The Environmental Kuznets Curve is a key indicator to measure the relationship between the environmental pollution level and economic development. Considering that China’s economic development is a superposing process of multiple industrial technologies, in order to restore the classical Environmental Kuznets Curve estimation as much as possible, this paper selects the data of six types of pollutants between provinces (except Tibet) in China during 2011–2017 to construct a comprehensive environmental pollution degree indicator, which is more objective than the single indicator in traditional research; estimates the Environmental Kuznets Curve with per capita disposable income; and then conducts a panel regression analysis based on the econometric model. Research shows that the relationship between comprehensive environmental pollution and economic development basically presents an inverted U-shape, which is consistent with the basic characteristics of the traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve, and the inflection point of the curve is 34,243.2 in RMB. Finally, according to the results, effective suggestions are put forward to correctly handle the relationship between economic development and environmental governance and optimize the path of environmental governance in China.

Straw resources are abundant in Jiangsu province, the utilization and burning of straw is an important problem in agriculture carbon emission reduction. In order to analyze the effect of straw’s comprehensive utilization technology on agricultural carbon emission, the STIRPAT model is introduced, which takes straw utilization technology as the core explanatory variable while other influencing factors as control variables, and the ridge regression is adopted to conduct an empirical analysis on the influencing factors of agricultural carbon emission in Jiangsu province from 2008 to 2018. The results demonstrate that for every 1% increasing of straw’s comprehensive utilization technology, agriculture carbon emission will be reduced by 0.17%; the labor force is the biggest driver of agriculture carbon emissions; agriculture economic development, energy consumption takes a certain inhibitory effect on agriculture carbon emissions, but not very great.

Against the backdrop of tightened credit conditions, external financing constraints have increasingly become an important factor affecting enterprises’ high-quality development. This study focuses on the impact of financing constraints on the high-quality development of Chinese listed firms and constructs an analytical framework involving investment efficiency as a mediator and contextual factors such as managerial effectiveness and internal control quality as moderators. Using a longitudinal dataset of China’s A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2021, multivariate regression and mediation effect tests are conducted. The observational findings reveal a statistically meaningful U-shaped association between financial constraints and the high-quality development of enterprises. Further analysis confirms that investment efficiency partially mediates the relationship between financing constraints and high-quality development, while managerial effectiveness and internal control quality play significant moderating roles in this relationship. Additionally, the study reveals heterogeneous impacts of financing constraints on high-quality development across different regions. These findings provide insights into how enterprises can mitigate the adverse effects of financing constraints and promote high-quality development.

In the process of evaluating the quality of a company’s development, the issues related to production capacity and environmental pollution have emerged as significant concerns. Drawing on the methodologies employed in previous related research, this study utilizes the Data Envelopment Analysis with relaxation variables and the Global Malmquist–Luenberger index to measure the green total factor productivity of Chinese heavy-polluting enterprises. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) It is clearly demonstrated that higher managerial effectiveness has a substantial positive impact on the improvement of a company’s green total factor productivity; (2) the digitalization progress within enterprises serves as a moderating factor in the relationship between managerial effectiveness and green total factor productivity; (3) the extent of financial constraints acts as a mediating variable, intervening in the relationship between managerial efficiency and green total factor productivity; and (4) a threshold effect is detected between managerial effectiveness and the debt repayment pressure faced by enterprises. When the threshold values of managerial effectiveness or the quick ratio are surpassed, the influence of managerial effectiveness on the green total factor productivity of enterprises will undergo a change.