Correction: The impact of housing prices and land financing on economic growth: Evidence from Chinese 277 cities at the prefecture level and above.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302631.].

The impact of housing prices and land financing on economic growth: Evidence from Chinese 277 cities at the prefecture level and above.

With the rapid progress of urbanization in China, the real estate industry, characterized by a long industrial chain, has become a pillar industry for economic development. Therefore, we inspect the nexus between land finance, housing prices, and economic growth. For this purpose, we use the panel data of 277 cities at the prefecture level or above in China from 2011 to 2019, and empirically examine it by using the Panel Vector Auto Regression (PVAR) model. The results show that there is a causal relationship between housing prices and economic growth. Housing prices promote economic growth in the short term and inhibit it in the long term. Both economic growth and housing prices have a significant impact on land finance. The economic growth show a significantly positive impact, while housing prices promote land finance in the short term with a long-term trend from positive to negative. This is the first study that tries to probe the relationship between urban housing prices, land finance, and economic growth by considering 277 prefecture-level and above cities in China. To promote the stable development of the regional economy, local governments need to overcome their dependence on the housing market and land finance and promote the healthy development of the housing market.

The dynamics of entrepreneurial agglomeration formation: Social selection and simulation.

From the facts that numerous regions with initially similar economic conditions end up with different levels of entrepreneurial agglomeration, this paper constructs a model assuming that the sequential entrants make their career choices based on existing entrepreneurial ratio and describing the dynamics of entrepreneurial agglomeration formation. After mathematical analysis and numerical simulation using NetLogo, it is found that under social selection, a nonlinear Polya process with self-reinforcing and path-dependency characters will emerge, and the repeated entrants' career choices will lead to the agglomeration of entrepreneurship; the agent's risk compensation value, the initial population of agents, the number of role models in the early stage and the initial entrepreneurial ratio are determinants to the formation of entrepreneurial agglomeration. The findings confirm that entrepreneurship has "memory" and the entrepreneurial history could have influence on the future. In order to forge the entrepreneurial agglomeration, our suggestions include exerting influence on the determinants from an early age, and improving the individual's risk-taking abilities.

The impact of work-family conflict on product preferences: The role of self-control.

Despite the high incidence of work-family conflict, there has been a lack of research that investigates its impact on employee behavior, particularly concerning their consumption behavior, which has received inadequate attention. The present study draws on the strength model of self-control and investigates the influence of individuals' work-family conflict on their preferences for hedonic and utilitarian products via self-control, with frugality acting as a moderator of this relationship. This study gathered data from 502 full-time employees with families in China. Results from the moderated mediating model analysis conducted using the SPSS-PROCESS macro revealed that work-family conflict was positively associated with a preference for hedonic products and negatively associated with a preference for utilitarian products. Self-control was found to mediate the relationship between work-family conflict and product preferences, with a weaker mediating effect observed for individuals with higher levels of frugality in the case of utilitarian products. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on work-family conflict and have implications for organizations and merchants in understanding and addressing the impact of work-family conflict on employee consumption behavior. Specifically, this study provides insight into how organizations can better manage work-family conflict and how merchants can make more informed marketing decisions for hedonic and utilitarian products.

The Connection between Absorptive Capacity and Green Innovation: The Function of Board Capital and Environmental Regulation.

The stress of environmental regulations, sustainable development objectives, and global warming is becoming more prominent now. Most studies conclude that the industrial sector is largely at fault and under tremendous pressure to address these climate change issues. This study highlights the significance of green innovation to Chinese firms in mitigating these conservational challenges, and the study probes the association between green innovation and absorptive capacity. Additionally, board capital (the social and human capital of directors) and environmental regulation-both drivers of green innovation-are explored as moderators between green innovation and absorptive capacity. With appropriate econometric methods and theoretical support from the natural resource-based review, the resource dependency theory, and the Porter hypothesis, the results indicate the positive relationship between green innovation and absorptive capacity. They also reveal board capital and environmental regulation as positive moderators, emphasizing their significance to green innovation. This study offers several suggestions and directives for stakeholders, such as businesses, policymakers, and governments, to foster green innovation for greater profitability, minimizing negative industrial consequences.

Why is reusable bag consumption easier to say than do?

