The impact of digital transformation on green total factor productivity of heavily polluting enterprises.

Introduction: Digital transformation has become an important engine for economic high-quality development and environment high-level protection. However, green total factor productivity (GTFP), as an indicator that comprehensively reflects economic and environmental benefits, there is a lack of studies that analyze the effect of digital transformation on heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP from a micro perspective, and its impact mechanism is still unclear. Therefore, we aim to study the impact of digital transformation on heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP and its mechanism, and explore the heterogeneity of its impact. Methods: We use Chinese A-share listed enterprises in the heavily polluting industry data from 2007 to 2019, measure enterprise digital transformation indicator using text analysis, and measure enterprise GTFP indicator using the GML index based on SBM directional distance function, to investigate the impact of digital transformation on heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP. Results: Digital transformation can significantly enhance heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP, and this finding still holds after considering the endogenous problem and conducting robustness tests. Digital transformation can enhance heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP by promoting green innovation, improving management efficiency, and reducing external transaction costs. The improvement role of digital transformation on heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP is more obvious in the samples of non-state-owned enterprises, non-high-tech industries, and the eastern region. Compared with blockchain technology, artificial intelligence technology, cloud computing technology, big data technology, and digital technology application can significantly improve heavily polluting enterprises' GTFP. Discussion: Our paper breaks through the limitations of existing research, which not only theoretically enriches the literature related to digital transformation and GTFP, but also practically provides policy implications for continuously promoting heavily polluting enterprises' digital transformation and facilitating their high-quality development.

Supplier transaction, TMT characteristics, and the persistence of earnings: do their relationship contribute towards sustainable performance of Chinese listed manufacturing sector firms?

The construction of supplier transaction is one of the strategic choices of many firms. However, the impact of business strategies on the persistence of earnings remains to be further investigated. The innovation of this paper lies in interpreting the impact of supplier transaction on earnings persistence from the perspective of characteristics of the top management team (TMT). We consider Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2012 to 2019 to examine the relationship between the supplier transaction and the persistence of earnings. Statistical results show that supplier transaction characteristics of the TMT have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between the supplier transaction and the persistence of earnings. This implies that the behavior of TMT can be vital to the firm in maintaining sustainable performance. The higher age level or longer average tenure of TMT can significantly improve the positive effect of the supplier transaction tenure heterogeneity of TMT that will significantly improve the negative effect. This paper expands the literature on supplier relationship, and corporate earnings from a new perspective that improves the empirical evidence of the upper echelons theory, and also provides evidence support for the construction of supplier relationship and TMT.

Trade openness and urbanization impact on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in China.

China has witnessed significant growth in trade through vide range trade liberalization strategies and urbanization has also been entered in advanced stage. Based on these dynamics, how much energy consumption of both renewable and none renewable account for energy consumption in whole system is a point of higher attention for the researchers. To understand this salient emerging debatable concern, we investigate the impact of trade openness and urbanization effect on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in China for the period 1990-2018. We apply the quantile regression technique for the analysis; our results show that trade significantly increases the non-renewable energy consumption in all quintiles while partially increasing renewable energy consumption. This shows that trade activities in production and export commodities heavily rely on non-renewable energy inputs instead of renewable energy inputs. Urbanization affects non-renewable energy consumption only in three quintiles, while its effect is insignificant in most of the quintiles. Similarly, urbanization does not affect renewable energy consumption as in almost all quantiles the coefficients are statistically insignificant. This implies that urbanization is one of the determinants of energy consumption in China. The empirical findings of this study suggest some policy recommendations; first, the government needs to implement certain regulations while expanding trade to minimize the negative effect of non-renewable energy consumption; besides government should provide incentives to industrial units and traders for using renewable energy which may help to attain long term sustainable development goals. The government should also put certain limitations on population moving from rural to urban destinations.

Does tourism increase CO2 emissions and health spending in Mexico? New evidence from nonlinear ARDL approach.

This study investigates the nexus between tourism, CO2 emissions and health spending in Mexico. We applied a nonlinear ARDL approach for the empirical analysis for the time period 1996-2018. Mexico receives a large number of tourists each year, tourism improves foreign exchange earnings and contributes positively to the economic growth. However, tourist activities impose a serious environmental cost in terms of CO2 emissions which increase health spending. The empirical findings suggest that tourism leads to CO2 emissions which resultantly causes a high level of health spending in Mexico. Both short-run and long-run findings reported a significant positive association between tourism, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures. Therefore, the government needs legislation to reduce CO2 emissions, besides the use of renewable energy could also help to reduce the CO2 emissions and health expenditures in society. This study does not support to reduce the health expenditure, rather it suggests optimal utilization of the funds allocated to the health sector.

Public Health Expenditures and Health Outcomes in Pakistan: Evidence from Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model.

