The balanced ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin (YRB) has become a major national strategy in China in which low-carbon agricultural development in the region is crucial. In this context, studying the coupling and coordination between agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB is of great significance to promote low-carbon, green, and sustainable agricultural development. Therefore, based on the data of 30 cities in the YRB from 2010 to 2020, the super-efficient slacks-based measure (SBM) model with non-expected output was employed to effectively measure the agricultural carbon emissions efficiency in the YRB. Subsequently, the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emissions efficiency and economic growth in the YRB was further calculated. Finally, the Dagum Gini coefficient and kernel density estimation methods were adopted in order to comprehensively examine the spatial differences, as well as the dynamic evolution pattern of the coupled coordination in the YRB. The results demonstrate that there is a significant spatial non-equilibrium in the coupling and coordination degree of agricultural carbon emission efficiency and economic growth in the YRB, in addition to the decreasing trend of coupling coordination during the sample observation period. As such, there is still considerable room for improvement of the efficiency of agricultural carbon emissions and the degree of coupling and coordination in the YRB. This study may serve as a reference for improving the low-carbon development of agriculture and economy in the YRB, providing theoretical guidance for solving the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in this region.

Intelligentization-oriented development is a fast-developing trend of technological revolution. It promotes the reconstruction of the industrial system of a region and affects its overall industrial competitiveness. This paper sets up a variety of models featuring intelligentization level and multi-dimensional industrial competitiveness, and collects data of 28 provinces and cities in China from 2003 to 2017 to test the influence of industrial intelligentization level on the industrial competitiveness of a region. The result reveals that: 1) In China’s provincial jurisdictions, the higher the level of intelligentization is, the lower the overall level of industrial competitiveness and the lower the proportion of industry in the economic system will be. In regions where the facilities are highly intelligentialized, the production sectors tend to move to the less developed regions, and the growth effect of technological dividends is the focus. 2) Compared with the middle region and the Western region of China, the Eastern region, which is more developed with higher intelligentization level, has stronger ability in the research and development (R&D) of technologies, and the economic structure of the industry there tends to be stable, manifesting a strong growth potential.