The digital economy plays an important role in society and the economy. However, we know little about what factors affect the development of the digital economy. Using a self-developed index for measuring Chinese provincial-level digital economy development, this paper examines the impact of intellectual property protection on the digital economy. We find that there is a U-shaped relationship between intellectual property protection and digital economy. Our findings remain valid after a battery of robustness tests. Our findings support the importance of intellectual property protection in developing the digital economy.

This paper examines the impact of China’s new environmental protection law on green innovation. Using a large sample of Chinese prefecture‐level cities for the 2010–2016 period and the difference‐in‐differences (DID) methodology, we provide strong evidence that the new environmental protection law promotes green innovation. This finding is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests. The micromechanism analysis shows that the new environmental protection law can promote green innovation by imposing stricter financial constraints on enterprises in high‐pollution industries and increasing their incentives for green innovation to meet green credit requirements. Further, we find that the impact of the new environmental protection law on green innovation is more prominent in prefecture‐level cities with a lower level of banking competition and for prefecture‐level cities with stronger intellectual property protection. Overall, these findings suggest that the new environmental protection law has played an important role in promoting green innovation in China. To improve the effect of the new environmental protection law on green innovation, the government can consider lowering banking competition and strengthening intellectual property protection.

This paper investigates the impact of high-speed railway (HSR) on rural poverty alleviation in China. Using a large sample of Chinese prefecture-level cities for the 2003–2013 period, we provide evidence that HSR has a positive effect on rural poverty alleviation. This finding is robust to a battery of robustness tests. In addition, we find that HSR can reduce rural poverty by improving employment rates in the manufacturing and construction industries. Our study suggests that HSR can play an important role in rural poverty alleviation.

Using a sample of 1,595 Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and the Ordinary Least Squares method, we find that major government-background consumers have a positive effect on corporate green innovation. This finding is robust to a battery of tests. Mechanism tests suggest that major government-background consumers promote corporate green innovation output by alleviating financial constraints rather than by providing information feedback. Further analysis shows that major government-background consumers improve green innovation efficiency and are conducive to green invention innovation and green utility innovation. Finally, we find that stronger intellectual property protection strengthens the association between major government-background consumers and corporate green innovation. Our study suggests that the identification of larger consumers plays an important role in green innovation.