OBJECTIVE: The provision of healthcare facilities remains high on the manifesto of various political parties in Pakistan and healthcare spending has witnessed a significant surge in the last two decades that is expected to positively influence health outcomes in the country. Therefore, this research aims to explore the effects of healthcare expenditures on the actual health status of the masses in Pakistan for the period 1995Q1 to 2017Q1. METHODS: We apply the Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) approach for estimation purposes. This is the most recent and emerging estimation technique in time series analysis. RESULTS: Our findings confirm that public healthcare spending significantly impacts health outcomes in Pakistan both in the short-run and long-run. Public healthcare spending improves life expectancy and reduces death rate and infant mortality. CONCLUSION: The study concludes that public healthcare is the main focus of the current regime. It is noticed that spending on healthcare significantly contributes to the health outcomes in Pakistan. These efforts by the government significantly promote life expectancy and drop down the mortality ratio in the country. Based on these notable facts, the government should allocate sufficient resources towards the latest healthcare technologies and equipment to optimize health outcomes in the country.

Exploring determinants of financial system and environmental quality in high-income developed countries of the world: the demonstration of robust penal data estimation techniques.

The financial system development has got considerable attention due to its association with the environment of the country. To address the apprehension of the researchers about the effect of the determinants of the financial system on the environmental quality of high-income developed countries, we analyze the data of twenty developed countries with sound and strong financial systems for the period 2001 to 2018. We consider both banking development and stock market development as the main key determinants of the financial system. We employ numerous modern-day penal data estimation techniques, namely Dynamic Penal GMM in both linear and non-linear form, Common Correlated Effect Mean Group (CCEMG), and Dynamic Fixed Effect for capturing the issues of heterogeneity, endogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence. Our results show that banking development substantiates the environmental quality in high-income developed countries. The positive gesture of the banking development on environmental quality could be the reason for the established environmentally friendly policies in the developed part of the world. Hence, we conclude that banking development in high-income developed countries significantly reduces the emissions of dangerous gases, which resultantly enhances the environmental quality. The study reveals an insignificant and tenuous impact of the market development on the environmental quality that might be due to the adoption of cleaner technologies by firms in the developed world that are environmentally friendly. The results of our long-term estimations also predict the significant effect of banking development and an insignificant effect of the market development on environmental quality. In addition, our results also demonstrate an inverted U-shaped relationship of the determinants of the financial system and environmental quality. More institutional and legal initiatives must be made for a more robust banking and stock market development framework by the policy makers with a view to substantiating the quality of the environment to a more sustainable level in the developed world.

Modeling Trade Openness and Life Expectancy in China.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates life expectancy and trade openness in China for the period 1960-2018. METHODS: We purposed a theoretical model that is tested for China by applying regime-switching regression. RESULTS: Our findings suggest that trade openness increases life expectancy in China; trade affects life expectancy from two aspects; firstly, trade expansion and industrialization lead to high economic activities and resulted in raise the income of the people in society leading to improve life expectancy. Secondly, industrial expansion increases the CO2 emissions which leads to imposes a negative implication on human health and thus reduces life expectancy. CONCLUSION: Thus, the net effect of trade liberalization depends on the value of income effect and volume of CO2 emissions. Therefore, the government needs to support the trade policies which causes a low level of CO2 emissions, the government may provide incentives to exports and industrialists to adopted green energy in the production process. Besides, the government may impose some regulations such as carbon tax to mitigate the CO2 emissions in society.

Exploring Asymmetric Nexus Between CO2 Emissions, Environmental Pollution, and Household Health Expenditure in China.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the nexus between household health expenditure, CO2 emissions and environmental pollution in China. We analyzed the asymmetric dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure for the period 1990 to 2019 in China. METHODS: This study adopted nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) and Granger causality following the diagnostic test. Furthermore, we applied Dickey-Fuller (ADF), PP unit root tests, Zivot and Andrews test for structural breaks in our analysis. The NARDL is the most suitable econometric technique for estimations, especially if the asymmetric relationship exists among the variables. NARDL technique is capable to explore the dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure. RESULTS: The empirical results verify the asymmetric nexus between CO2 emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure in the context of China. The outcomes revealed that in the short run and long run positive shocks of CO2 emissions and environmental pollution positively affecting health expenditure, while negative shocks reduce health spendings. The results also demonstrate bi-directional causality among household health spendings, CO2 emissions and environmental pollution. CONCLUSION: Our results support many previous studies, documenting that CO2 emissions positively contribute to the amount of household health expenditure, confirming the asymmetric relationship between CO2 emissions and household health expenditure. The results also confirm the statistically significant and asymmetrically positive relationship between environmental pollution and household health expenditure. This implies that Chinese residents have to bear more household health expenditure, in the case of more CO2 emissions and a greater amount of environmental pollution.

Nexus Between Foreign Direct Investment Inflow, Renewable Energy Consumption, Ambient Air Pollution, and Human Mortality: A Public Health Perspective From Non-linear ARDL Approach.

