Since the introduction of a series of collective forest tenure reforms in China, diverse forestland mortgage financial products have been available even in rural areas. It is difficult for rural households to make appropriate financial decisions in order to increase their income due to a lack of financial knowledge and relevant skills. It is important to analyze the relationship between financial literacy, borrowing behavior, and rural household income. Based on the learning-by-doing theory, the credit constraint theory, and the data obtained from the survey of 460 households in five rural countries of Liaoning Province, alternative econometric models were used to estimate the “Financial Literacy-Borrowing Behavior-Household Income” transmission channel. The findings reveal that the financial literacy levels are positively associated with household income and that there is an inverted U relationship between them which is low on both sides and high in the middle. In addition, the financial literacy has a significantly positive effect on the farmers’ credit behavior, which in turn promotes their income growth. The results provide a new perspective on the study and a clear explanation of the role of financial literacy in improving the loan amountsavailable in China’s rural areas. The paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers to prioritize financial education that will promote and support credit constraint reduction in collective forest areas.

China’s central government has issued several governance policies for protected areas since 2015. Some of these affected the use of natural resources by the farmers living in protected areas. Tourism is an important source of income for farmers around such areas. Based on the survey data of 1,028 farmer households, this study use propensity score matching (PSM) method to solve the samples selection bias and improve the accuracy of evaluation. For both the vertical and horizontal, this study explores the changes in the impact of tourism on farmers’ household income under regulatory policies. Longitudinally, before the introduction of these policies, the income effect of tourism on the per capita net income of households was about 49.21%, while this percentage dropped to 41.36% after their introduction. Horizontally, before these policies were implemented, the farmers involved in the protected areas’ tourism experienced 16.30% higher tourism income effect than those outside protected areas. Post implementation, the income effect of tourism in protected areas dropped by 9.83%. Empirical data based on the abovementioned were used to verify the inhibitory effect of the existing control policies on tourism in protected areas, and put forward the direction of policies reform in China or state governance-protected areas in other countries.

Improving the subjective well-being of farmers is the goal of rural revitalization. Based on the data from a survey of 956 farmers from 44 villages in six nature reserves in Liaoning province and the least squares regression model, this paper studies the impact of ecological environment quality on the subjective well-being of farmers around nature reserves and analyzes the mediating role of environmental cognition in the impact of ecological environment quality on the well-being of farmers around nature reserves. The results show that in terms of ecological environment quality, both the natural environment and the social environment have a significant positive impact on the subjective well-being of farmers around nature reserves. For every 1% improvement in the following aspects, the subjective well-being of rural households increases as follows: air quality: 25%, soil and vegetation conditions: 46%, wildlife population: 27%, medical service facilities: 23%, basic living facilities: 30%, environmental beautification facilities: 33%. Environmental cognition plays a mediating role between ecological environment quality and farmers’ subjective well-being. The influence of the natural environment and social environment on the subjective well-being of farmers outside nature reserves is higher than that inside nature reserves. This paper enriches the research on subjective well-being to a certain extent, analyzes the mechanism of the ecological environment’s influence on farmers’ subjective well-being, and provides theoretical reference for further improving farmers’ subjective well-being and promoting ecological civilization construction.

Forest recreation not only enables directly creates impacts on the entire tourism industry but also indirectly creates effects on other industries composed in an economic system via inter-industrial interdependence, such as backward and forward linkages or interactions. However, due to the lack of data available, few studies have been made exclusively for evaluating the impacts of forest recreation on the economy in a national dimension. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the economic impacts of the forest recreation industry. Using an input–output modeling approach, the industrial linkage and a cluster of economic multipliers are estimated based on new input–output tables for 2012, 2017, and 2018 that includes the forest recreation industry. The results indicate that, first, both the forward and backward linkages caused by forest recreation show rising trends over the analysis periods and the backward linkages are stronger than forward linkages. Second, the economic contribution of forest recreation has been strengthened, although the multipliers have shown a downward trend. The total output impact in 2018 is calculated to be $838.187 billion, with a total added impact of $352.713 billion. Furthermore, forest recreation could create over 18 million jobs with an average annual growth rate of 15.73%, which are mainly in the catering, accommodation, and retail industries with low skill requirements. Finally, policy applications are proposed to provide reliable and useful information for future planning and investment decision associated with the forestry and ecotourism industry.

This paper investigates the critical role of government policies in promoting green development through enterprise-level green innovation (GI). We specifically examine the impact of environmental subsidies (ES) on heavily polluting enterprises and analyze how government environmental enforcement (EE) moderates this relationship. Furthermore, we explore how these effects vary across different ES characteristics and allocation patterns. Using data from heavy-polluting enterprises listed on China’s A-share market from 2012 to 2021, our analysis reveals several key findings. First, ES has unexpectedly hindered GI in heavily polluting enterprises. This negative effect stems from both ES characteristics and allocation patterns. Specifically, advance subsidies, targeted subsidies, and pollution prevention subsidies prove ineffective. The adverse impact of ES on GI is particularly pronounced in state-owned enterprises, companies lacking environmental protection investments, and firms engaging in earnings management practices. However, our findings indicate that strong environmental enforcement (EE) can effectively mitigate these ES-related issues. Under strict EE, ES demonstrates a positive effect on GI and addresses problems associated with both ES design characteristics and allocation patterns. These results offer valuable insights for government policymakers, particularly in developing countries undergoing green transition, to design and implement more effective environmental policies.