This research implements the panel data control method to evaluate the stimulative effects of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative on trade performance in China. We constructed a counterfactual of China’s trade surplus by exploiting the unobservable common factors that create observable trade balances among other countries. We also modified the traditional control group selection by extending it to the Elastic-Net method. This study found the following: (i) China’s annual trade surplus increased sharply by 10.69% on average since 2015. In contrast, analysis of the counterfactual showed that the net exports of China would have remained constant without the stimulation of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative; (ii) These results are robust to exports growth rates and checking by various control group selections; (iii) Although the analysis shows return to an average trading balance, we should not underestimate the benefits of the initiative in the long run.

Since air pollution is an important factor hindering China’s economic development, China has passed a series of bills to control air pollution. However, we still lack an understanding of the status of environmental efficiency in regard to air pollution, especially PM_2.5 (diameter of fine particulate matter less than 2.5 μm) pollution. Using panel data on ten major Chinese city groups from 2004 to 2016, we first estimate the environmental efficiency of PM_2.5 by epsilon-based measure (EBM) meta-frontier model. The results show that there are large differences in PM_2.5 environmental efficiency between cities and city groups. The cities with the highest environmental efficiency are the most economically developed cities and the city group with the highest environmental efficiency is mainly the eastern city group. Then, we use the meta-frontier Malmquist EBM model to measure the meta-frontier Malmquist total factor productivity index (MMPI) in each city group. The results indicate that, overall, China’s environmental total factor productivity declined by 3.68% and 3.49% when considering or not the influence of outside sources, respectively. Finally, we decompose the MMPI into four indexes, namely, the efficiency change (EC) index, the best practice gap change (BPC) index, the pure technological catch-up (PTCU) index, and the frontier catch-up (FCU) index. We find that the trend of the MMPI is consistent with those of the BPC and PTCU indexes, which indicates that the innovation effect of the BPC and PTCU indexes are the main driving forces for productivity growth. The EC and FCU effect are the main forces hindering productivity growth.

China has shifted its focus from export-led growth to technology-driven growth. The “One Belt, One Road” initiative (OBOR) is aimed at promoting economic integration with the rest of the world that might boost China’s ability to upgrade its manufacturers. We evaluate the impact of the OBOR initiative on the manufacturing industries of China. In other words, we examine whether the greater openness entailed by the initiative has been a catalyst for upgrading China’s export portfolio. We demonstrate that the proposition has been such a catalyst formally and adduce some empirical support for the proposition by using a panel of the top 80 exporting countries in the world during the period from 2002–2017 to evaluate the impact of the economic integration brought by the OBOR in terms of upgrades to Chinese manufacturers. Meanwhile, when domestic R&D generates knowledge spillover, the benefits of greater openness become partly indeterminate, thus counterfactual analysis was adopted to preclude potential endogeneity. By relating the values of exports at the two-digit harmonized system level to data on sectors to conduct integration within global production networks, we find that the greater openness brought by the OBOR initiative has actively increased manufacturing complexity and facilitated industrial upgrading in China.

Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between income inequality and objective environmental pollution, but few focus on the nexus between income inequality and subjective environmental pollution (SEP). Using micro data from the Chinese General Society Survey (CGSS) in 2013 and official statistical data at the provincial level, this paper tests the impact of individual-level income inequality on subjective environmental pollution in China. The results show that individual-level income inequality has an inverted U-shape relationship with subjective environmental pollution, which indicates that increasing the income inequality at the individual level will first rise and then reduce their perceived subjective environmental pollution after reaching the peak. For about 84% of respondents, their subjective environmental pollution decreases with the increase of individual-level income inequality. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analyses show that the income inequality of urban residents and of the locals have an inverted U-shape effect on SEP, and the SEP of females and of individuals with positive environmental attitude are more sensitive to the effect of income inequality. Additionally, we find that subjective well-being plays a mediating role in the relation between income inequality and SEP. Individual income inequality decreases their self-reported well-being, and an increase in well-being has a negative effect on their subjectively perceived environmental quality. We also find non-television media exposures, such as newspaper, magazine, broadcasting, Internet, and mobile custom messages, will amplify the effect of individual-level income inequality on subjective environmental pollution.