A huge foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow has been witnessed in China, though on the one hand, it brings a significant contribution to economic growth. On the other hand, it adversely affects the ambient air pollution that may affect human mortality in the country. Renewable energy (RE) usage meets the country's energy needs with no adverse effect on the environment. Therefore, this study is trying to empirically analyze the effect of FDI inflow on human morality and RE consumption in China. We used time-series data for 1998-2020 and applied a non-linear ARDL approach for the estimations. The empirical outcomes suggest that FDI inflow positively affects mortality and RE. There is also unidirectional causality running from RE and pollution to mortality. In addition, the relationship among the variable verifies the existence of a non-linear relationship. The government needs policy guidelines to further boost FDI inflow due to its positive aspects. However, to reduce the negative effect on the environment and human morality, the extensive usage of RE should be adopted. Indeed, proper legislation for foreign firms might be a good step toward quality environmental and longevity of human health in society.

Unraveling the Dynamic Nexus Between Trade Liberalization, Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions, and Health Expenditure in Southeast Asian Countries.

OBJECTIVE: Most of the Southeast Asian countries witnessed remarkable economic growth in the last few decades. Trade is a primary factor in achieving this exponential economic progress in these countries. Besides, the positive implications of trade, it has associated cost of escalated energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and resulting health complications which leads to higher public health expenditures. This study examines the nexus between trade liberalization, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures in Southeast Asian countries for the period of 1991 to 2018. METHODS: The empirical methods used in this study entail diagnostic testing, correlation analysis, and structure equation modeling (SEM) technique. SEM is an advanced multivariate analysis technique that can test complex multivariate causal associations among a set of variables. Therefore, it is the most suitable econometric approach to explore the dynamic association between trade openness, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures. RESULTS: The empirical results reveal a nexus between trade openness, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and health expenditure in Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, pollutant emissions have a direct impact on health expenditures, whereas trade and energy consumption shows an indirect influence on the escalation in public health spending in sample Southeast Asian countries. Moreover, the mediating path of each indirect effect is energy consumption. CONCLUSION: These results imply that Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on fossil energy to fuel economic growth. Hence, to promote sustainable and eco-friendly economic development, the respective governments need to reform their energy sectors by tapping into renewable energy resources and deploy green technologies to reduce pollutant emissions for the development of a healthy society. In addition, governments should levy taxes on highly polluting industries so as to curtail carbon emissions and resulting health expenditures.

Nexus between trade, CO2 emissions, renewable energy, and health expenditure in Pakistan.

As a result of the recent energy crisis and rapid industrialization in Pakistan, significant attention has turned toward alternative energy resources, CO2 emissions, and health-related issues. The adoption of renewable energies will not only accomplish the energy demand in the economy but will also provide a healthy environment. Therefore, it is essential to understand the linkages between trade, renewable energy, CO2 emissions, and health expenditures with a special focus on an emerging economy like Pakistan. This study used time series data from the 1998-2017 period and adopted the simultaneous equation approach for empirical analysis. The results show that an increase in trade volume positively contributes to the amount of CO2 emissions and, as a result, CO2 increases health expenditures. Conversely, renewable energy has a negative association with health expenditures and CO2 emission, signifying the importance of renewable energy in enhancing environmental quality and reducing health expenditures, which are adversely affected due to CO2 emissions. The empirical findings suggest that the government of Pakistan needs proper policy guidelines for renewable energy adoption in the industrial sector and that such guidelines can be further accommodated and adjusted in other determinants of the economy.

Linkages between Trade, CO2 Emissions and Healthcare Spending in China.

China has remained top among the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitting countries in the world, while it has a significant contribution to world trade after World Trade Organization (WTO) reforms in China. The dramatic increase in CO2 emissions has been witnessed. This study examines the linkages between trade openness, CO2 emissions, and healthcare expenditures in China using time series data for the period 1990-2017. The study extended a theoretical model by adding healthcare expenditures, CO2 emissions, and trade openness with some constraints. We used simultaneous equation method for the analysis, and the outcomes suggest that trade is significantly affecting the CO2 emissions in the country, resulting in an increase of healthcare expenditures. The government needs reforms and trade policy embodied green energy consumption in the industrial sector, especially in export sector industries. In addition, carbon tax may be an important tool to reduce CO2 emissions and it may compensate the healthcare spending in the country.

Single-cell redox states analyzed by fluorescence lifetime metrics and tryptophan FRET interaction with NAD(P)H.

Redox changes in live HeLa cervical cancer cells after doxorubicin treatment can either be analyzed by a novel fluorescence lifetime microscopy (FLIM)-based redox ratio NAD(P)H-a2%/FAD-a1%, called fluorescence lifetime redox ratio or one of its components (NAD(P)H-a2%), which is actually driving that ratio and offering a simpler and alternative metric and are both compared. Auto-fluorescent NAD(P)H, FAD lifetime is acquired by 2- photon excitation and Tryptophan by 3-photon, at 4 time points after treatment up to 60 min demonstrating early drug response to doxorubicin. Identical Fields-of-view (FoV) at each interval allows single-cell analysis, showing heterogeneous responses to treatment, largely based on their initial control redox state. Based on a discrete ROI selection method, mitochondrial OXPHOS and cytosolic glycolysis are discriminated. Furthermore, putative FRET interaction and energy transfer between tryptophan residue carrying enzymes and NAD(P)H correlate with NAD(P)H-a2%, as does the NADPH/NADH ratio, highlighting a multi-parametric assay to track metabolic changes in live specimens. © 2019 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry.