Undoubtedly, energy is indispensable to attain economic development; however, it also generates CO2 emissions, which are the dominant contributor to environmental deterioration and climate change. In this regard, clean energy can help to achieve both sustainable development and environmental sustainability since it comprises non-carbohydrate energy sources that do not or seldom generate emissions. Against this backdrop, this work considers economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and probes the impact of clean energy consumption on CO2 emissions in the third largest European economy France from 1987 to 2019 controlling urbanization and economic growth. Using the STIRPAT framework, the study employed the novel Augmented ARDL method that overcomes the limitations of the ARDL methods. The outcomes disclosed strong evidence of cointegration as F-statistics (overall and independent variables) and t-statistics of the dependent variables were significant. The long-run analysis revealed that EPU poses a threat to environmental sustainability by augmenting emissions levels. Surprisingly, clean energy consumption does not contribute to emissions reduction in the long-run. Economic growth boosts CO2 emissions, while urbanization is conducive to environmental quality supporting ecological modernization theory.The study detected causality from EPU to economic growth and emissions. Finally, based on the study outcomes, a policy framework is suggested to address the objectives of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 and 13.

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The digital economy (DE) plays a crucial role in green innovation (GI) and green development as a new economic form. Based on the panel data of 274 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019, this paper constructs a comprehensive DE index and conducts two-way fixed effect regression to explore its impact on GI capabilities and examines the mediating effect of industrial structure transformation and upgrading. The research results show that: (1) The development of the DE has significantly improved the GI capability of cities. (2) In terms of space, the development of DE and GI ability development in eastern cities outperform that in central and western regions. However, the development of eastern cities is almost saturated and slow, while the development of central and western cities is faster. (3) The DE has a significant role in promoting GI capabilities in the central and western regions. Although the eastern region has a positive impact, it is negligible. In terms of urban scale, the DE of the large, medium, and small cities positively affects GI capabilities to the effect. (4) The transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure mediate the relationship between the DE and GI. Based on the above conclusions, relevant suggestions for improving GI capabilities around the development of the DE and industrial transformation and upgrading must be devised.

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate financialization and asymmetric cost behavior using the Chinese listed companies over the period of 2009–2017. To examine the heterogeneous impacts of corporate financialization on asymmetric cost behavior, the paper analyzes the subsamples classified by different internal controls, compensation incentives, and agency problems. The multiple linear regression is used to test the research hypothesis. The research finds a negative relationship between corporate financialization and asymmetric cost behavior, which indicates that corporate financialization significantly weakens asymmetric cost behavior. Further studies show that the negative effect of corporate financialization on asymmetric cost behavior is mainly manifested in firms with good internal control quality, strong compensation incentive and low agency problem. On the contrary, the negative effect is insignificant in firms with poor internal control quality, weak compensation incentive and high agency problem. The results can not only enrich the existing literature, but also provide new evidence and inspiration for how to control asymmetric cost behavior of enterprises.

Undoubtedly, resource-based cities (RBCs) have significantly contributed to the socio-economic development of China; however, energy consumption intensified due to this development. Reducing energy consumption in RBCs and transforming the energy structure of RBCs are major challenges. To promote the energy structure transformation of RBCs, the Chinese government has introduced the Sustainable Development Policy for Resource Cities (SDPRC), but the effectiveness of SDPRC is still unclear. Therefore, this study uses the difference-in-difference (DID) approach to explore the impact of SDPRC on energy consumption scale (ECS) and energy consumption intensity (ECI) in RBCs based on panel data of 280 cities from 2006 to 2019. Firstly, the empirical results indicate that the implementation of SDPRC significantly reduces energy consumption in RBCs. The findings unfold that the inverted U-shaped relationship between SDPRC and ECS, while the effect on ECI has a certain lag, which is significant from the second year, and its impact increases persistently with the advancement of the policy. The stability test also verifies our conclusion. Secondly, the heterogeneity results show that the effect of SDPRC implementation varies across RBCs in different regions and development stages. Thirdly, the impact mechanism test result shows that controlling pollutant emissions and getting rid of resource dependency are important ways to reduce energy consumption in RBCs. However, the implementation of SDPRC does not promote the rationalization and transformation of industrial structure in RBCs. Based on the findings, policy recommendations are proposed for energy transformation and sustainable development of RBCs.