No abstract

Although China has a high rate of economic development, it still faces the problems of unstable industrial structure, low industrial level, and large carbon emissions, which pose huge challenges to China’s sustainable development. China is working hard to develop producer services to achieve industrial transformation and reduce carbon emissions. In this context, there is an extremely urgent need to conduct academic research on changes in producer service agglomeration and carbon emissions. Whether the producer service industry has agglomeration characteristics, and whether the producer service industry affects carbon emissions through multiple paths, are issues worthy of attention. Therefore, this paper takes China as the research area, selects the provincial administrative unit as the research sample, and conducts research on these issues by using exploratory spatial data analysis methods and various spatial econometric models under the guidance of the relevant theories of new economic geography. Our research finds that producer services have significant spatial agglomeration characteristics, and they also have significant spatial differentiation patterns. In addition, the agglomeration of producer services can significantly promote the reduction of carbon emissions and can show obvious spillover effects. Finally, in response to the research conclusions of this paper, we also put forward countermeasures and suggestions from the perspective of the common development of producer service industry and manufacturing industry, hoping to promote China’s transformation from industrial economy to service economy, to maximize the use of producer service industry accumulated dividends.

Industrial co-agglomeration plays a significant role in the moving up of the manufacturing industry in the value chain and in transforming China from a manufacturing giant into a world manufacturing power. This study establishes a co-aggregation index to explore spatio-temporal changes of the co-agglomeration between manufacturing and producer services in 30 provinces of China from 2004 to 2019. Furthermore, we use spatial Durbin model to analyze the impact of industrial co-agglomeration on air pollution reduction. We find that (1) the co-agglomeration index varies remarkably at spatio-temporal scale; (2) high co-agglomeration index is mainly distributed in eastern and central China, while low co-agglomeration index is mainly located in the western region; (3) the co-agglomeration index presents a cluster pattern among provinces, with the cluster of high value in eastern China and the cluster of low value in western China; and (4) the co-agglomeration between manufacturing and producer services is proven effetely to reduce air pollution, which is accompanied with spatial spillover effect. We also provided policy implications in line with diverse industries, multi hierarchies, and different regions, promoting the coordination of manufacturing and producer services and improving air quality.

Due to the spike in online-retail demand during the pandemic, couriers confront increased workload and safety concerns, posing significant social-sustainability challenges for courier companies. This study explores the impact of social-sustainability practices on couriers’ job satisfaction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We designed the research model from the theoretical lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, equity, and psychological-safety theories. We collected the views of 428 couriers from the Chinese market, where there is a developed e-commerce industry. The structural-equation-model analysis results found that social-sustainability practices such as working environment, working conditions, health and safety, education, and training positively affected the job satisfaction of couriers during the pandemic through the mediators (psychological safety and perceived fairness). These findings provide empirical recommendations for improving employees’ job satisfaction in courier companies during COVID-19 and addressing the social-sustainability issues of courier companies.

As the emergence of digital finance is relatively short, research results on digital finance mainly focus on products, services, coverage, policies, etc. The mechanism and role of digital finance in influencing green development are still lacking attention. In the above context, this paper used spatial analysis methods to describe spatiotemporal characteristics in detail, and empirically tested the mechanism and path of digital finance affecting green development through spatial econometric models and intermediary models. The results showed that: (1) During the study period, digital finance and green development have been improved to varying degrees, but the inter-provincial differences are still obvious. (2) The spatial trends of digital finance and green development are similar, and the overall performance is “high in the east, low in the west, high in the south, and low in the north”. (3) The empirical tests found that digital finance is an effective force to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP and improve the level of green development. It validates Hypothesis 1. Meanwhile, the Heterogeneity effect is noteworthy due to different regions, types, and levels. (4) The promotion of green development by digital finance is mainly concentrated in the local region and has not yet shown a significant green spillover effect for surrounding areas. It validates Hypothesis 2. (5) Energy structure, industrial upgrading, and technological progress are three paths for digital finance affecting green development. Hypothesis 3 is verified. Finally, the innovation of this paper lies in the design of the research framework, diversity of research methods, and policy implications. The main contribution is to enrich and expand the environmental finance theory and provide detailed empirical evidence. In addition, we put forward effective measures and suggestions including local governments, financial institutions, and enterprises based on the empirical results. Local governments should pay attention to policy implementation and operation effects, financial institutions constantly need to strengthen the supply of advanced digital financial products and services, and enterprises should attach importance to the use of digital financial tools to achieve green and low-carbon development in the future.