technologies to enhance information disclosure and regulatory requirements, leverage government guarantees to attract private capital into the market, increase the development of cross-border green products and the sharing of relevant experiences to promote the effective operation of the global green finance governance system, and establish a more comprehensive global green finance governance system to efficiently address the global economic and environmental crises.

The Promotion and Economic Effects of Central Bank Digital Currency: Transaction Efficiency and Privacy Perspective

Sun Ning-hua, Yan Yu-nong

2025, 0(8): 69-83.

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With the advent of the digital age, central bank digital currency (CBDC) has increasingly become the focus of both policy practice and theoretical research. Based on the characteristics of e-CNY, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model incorporating heterogeneous firms is constructed to study the promotion process of CBDC and its potential economic effects. The results indicate that: firstly, transaction efficiency is the main factor affecting the promotion and economic effects of cash-like CBDC, but the role of privacy cannot be ignored. Secondly, digital currency has not completely replaced cash, and under the steady state of the economic system, the proportion of digital currency in the total currency volume is about 40%. Thirdly, the promotion of digital currency is influenced by factors such as transaction efficiency and tax rates, and there may be significant differences in the promotion effects of digital currency across different economies. Fourthly, digital currency helps enhance the effects of technological progress, monetary policy, and financial market stability, with more pronounced effects in the short term. Therefore, policymakers should carefully weigh the relationship between transaction efficiency and privacy, improve the diversified payment service system, design and promote digital currency with appropriate transaction efficiency and tax cuts, finally fully leverage the potential of digital currency to drive high-quality economic development.

Data Elements Sharing and Corporate Resilience: Empirical Evidences from Public Data Openness

Wang Xiao-dan, Shi Yu-tang

2025, 0(8): 84-98.

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Facilitating the flow of data resources and encouraging enterprises to leverage public data to enhance their resilience is crucial. Based on the strategic direction of public data openings, this paper conducts a systematical study of the impact of data element sharing on corporate resilience with the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method. The findings reveal that public data openness can significantly enhance corporate resilience, with its impact generated through innovation effects, digital transformation effects, and internal control effects. Meanwhile, the results of the heterogeneity analysis reveal that the enhancement effect of public data openness on corporate resilience is more significant in contexts with higher economic policy uncertainty, marketization degree, and digital infrastructure construction level, as well as in enterprises with higher levels of non-sunk redundant resources and financing constraints, and in technology-intensive industries. Furthermore, when the quantity of open public data increases, the difficulty of obtaining it decreases, updates become more timely, and the relevance of the topics to enterprise production and operation becomes stronger, the enhancement effect of public data openness on enterprise resilience becomes more pronounced. Therefore, the government should strengthen the construction and optimization of public data-sharing platforms, explore multi-dimensional pathways to enhance firm resilience, and implement targeted policies tailored to the specific characteristics of cities and enterprises.

Monetary Policy Uncertainty, Group Internal Resource Allocation and Corporate Labor Employment

Qian Li, Zheng Qiu-shi

2025, 0(8): 99-111.

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The 3rd Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to improve the mechanism for promoting high-quality and full employment, enhance the public employment service system, and focus on addressing structural employment contradictions. In this context, it is particularly important to delve into the factors influencing corporate labor employment decisions. An empirical study based on the data from the listed companies and their subsidiaries in the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2007 to 2022 shows that when monetary policy uncertainty (MPU) increases, corporate groups can maintain the stability of labor employment through cross-regional and cross-industry resource allocation strategies. Specifically, MPU will inhibit the scale of corporate labor employment through real options effects and financial frictions, while corporate groups can mitigate the real options effect by internal labor allocation and weaken the financial frictions through internal capital allocation, thereby maintaining the overall stability of labor employment scale. This effect is more pronounced in private enterprises and corporate groups with financing constraints. Additionally, under the impact of MPU, corporate groups can continuously optimize labor employment structures through internal resource allocation to reduce the impact of external risks. Based on the aforementioned research conclusions, to address employment challenges in a complex economic environment, the government should further enhance the robustness of monetary policy, increase support for small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthen labor protection and the construction of the social security system, and focus on balancing economic and social benefits.

The Trade of Domestic Value Chain and Regional Green Development Gap

Wang Yu-yan, Tu Ming-hui

2025, 0(8): 112-126.

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Recently, the overall level of green development in China has been improved. However, the persistent issue of regional disparities in green development remains a pressing challenge. This paper employs the Non-Radial Directional Distance Function (NDDF) model and the interregional input-output tables to measure the level of green development and the rate of value added in domestic value chain trade respectively. Then it pairs the provincial regional data to empirically study the impact of domestic value chain trade on regional disparities in green development. The findings show that domestic value chain trade can significantly narrow the regional green development gap, primarily driven by the“green catching-up”effect in less developed regions. The convergence effect of domestic value chain trade on regional disparities in green development is more pronounced within the eastern and central-western regions, and it becomes stronger when the gaps in regional division of labor status and green development levels are larger. The mechanism analysis indicates that knowledge network spillovers, industrial structure optimization, and green technology innovation are key pathways through which domestic value chain trade reduces regional green development disparities. Further research reveals that new infrastructure construction can amplify the green convergence effect of domestic value chain trade. Under the new“dual circulation”development paradigm, it is essential to leverage domestic circulation channels to strengthen the cross-regional division of labor and the collaboration in industrial and supply chains. By fully harnessing the driving role of domestic value chain trade in regional green development, a new pattern of coordinated digital and green development can be established.