White pollution has become a global problem. China issued a strict plastic ban but fell into an awkward position. Despite the increasing environmental awareness, the positive attitude of consumers toward using reusable bags instead of plastic bags is difficult to reflect on from their behavior. This article bridges this gap by utilizing a consumer behavior framework based on the behavioral reasoning theory (BRT) and the attitude-behavior-context (ABC) model. This framework is tested using structural equation modeling with 481 Chinese consumers. This article confirms that the value has a significant impact on consumer attitudes. Meanwhile, the article reveals the positive influence of "reasons for" in predicting attitudes and the negative influence of "reasons against" in predicting intentions. Reusable bag consumption behavior is a result of multiple pathways working together, which causes the gap between attitudes and behaviors. This article also confirms the moderating role of the Chinese face and the enforcement of the plastic ban in influencing behavior. These findings offer interesting insights for enterprises and governments to solve the problem of plastic consumption.

The relationship amid land finance and economic growth with the mediating role of housing prices in China.

Taking cities at prefecture-level and above in China as the research object, we theoretically analyze the effects of land finance on housing prices and economic growth as well as the effects of housing prices on economic growth, consider the mediating role of housing prices, and construct a random-effects model of land finance affecting economic growth. It is of great significance to make rational use of land finance to promote the economic development and formulate the "city specific policies" plan for the real estate market. The 278 resource-based cities with relatively well-developed land and real estate markets in China are selected to test the mediating effect of housing prices on land finance affecting economic growth in resource-based cities by type based on panel data from 2011-2019. The results show that (1) land finance significantly and positively affects economic growth and housing prices in cities at the prefecture-level and above nationwide, but there is some variability in the degree of influence. The central region has the smallest impact on economic growth but the largest impact on housing prices; the eastern region has the deepest impact on economic growth; and the western region has the smallest impact on housing prices. (2) In the national sample cities and cities in the northeast region, housing prices have a significant partial mediating effect at the 1% level on economic growth affected by land finance, accounting for 22.03 and 2.84%, respectively. The mediating effect of urban housing prices on land finance affects economic growth in the eastern, central, and western regions is not significant.

How Does Green Innovation Strategy Influence Corporate Financing? Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Diversity Play a Moderating Role.

Global warming is becoming more and more of a concern, leading authorities to take action. The industrial sector is a key contributor to environmental and social problems. Based on stakeholder theory and agency theory, this research proposes that green innovation strategies at the firm level can overcome the industry's negative environmental impact. As a result, the focus of this research is on green innovation strategies for corporate financing. In addition, this research suggests that corporate social responsibility and gender diversity directly affect corporate financing and their interaction. This study used Chinese 301 manufacturing firms (3010 observations) for the period 2010-2019 for this purpose. This study looks into panel data issues in depth by using approaches such as the fixed effect and generalized method of moment. The feasible generalized least square was employed to increase robustness. Furthermore, green innovation strategies were used for corporate financing. Second, the study discovered that corporate social responsibility aided firm financing. Our findings also imply that corporate social responsibility helps to attenuate the association amid green innovative strategies and corporate financing. Finally, these findings revealed that gender diversity had a favorable effect on corporate financing. Furthermore, this study confirmed that the moderating role of gender diversity is beneficial to green innovative strategies and corporate financing. These findings add to the literature by providing policymakers and regulatory bodies with useful information for advancing sustainable development.

A Study on the Relationship Between Consumer Motivations and Subjective Well-Being: A Latent Profile Analysis.

Consumer motivation plays an important role in their purchase decisions and well-being. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between certain consumer motivations and well-being separately. We aim to employ latent profile analysis (LPA) to explore subgroups of participants who display similar patterns of consumer multiple motivations and to examine differences in subjective well-being across these subtypes. The final group of (N = 1,023, ages 18-58) completed the Consumer Motivation scale online, assessing seven dimensions of consumer motivation. Results of LPA identified four subpopulations of participants: the enthusiastic group has high expectations in all aspects; the balanced group values each aspect of the product but has lower expectations; the rational group emphasizes aspects such as value for money, comfort, and quality; the apathetic group has no strong motivation for consumption, and they are relatively concerned with the dimensions of security, social acceptance, and stimulation. Consumers' subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) differed significantly across the four profiles. Specifically, scores for positive affect and life satisfaction were highest in the enthusiastic group, medium in the balanced group, and lowest in the rational and apathetic groups. Scores for negative affect were significantly higher in the enthusiastic and apathetic groups than in the rational group. These findings enable marketers to develop customized marketing strategies for different motivation profiles and contribute to helping consumers with varying motivation profiles to consciously pay attention to their well-being.

Research on the Spatial and Temporal Differences of China's Provincial Carbon Emissions and Ecological Compensation Based on Land Carbon Budget Accounting.

