Political uncertainty and high-quality economic development: Evidence from China.

We manually collated data on the turnover of party secretaries and mayors in 285 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2016 and calculated the quality of city economic development represented by environmental total factor productivity growth. We find that the political uncertainty caused by official turnover could significantly promote the improvement of the quality of economic development, and this positive can explained by the progress of production technology and government intervention. Moreover, the political uncertainty caused by the turnover of more educated officials, those with local hukou, promoted officials, and experienced officials could better promote high-quality economic development.

Can national forest city construction mitigate air pollution in China? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment.

As air pollution in Chinese cities becomes a growing concern, measures to alleviate air pollution have attracted the attention of all sectors of society. By using the data for 283 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2016, we utilized the quasi-natural experiment of the national forest city construction (NFCC) and employed the difference-in-differences approach to examine the effects of NFCC on air pollution. The results show that the NFCC led to a 12.14% and 4.29% reduction in PM2.5 concentrations and SO2 emissions, respectively. A series of robustness tests such as instrumental variable estimates, placebo tests, and eliminating disturbing policies all supported these findings. In addition, we provided evidence that the environment benefits of the NFCC could be explained by increasing green spaces, strengthening environmental regulations, and forming green development models. Furthermore, the results from heterogeneity analysis indicate that the NFCC was more effective in smaller cities, southern cities, and western cities. Our findings are of significance to Chinese cities on the road to sustainable development and provide some insights for other developing countries and emerging markets to control air pollution.

COVID-19 pandemic and adolescent mental health in China: Micro evidence and socioeconomic mechanisms.

Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health has received sufficient attention in the medical and public health fields, analysis from the social science perspective is still lacking. By regarding the shock of COVID-19 pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts the Difference-in-Differences (DID) model and large microdata from Shandong Province, China, to identify the causal effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of senior high school students. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic results in an increase of 2.5677 points in adolescent psychological problem scores, equivalent to an average decrease of 29.93% in mental health. Furthermore, results of mechanism tests show that this negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health can be explained by a reduction in social trust, as well as widening inequalities caused by the digital divide and family income gap. Moreover, the estimates suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has a greater negative influence on the mental health of boys and urban adolescents. Our study complements the research field on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health and the potential socioeconomic mechanisms from a new perspective. These findings provide insights into how to safeguard adolescent mental health in China and other countries in the pandemic prevention and post-pandemic era.

Haze pollution reduction in Chinese cities: Has digital financial development played a role?

Based on the exogenous shock of digital financial development in China in 2013, a difference-in-differences (DID) model is set up in this paper to investigate the causal relationship between digital financial development and haze pollution reduction. The finding of the paper is that a one standard deviation increase in digital finance after 2013 decreases the PM2.5 concentrations by 0.2708 standard deviations. After a number of robustness checks, like placebo tests, instrumental variable (IV) estimations, eliminating disruptive policies, and using alternative specifications, this causal effect is not challenged. In addition, this paper explores three potential mechanisms of digital finance to reduce haze pollution: technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and green development. Moreover, the heterogeneous effects signify that the usage depth of digital finance works best in haze pollution reduction. Digital finance has more positive effects in cities in the north and those with superior Internet infrastructure and higher levels of traditional financial development. However, the quantile regression estimates suggest that for cities with light or very serious haze pollution, the positive impact of digital finance is limited. These findings supplement the research field on the environmental benefits of digital finance, which provides insights for better public policies about digital financial development to achieve haze pollution reduction.

Parental migration and non-cognitive abilities of left-behind children in rural China: Causal effects by an instrumental variable approach.

BACKGROUND: Extensive research has confirmed the disadvantages of left-behind children in the development of human capital in rural China; however, evidence is limited on non-cognitive abilities, especially in the identification of causal effects. In recent years, the role of non-cognitive abilities on children has become increasingly prominent. OBJECTIVE: This study identifies the causal effects of parental migration and the decline of non-cognitive of left-behind children and explores the potential mechanisms. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The participants were 4636 rural students in the seventh and ninth grades of 43 secondary schools from 26 counties based on the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) in the 2013-2014 academic year. METHOD: We adopt an endogenous treatment effect model with the instrumental variable (IV) to identify the causal effects by constructing a comprehensive index to measure children's non-cognitive abilities based on the Big Five Personality Model. RESULTS: Parental migration is significantly detrimental to non-cognitive abilities of rural left-behind children. Worse, except for agreeableness, the score of rural left-behind children in the other four sub-items is significantly lower. The negative impact of parental migration is partially explained by the fewer shadow education, the reduction in parent-child interactions, and the parental education participation, especially parent-child interactions in a major position. CONCLUSION: Our findings are consistent with previous studies and further provide evidence that parental migration is the cause of the decline of non-cognitive abilities of rural left-behind children. These results indicate that it is necessary to formulate some public policies to focus on the neglected non-cognitive abilities of left-behind children.

Poverty reduction in rural China: Does the digital finance matter?

As digital finance is widely spread and applied in China, this new format of financial technology could become a new way to reduce poverty in rural areas. By matching digital financial indexes of the prefectural-level cities with microdata on rural households from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2017, we find that digital finance significantly suppresses absolute poverty and relative poverty among rural households in China, which is supported by a series of robustness tests, such as the instrumental variable approach, using alternative specifications, and excluding extreme observations. Additionally, we provide evidence that the poverty reduction effect of digital finance is likely to be explained by alleviating credit constraints and information constraints, broadening social networks, and promoting entrepreneurship. Our findings further complement the research field on financial poverty reduction and offer insights for the development of public financial policies of poverty reduction in other countries, especially in some developing countries.

Does haze pollution damage urban innovation? Empirical evidence from China.

The continuous outbreak of haze pollution attracted full attention and became one of the most severe environmental problems in China. Based on the panel data of 266 prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2016, this paper investigates the effects of haze pollution on China's urban innovation. Results show that (1) haze pollution does not damage urban innovation but forms a crisis-driven effect to stimulate it. (2) Haze pollution enhances the public's environmental awareness, which induces the government to invest more in science and technology, and finally forces the improvement of urban innovation. (3) Haze pollution causes the loss of human capital and leading to a decrease in the number of people who engaged in scientific research, which weakens the city's technological innovation ability. (4) The crisis-driven effect caused by haze pollution boosts the improvement of technological innovation in eastern cities, large cities, and northern cities. This study enriches the evidence on the relationship between haze pollution and urban innovation, which is significant for local governments to formulate green development and innovation-driven strategies.