Research on the Impact of Collaborative Environmental Regulation between Government and the Public on Urban Green Innovation

Lei Xu-bin, Wang Liang-jian

2025, 0(8): 127-138.

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Against the backdrop of accelerating global green transition, promoting green innovation has become a key path to achieve high-quality and sustainable economic development, and the collaborative environmental regulation by the government and the public is emerging as an important driving force for urban green innovation. Based on the data from 282 cities in China spanning from 2011 to 2023, this study employs a coupling coordination degree model to measure the level of collaborative environmental regulation between the government and the public, and explores the impact of such collaboration on urban green innovation. The research results indicate that the collaborative environmental regulation between the government and the public can promote urban green innovation. This collaborative regulation can drive urban green innovation by influencing corporate green strategies. Intellectual property protection and digital government construction can enhance the promotional effect of collaborative environmental regulation between the government and the public on urban green innovation. The promotional effect of the collaborative environmental regulation between the government and the public on urban green innovation is more prominent in cities with a lower proportion of the secondary industry, a higher proportion of the tertiary industry, and greater government expenditure on science and technology. Therefore, all regions should improve the collaborative environmental regulation mechanism between the government and the public, strengthen intellectual property protection and digital government construction, optimize industrial structure, and increase investment in science and technology, in order to promote urban green innovation and drive green development across the entire society.

Research on the Impact of China Security Investor Services Center Exercising Its Rights on Corporate Leverage Manipulation

Yu Nu-tao, Su Ci, Wang Han, Miao Rui-chen

2025, 0(8): 139-151.

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The Investor Service Center is a public welfare institution approved and directly managed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. It supervises and urges listed companies to operate in a standardized manner through shareholding and exercising its rights. Based on the hand-collected data on the exercise of China Security Investor Service Centers (CSISC), this paper investigates the impact of CSISC' exercising its rights on firms' leverage manipulation behaviors. Research has found that the exercise of its rights by CSISC can inhibit corporate leverage manipulation. The mechanism tests indicate that the exercise of its rights by CSISC can enhance corporate perception of leverage manipulation risks and strengthen external governance, thereby inhibiting corporate leverage manipulation. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the exercise of its rights by CSISC through participation in shareholders' meetings can better inhibit corporate leverage manipulation. The inhibitory effect of CSISC's exercise of its rights on corporate leverage manipulation is more pronounced in enterprises with high levels of financing constraints. In governing corporate leverage manipulation, CSISC and the non-controlling major shareholders have a collaborative relationship; when the controlling shareholder is in a weak position in the game, corporate leverage manipulation can be better inhibited. The economic consequence test indicates that the inhibitory effect of CSISC's exercise of its rights on corporate leverage manipulation will reduce the financial risks of enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to further improve the right-exercise system of CSISC and strengthen the supervision of corporate leverage manipulation.

The Impact of Non-State Shareholders' Participation in the Governance of State-Owned Enterprises on the Operational Performance of Their Overseas Subsidiaries: Evidences from the Mixed Ownership Reform of State-Owned Enterprises

Ma Xin-xiao, Han Yan-zhen, Liang Zheng-yi

2025, 0(8): 152-164.

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As an important material and political foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the smooth operation of the overseas economic activities of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is crucial for optimizing their business structure and promoting their high-quality development. Taking state-owned listed companies undergoing mixed ownership reform as the research object, this study investigates the impact of non-state shareholders' participation in SOE governance on the operational performance of SOE overseas subsidiaries. The findings show that the participation of non-state shareholders in the governance of state-owned enterprises can weaken government intervention, inhibit the aggressive decision-making by senior executives, and strengthen internal supervision within state-owned enterprises. Therefore, the participation of non-state shareholders in the governance of state-owned enterprises can improve the operational performance of overseas subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises. The heterogeneity tests indicate that non-state shareholders with rich foreign trade experience, high innovation levels, extensive management experience, and high shareholding ratios are more conducive to improving the operational performance of overseas subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises. The extensive research has shown that the participation of non-state shareholders in the governance of state-owned enterprises can curb overseas related-party transactions conducted by these enterprises, thereby enhancing their overall profits. To this end, it is necessary to effectively safeguard the rights of non-state shareholders to participate in the governance of state-owned enterprises and improve the management system of overseas subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises.

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