The establishment of a complete carbon ecological compensation mechanism is of great significance for China to achieve "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" as soon as possible. From the perspective of land carbon budget accounting, this paper measures the carbon emissions and the value of carbon ecological compensation in 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, by constructing a carbon ecological compensation model, and analyzes it from both time and space perspectives. The study found that: (1) during the period 2010-2019, China's carbon absorption remained basically stable, and woodland and grassland were the main carriers of China's land carbon absorption. The total carbon sequestration of woodland and grassland showed a pattern of being high in the west and low in the east, and the total carbon sequestration of cultivated land showed a pattern of being high in the east and low in the west. (2) Construction land is the main source of carbon emissions in China. Cultivated land carbon emissions mainly come from major agricultural provinces such as Henan and Heilongjiang, while construction land carbon emissions are mainly concentrated in energy-consuming provinces such as Shandong and Shanxi. (3) After revising the carbon compensation benchmark value, it is found that provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangsu should receive carbon ecological compensation, while provinces dominated by heavy industries such as Shanxi and Shandong need to pay corresponding carbon compensation fees. Finally, this article puts forward corresponding policy recommendations, such as that China should give full play to the role of the government and the market, accelerate the optimization and improvement of the ecological resource asset property rights system, and optimize the development and utilization of land.

The Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Association of Internal Corporate Governance and Profitability; Evidence from Pakistan.

At present, climate and other environmental problems are arising because of the development of the industrial sector at a large level. The industrial sector is supposed to be a major cause of climate change problems that lead to global warming. Therefore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the help of corporate governance is an imperative approach to control these social problems. Consequently, in the context of the organizational and management theory, agency theory, and the stakeholder theory, this study focuses on important factors of internal corporate governance such as chief executive officer (CEO) power, the board size, independence, ownership concentration, managerial ownership, and audit quality for improving the profitability of firms. Moreover, this study considers corporate social responsibility as a controlling and moderating factor for firm performance and internal corporate governance. We employed ordinary least square (OLS) for endogeneity testing, fixed effect (FE), generalized method of moments (GMM), and feasible generalized least square (FGLS) on data of Pakistani firms for the period of 2010-2019. The results of this study demonstrate the following outcomes: firstly, all internal corporate governance factors are positively linked with firm performance; secondly, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the most valuable tool for improving profitability. Importantly, this study suggests that all internal corporate governance factors are positively linked with firm performance because of the interactive role of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study practically contributes to the literature by suggesting the imperative role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for internal corporate governance, which may help to reduce climate and social problems.

Carbon Emissions in the SAARC Countries with Causal Effects of FDI, Economic Growth and Other Economic Factors: Evidence from Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Models.

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries like other developing countries are the major destination for foreign investors. At the same time, these countries are facing different climate change challenges. This study aims to inspect the economic determinants of carbon emissions (CE) and dynamic causal interaction of CE with foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth (EG), and other economic factors using panel cointegration test, dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and vector error correction model (VECM) for the SAARC countries. To make the homogenous analysis, we examined the association among variables for the individual country and as a group for the period 1990 to 2016. The panel results of this study confirmed the presence of the unidirectional causal association of EG with CE. The panel results of other economic factors confirmed the causality of urban population (UP) and energy consumption (EC) with CE. Moreover, the panel results of domestic capital (DS) and inflation rate (INF) confirmed the causal association with EG. Finally, the panel results of DS revealed a causality with FDI. Based on the above results, some policy guidelines are proposed.

Conceptualizing Pathways of Sustainable Development in the Union for the Mediterranean Countries with an Empirical Intersection of Energy Consumption and Economic Growth.

The availability of sufficient and trustworthy energy services at the reasonable cost in a securely and environmentally friendly manner, and conventionality with economic and social development requirements, is an important factor of sustainable development (SD). Energy plays a significant role in eliminating poverty and increasing living standards. However, most of the present energy forms of energy supply and consumption are unsustainable. This paper analyzes the association between economic growth (EG), energy consumption (EC), and sustainable development (SD) among other economic factors. The sample of 14 developed and developing member states of the Union for the Mediterranean (UFM) was selected. To deal with the endogeneity issue, the system- generalized method of moment (GMM) model was employed. Moreover, panel co-integration, Granger causality tests, and robustness tests were employed to examine the long-run and short-run causality among variables of interest. The results confirmed the short-run dynamic association from sustainable development (SD) to energy consumption (EC), and economic growth (EG) to sustainable development (SD). Moreover, the results validated the presence of long-run equilibrium association in the equations of EC and sustainable development (SD). The findings of this study will be supportive for the policymakers to formulate sustainable energy policies to stimulate the economic growth (EG) in the way of sustainable development (SD) in the UFM countries.