Developing new energy is critical to China’s green and low-carbon development. Therefore, in 2014, the Chinese government promulgated a vital innovation policy, namely, the New Energy Demonstration City Policy (NEDCP), which is expected to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in Chinese cities. Is the NEDCP facilitating green and low-carbon development in China, and if so, how? Based on unbalanced panel data from 2003 to 2017 at the city level in China, in this study we evaluate the impact of the NEDCP on green and low-carbon development using the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method. We find that the NEDCP can significantly contribute to green and low-carbon development in China. After various robustness tests, our results are still valid. According to the heterogeneity analysis, non-resource and non-old industrial-base cities have a greater positive impact from this policy. The mechanism analysis denotes that the positive policy effect works by upgrading the industrial structure and stimulating urban innovation. The substantial empirical evidence presented in this paper supports the continued promotion and implementation of new-energy demonstration cities.

In recent years, climate change has attracted great attention from governments and promoted the booming of the new energy market indirectly. However, this market will be influenced by traditional energy, rare earth and technology markets. Hence, it is necessary to incorporate these markets into an analytical framework simultaneously and analyse their relationships. Based on the GARCH-vine-copula-EVT model considering extreme risks, we investigate the connectedness between crude oil, coal, rare earth, new energy, and technology markets. The results show that the technology market is most closely associated with the new energy market; the rare earth market reacts as an intermediary market between the new energy market and fossil fuel markets. When taking the rare earth market as the conditional market, the connectedness between the new energy and the other four markets weakens and even becomes negative. Besides, we find that the COVID-19 epidemic has increased the connectedness between these target markets. Finally, the backtesting results of value at risk and expected shortfall show that the GARCH-vine-copula-EVT model considering extreme risks can depict the risk dependence structure between these target markets well. Our study has important reference significance for market participants, risk managers and investors.

This paper aims to analyze and compare the ability of bitcoin, gold, and dollar to diversify the risk of traditional market such as crude oil and stock markets. Specifically, we model the linkages between bitcoin, gold, dollar, crude oil, and stock markets using the GARCH‐EVT‐copula approach. The results show that the gold market is in the central position among these markets, which is consistent with the status of gold as a major safe asset. Before the outbreak of COVID‐19, bitcoin and the dollar also had the ability to diversify risks, although less effective than gold. However, during the COVID‐19 period, gold loses its dominant position and gold, bitcoin, and dollar can no longer act as a hedge. We measure the value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) of simulated portfolios constructed based on these five markets and use several backtesting methods to check the validity of the risk measures. The backtesting results show that our model can provide accurate risk measures before and within the COVID‐19 period, which may help investors and risk managers construct the optimal portfolios.

To make clear what role the Urban and Rural Residents Basic Medical Insurance (URRBMI) plays in the inequality in health and healthcare, this article combines the time‐varying DID method with the concentration index to conduct an empirical study. We find that the URRBMI improves health but expands health inequality among different income groups, with its contribution growing over time. Besides, the URRBMI significantly promotes healthcare utilization, reduces the medical burden, and narrows the gap among different income groups, though this effect is generally downward. These findings help clarify what deserves more attention to enlarge benefits and reduce inequality in this medical reform and provide policy implications for policymakers. Increasing investment in medical resources and constructing the hierarchical medical system and medical treatment combination may make a difference.

Developing new energy is critical to China's green and low-carbon development. And the New Energy Demonstration City Policy (NEDCP) is a vital innovation policy that inspires the development of new energy. Is the NEDCP facilitating green and low-carbon development, if so, how? Employing unbalanced panel data from 2003 to 2017, the impact of NEDCP on green and low-carbon development was studied by using the "difference in difference" (DID) model. We find that this policy can take significantly role. After various robustness tests, our results are still valid. According to the heterogeneity analysis, non-resource and non-old industrial base cities have a greater positive impact from this policy. The mechanism analysis denotes that the positive policy effect works through upgrading the industrial structure and stimulating urban innovation. The substantial empirical evidence presented in this article supports the continued promotion and implementation of new energy demonstration cities.