The diseconomies of scale found in smallholders’ agricultural production is a common problem faced by global agricultural development. Notable examples of regions in which this occurs include Central and Eastern Europe, India, Brazil, and China. Smallholders usually differ in their demands for socialized agricultural services due to scattered farmland, various soil conditions, different selections of crop varieties, and diverse farming arrangements. Such differences make it difficult for smallholders to cooperate on farmland scale management, resulting in a collective action dilemma. Based on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, this paper provides insights into the influencing factors and effects of smallholders’ utilization of socialized agricultural services and constructs a cooperative mechanism for the purpose of solving the collective action dilemma in rural areas of China. We found that household characteristics, biophysical conditions, attributes of community, and rules-in-use jointly generate the action situation in the process of smallholders’ cooperative utilization of agricultural socialized services. Among them, the rules-in-use not only have a direct impact on the action situation but also regulate the role of the other three sets of factors. Various factors and mechanisms affecting the cooperative utilization of socialized agricultural services by smallholders interact in the action arena and finally form relevant outcomes that can deal with the diseconomies of farmland fragmentation. These outcomes will be fed back to each external variable again along the feedback path, so as to promote the system and create a virtuous circle. This study provides a theoretical contribution to understanding smallholders’ cooperation in the process of agricultural large-scale operation, especially in regions and countries with a large number of smallholders.

In an increasingly digital age, studying how the digital economy affects carbon emissions is important for China’s dual carbon goals. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and regions in China from 2012 to 2020, the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions in China and the mechanism of its effect are empirically analyzed. This study reveals that the digital economy has an inverted U-shaped impact on China’s carbon emissions. Initially, it promotes carbon emissions but later inhibits them. The carbon emission reduction effect is more significant after the digital economy reaches the inflection point of the inverted U-shape in the more economically developed regions. Energy structure and energy use efficiency are the two key factors through which the digital economy affects China’s carbon emissions. Among them, the digital economy shows an inverted U-shaped effect on energy structure, which is first positive and then negative, and a positive U-shaped effect on energy use efficiency, which is first negative and then positive. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that: First, to achieve peak carbon and carbon neutrality, the digital economy needs to be strengthened and the foundations of the digital economy need to be consolidated. Second, the digital transformation of the energy sector should be accelerated, and digitalization should lead to the low-carbon energy transformation. Finally, in the process of developing the digital economy, attention should be paid to the rebound in energy consumption caused by a large number of basic digital facilities, and the low-carbon integration of the digital economy and traditional industries is of great significance in reducing carbon emissions.

The natural forest protection and restoration (NFPR) system is imperfect due to contradictions between the objectives of natural forest protection and the reality of situations, outdated cultivation concepts, conflicting interests among participating parties, and the lack of regulation guarantees and assessment criteria. These problems are not only common in China but also in international forest protection. As the NFPR system is more focused on the protection of natural forests, the level of natural forest restoration in China has been poor, with low natural forest quality and forest productivity. At the same time, the value of natural forest ecosystem services does not match the demand of farmers, forest management, and other multiple participating parties. As a result, except for the government, other multiple parties lack the intrinsic motivation to participate in NFPR, ultimately forming a sustainable management dilemma. Under the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, the objective of this research was to explore the influencing factors and outcomes of the participation of multiple parties in NFPR and to construct a multiple parties’ participation mechanism for solving this dilemma. This research found that among external variables, multiple parties’ characteristics, biophysical conditions, attributes of community, and rules-in-use jointly influence and constitute the driving mechanism of multiple parties’ participation in NFPR. The rules-in-use directly impact the participation action scenario and regulate the other three external variables. Various factors and mechanisms in NFPR interact in the action space and produce outcomes that create positive incentives for each external variable, thus promoting the whole mechanism to achieve a virtuous cycle of sustainable management. This study provides a theoretical contribution to understanding the behavior of multiple parties participating in NFPR.