Resilience is system specific rather than shock specific. This study proposes a new measure of engineering resilience based on the theories of simple harmonic motion and regime switching, and it examines the determinants of resilience among China’s regional economies to the 2008 subprime crisis. Enhancing industrial diversity, human capital stock, trade openness and financial liberalization can improve economic resilience. Pre-crisis economic performance had a negative effect on regional economic resilience in China. More efforts are needed to enhance regional economic resilience in China by fostering entrepreneurship. The results provide information for policies to address external shocks and promote sustainable regional economic development.

This paper aimed to study how industrial air pollution impacts crop yield by investigating the relationship between output and changes in factors. A translog production function was estimated in the context of stochastic frontier analysis using data collected from a field survey in the case of corn. The interaction between the factors as well as the impact of industrial air pollution on the relationship between factors was analyzed using numerical simulation, followed by the estimation of economic losses of corn yield in the polluted area. Results show that industrial air pollution causes a decrease in crop yield for two reasons. First, industrial air pollution changes the output elasticities of production factors and reduces its absolute amount. Second, industrial air pollution causes the relationship between labor and capital, labor and chemicals, capital and seeds to change from substitutable to complementary; it also resulted in an opposite result for the relationship between capital and chemicals. The paper presents a new explanation of how industrial air pollution affects agricultural production from an economic perspective.

Promoting biodiesel industrialization is not only an important measure in addressing the energy crisis and global warming but is also a driver for industrial restructuring and rural development. To promote the development of the biofuel industry, the Chinese central government has set a target that biofuel will account for 15% of transport energy consumption by 2020. The macroeconomic impacts of this policy, however, are unknown. This paper estimates the economic and environmental impacts on Yunnan of meeting this target using a demand-driven input–output model for Jatropha curcas L. biodiesel. The study combines life-cycle analysis and input–output analysis to establish the industrial relationship of the biodiesel sector with other sectors. The results show that meeting the biofuel policy target in 2020 will generate 296,780 thousand job opportunities annually (man-year) and increase household income. Meeting this target will also lower carbon emission by 11.39 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, valued at 2.41 billion Yuan. However, meeting the target will decrease tax revenue by 1.8 billion Yuan and reduce the provincial gross domestic product by 754.95 million Yuan. Thus, the industrialization of J. curcas L. biodiesel can contribute to the development of a green economy and is a positive response to the policies of energy conservation and emission reduction. The promotion of biodiesel production, however, requires a trade-off between economic and environmental targets.