This study investigates the deep-seated impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Macao, a mono-economy extremely dependent on the single factor of “tourism mobility”. We investigate a counter-intuitive phenomenon observed during the 2020–2022 shock: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) declined significantly, suggesting “apparent diversification”. Using counterfactual simulations and a Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) model, we quantitatively deconstruct this “resilience illusion”. The results confirm that the decline in the HHI was driven entirely by the “denominator effect” triggered by the collapse of the dominant industry’s (gaming) GVA; if the impact of this recession is excluded, the Counterfactual HHI was even higher than pre-pandemic levels, indicating that the structure did not undergo substantive optimization. Furthermore, inferential statistical tests confirmed the existence of significant “structural lag” in the labor market. This study further reveals a dual divergence mechanism based on “skill specificity”: in sectors with high skill universality (e.g., transport and catering), a structural shift toward “workforce casualization” occurred, manifested by a significant decline in the full-time ratio; conversely, in sectors with strong skill specificity (e.g., gaming and hospitality), firms tended toward “labor hoarding”. This study exposes the macro-indicator trap faced by tourism mono-economies under extreme shocks and provides new micro-evidence for understanding the heterogeneous scars in the service labor market.

Structural evolution within grassroots governance has reshaped the public policy implementation arena, yielding highly permeable boundaries between the state and society. Operating at the nexus of the bureaucracy and civic networks, boundary spanners serve as vital hubs that connect macro-level institutions with micro-level communities. Existing literature heavily favors the macro-structures of grassroots governance. A systematic, cross-contextual synthesis of the micro-level dilemmas and adaptive mechanisms confronting these frontline actors remains absent. Strictly adhering to the PRISMA guidelines, this study conducts a thematic synthesis of 100 high-quality empirical articles extracted from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in the identity attributes of boundary spanners. Their actor typology extends beyond grassroots-deployed state agents to include professional third parties and endogenous societal actors. Situated at the intersection of dual networks, these actors face significant role dilemmas. These manifest as institutional conflicts between upward accountability and downward responsiveness, imbalances between resource constraints and service expectations, and structural tensions between professional norms and informal relational logic. Facing these structural constraints, actors exercise micro-level agency. They develop multidimensional brokerage strategies centered on performative compliance, policy translation, and cross-boundary resource bricolage. Subsequent analysis reveals that the ultimate governance efficacy of boundary-spanning behavior exhibits high contextual dependence. The outcomes vary considerably, ranging from fostering social empowerment to resulting in symbolic implementation or institutional absorption. This review critiques the literature’s over-assumption of frontline actor agency. It urges future research to dismantle the Western-centric state–society dichotomy, introduce large-sample measurement tools, and shift the evaluation perspective from a process orientation to long-term public value generation. Such an approach will provide a more robust empirical foundation and methodological trajectory for advancing modern grassroots governance theory.

Chinese provinces combat forest fires and pest outbreaks largely by issuing policy documents, yet whether document strength corresponds to lower disaster losses—and which instruments work—remains untested at the province level. We coded the full text of 4503 fire prevention and pest control policies (estimation window 1998–2024), scoring issuing authority, genre force, and instrument strength, and aggregated scores into province-year policy stocks by dominant type: coercive mandates, incentives, and capacity-building. Linking these stocks to forest-masked MODIS active fires and yearbook pest records in two-way fixed-effects models, we found no average association between overall strength and losses. The null masked sharp type differences: a one-standard-deviation increase in incentive strength was associated with about 7% fewer fire points, robust under wild cluster bootstrap inference and Monte Carlo simulation—although not after multiple-comparison correction across the pre-specified family; capacity-building showed weaker, inference-sensitive associations; and coercive mandates—equaling three quarters of the documents—showed none. Associations emerged with a one-year lag and tracked sustained accumulation rather than issuance. For pest losses, results were directionally consistent but weaker. After the forest chief system rollout in 2021, the overall association turned significantly negative. These results help explain why aggregate policy measures often miss policy effects.

Electric cars and electric two-wheelers are transforming urban mobility along two parallel tracks, yet the two are usually studied separately, and evidence from a single policy environment in which both diffuse simultaneously remains scarce. Using monthly full-population vehicle registration records for 2000–2026 and official public charging and parking statistics from Macao, we compare the diffusion dynamics of the two tracks within one dense city. Threshold-crossing analysis shows that around the 2022 replacement subsidy and the accompanying build-out of public charging spots, the electric share of new two-wheeler registrations rose from 5% to 25% within 18 months, less than half the 37 months taken by cars; from 2024 to 2026, the two-wheeler share reached parity with and in most months exceeded that of cars. Lead-lag tests indicate that charging-spot expansion precedes two-wheeler fleet growth (Granger lag-1 p = 0.030; unfiltered distributed-lag joint p < 0.001), a pattern that weakens under seasonal adjustment and detrending (p = 0.186); no such precedence appears on the car track. Ample car parking plausibly favors private charging—a hypothesis, not a measured mechanism: parking spots do not establish charger access. Where two-wheelers are numerous and private parking scarce, public charging may enable their electrification, pending charging-access data.