Scientifically judging the environmental effects of embedding in the global value chain (GVC) has important theoretical significance and practical value, especially for emerging economies, but there are few studies on the relationship between GVC embedment and environmental pollution in emerging economies. Based on the classical theory of Grossman, this study analyzed the mechanism framework of GVC embedment on environmental pollution and then used the panel data of 16 emerging economies from 1998 to 2019 for empirical tests. After using the FGLS regression model and a series of empirical tests, the main conclusions are as follows. (1) The impact of GVC embedment on environmental pollution in emerging economies includes five effects. The scale effect brings about the expansion of production activities and increases the emission of environmental pollutants. The technological effect refers to improvements in the level of clean technology, which are brought about by the acquisition and acceptance of “technology spillover” in the value chain. The structural effect is the reduction in pollutant emissions and improvement in the environment through economic upgrading. The income effect is a “demand push” to improve the environment and reduce pollution triggered by an increase in national income. The lock-in effect means that the leaders of the value chain hinder emerging economies from achieving high-level economic upgrades, intending to lock them into the links with relatively high pollution. These effects are not static but are interlinked and affect each other. (2) The results of the empirical study show that embedding in the GVC initially has a negative impact on the environment, but with the deepening of GVC embedment, environmental pollution will decrease; that is, it shows an inverted U-shaped relationship. (3) The density of energy use, the share of fossil fuels, and the per capita income of emerging economies are positively correlated with environmental pollution, while population density and manufacturing share are negatively correlated. This study also provides suggestions on how to improve the environment in the process of GVC embedment in the future.

Nowadays, public health issues are increasingly in the spotlight, and the role played by foreign direct investment (FDI) cannot be ignored, especially in developing countries. Scholars have discussed the influencing mechanism of FDI on public health from both positive and negative aspects, but there is little literature focused on the impact of FDI’s green technology spillovers. This paper explores the impact of spontaneous green technology progress induced by FDI, i.e., FDI’s green technology spillover effect, on the public health status of China. It constructs a theoretical model based on the cost discovery theory and uses the Global Malmquist–Luenberger Method to calculate the green technology spillover index; then, it empirically researches the impact of this spillover effect on public health based on the Grossman health product function, using Chinese provincial data from 2007 to 2019. After a series of robustness tests, this paper also discusses the regional heterogeneity and the influencing mechanism. The main conclusions are as follows: Firstly, there is a significant negative correlation between FDI’s green technology spillover and infant mortality, indicating that the spillover effect significantly promotes China’s public health. Secondly, the results of regional heterogeneity show that the spillover effect of green technology presents a decreasing trend from east to west regions. The threshold effect test results also show that, when the level of economic development is extremely low or exceeds a specific threshold, FDI’s green technology spillover will have a positive impact on public health. Finally, FDI’s green technology spillover improves public health by controlling environmental pollution and optimizing industrial activities, but it does not worsen public health by increasing income inequality. The conclusions of this paper provide empirical support and policy suggestions for rationally and effectively utilizing FDI to promote China’s public health in the future.

The pollution caused by foreign investment has become a serious concern of the host government and academia. Many studies have discussed much about the environmental impact of China’s OFDI in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) region, but ignored the impact of the BRI itself on China’s OFDI. This study uses the Global Malmquist–Luenberger index to measure the green technology spillover of China’s OFDI from 2005 to 2018 and studies the impact of BRI on this spillover effect with the DID (difference-in-difference) method. The results show that (1) the BRI has significantly increased the green technology spillover of China’s OFDI in countries along the routes. The heterogeneity study shows that such an effect is significant in middle- or low-income countries with high institutional quality or poor environmental performance, but not obvious in other countries. (2) The BRI promotes green technology spillover through the mechanism of increasing R&D investment, improving the environmental system, and accelerating the flow of production factors. This study provides a useful reference for developing a greener OFDI and promoting the sustainable development of regional cooperation.

The development trend of deepening regional trade agreements (RTAs) is becoming more prominent, traditional RTAs based on border terms continue to shift to deep RTAs based on the high level of border terms and a series of post-border terms, but the relationship between deep RTAs and residents’ health has not drawn much attention. Based on Gallup World Poll data from 2009 to 2017 covering 786,040 respondents in 143 countries, this study empirically examined the impact of deep RTAs on the health of residents as well as its influence mechanisms by using the combination of fixed effects and stepwise regression. The results show that deep RTAs have a significantly positive impact on residents’ health, which means that an increase in the depth of RTAs can improve residents’ health. However, the impact of deep RTAs on residents’ health is heterogeneous, caused by the different terms of RTAs, the different income levels of different countries, and the different types of residents. Meanwhile, deep RTAs mainly improve the health of residents through employment effects and environmental effects. This study highlights the importance of deep RTAs for improving the health of residents and provides new ideas for governments to assist in the formulation of policies that can effectively improve their residents’ health.

With the rapid development of the economy and the transformation of social contradictions, the economic development model in China has also changed, and a high-quality economic development model has been proposed. This paper uses the entropy method to measure the level of innovation and high-quality economic development in nine prefecture-level cities in Fujian Province from 2011 to 2020, and finds that the overall level shows an increasing trend year by year, but there are obvious regional differences. By constructing a grey correlation degree model, it is found that the innovation subsystem and the high-quality economic development are strongly correlated, the development level of innovation and the subsystem of high-quality economic development are both strongly correlated, the grey correlation degree from high to low is green, coordinated, shared, and livelihood, indicating that innovation has a significant impact on high-quality economic development. Based on the research results, countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to promote the coordinated development of innovation and high-quality economy.