Mental health problems are a leading cause of disability in both developed and developing countries, and the consequences of mental health disorders for individuals, families, and society as a whole could be severe and costly. To supplement relevant research and provide insightful policy suggestions to families, government and societies, this study investigates the nexus between natural disasters and mental health for middle-aged and older adults in rural China. Based on data of 8721 observations from the 2014 China Family Panel Studies, we estimate the effects of natural disasters on mental health using ordinary least squares and propensity score matching. Our findings suggest that natural disasters have a significant negative effect on middle-aged and older adults’ mental health in the case of rural China. This effect is heterogeneous depending on individuals’ education level and their agricultural production status. Finally, individuals’ happiness and life satisfaction are shown to be the potential mechanism through which the effect of natural disasters on mental health operates.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of environmental regulations on trade patterns, in terms of trade in environmental goods listed in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Environmental goods are defined here as those that enable sustainable growth and reduce pollution from human activity. For this reason, issues on environmental goods can be put at the forefront to analyze the linkage between environmental regulations and trade flows in the perspective of international institutions. Within the framework of a gravity model, panel data on 112 exporter countries and 53 importer countries is used at a bilateral level over the period of 1989–2013 to gain an understanding of this trade-environmental regulation nexus. This paper proxies the environmental policies by employing the z-score, which includes three comprehensive environmental indicators. The findings indicate that the strict environmental policies impede the trade, and this effect is greater in terms of the environmental goods listed in APEC compared to the ones listed in OECD. Finally, although these stringent environmental regulations reduce the trade flows, they can help to foster the demand for environmentally-friendly products.

Individuals' health status is an essential indicator of the overall strength of a country. Existing literature has studied the determinants of individuals' health, but there is no direct evidence to date on the impact of mobile payment on health. To supplement relevant research and provide insightful policy suggestions to families, government and societies, based on data of 32,058 observations from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey, we estimate the effects of mobile payment on physical health using ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares strategy. This paper provides direct evidence that mobile payment has a positive impact on citizens' physical health. Heterogeneity analysis shows that mobile payment has a more profound impact on the health of citizens who are rural and less educated. Finally, further findings in this paper suggest that commercial insurance and leisure consumption are the mechanism through which the link between mobile payment and individuals' health operates.

This paper investigates whether new donors use foreign aid to facilitate their integration in the world economy. With this aim, the effect of foreign aid on gross trade and global value chains (GVC) is estimated for a sample of 12 new donors and 130 recipients over the period from 2000 to 2014. The results from a theoretically justified gravity model show that the aid effects are heterogeneous across donors and, although weak in the short run for GVC, they are however sizable in the long run. Foreign aid has a positive impact on gross trade for all donors, but only for some of them on the length of GVC. In particular, aid provided by Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Korea, Thailand and Turkey fosters the two forms of internationalization, whereas aid given by Russia and Israel only affects gross exports. Surprisingly, the magnitude of the aid effects is smaller for China than for other donors.

This paper studies the impact of trade openness and the proportion of exporters on environmental quality through the scale, composition and technique effects from 1998 to 2007 using firm- and city-level data for 287 Chinese cities. Our results reveal that, on average, trade openness has a detrimental impact on the environment in Chinese cities, but this impact remains heterogeneous across regions. A higher proportion of exporters improves the environment in central and eastern cities while generating nevertheless more pollution in western cities. As regards the sector-specific impact, we find that the higher proportion of exporters in the mining and less-polluting manufacturing sectors in eastern cities diminishes the emissions of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5). Our finding also suggests that a pollution haven effect emerges in China at the city level. Finally, our results confirm the presence of an environmental Kuznets curve effect for the PM2.5 pollutant across Chinese cities.