Energy poverty is one of the major challenges to global sustainable development, while digital development, as a significant trend of the current era, is considered a key pathway to transcend traditional energy governance frameworks. Anchored in provincial panel data spanning 30 regions across China from 2003 to 2023, this study systematically examines the impact and heterogeneity of digital development on energy poverty and further explores the underlying mechanisms and nonlinear characteristics. The findings show that digital development can significantly alleviate energy poverty, and this conclusion remains valid after addressing endogeneity issues and conducting a series of robustness tests. However, the poverty reduction effect of digital development exhibits significant regional heterogeneity: the mitigation effect in central and western regions is significantly stronger than that in eastern regions, the effect in northern regions is higher than that in southern regions, and the effect in energy-disadvantaged regions is better than that in advantageous regions. Additionally, digital development alleviates energy poverty through mediating pathways such as promoting non-agricultural employment, improving human capital levels, and driving technological innovation. Notably, digital development demonstrates threshold effects and quantile heterogeneity in relation to energy poverty, characterized by diminishing marginal returns as digital development progresses; regions with higher levels of energy poverty experience more significant poverty reduction effects from digital development. This research provides a theoretical basis for energy poverty governance under the global energy crisis and offers empirical references for other countries to achieve energy sustainability goals (SDG7) through context-specific digital transformations.

The mobility of data factors and the adoption of a collaborative innovation framework are key drivers influencing the gaps in total factor productivity (TFP) among enterprises in the digital economy. Using panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies between 2006 and 2022, this study empirically demonstrates how data factor flow reduces TFP gaps. The findings reveal that data factor flow enhances TFP convergence by facilitating knowledge diffusion, improving information transmission, and boosting innovation efficiency. However, the heterogeneity in enterprise RD efforts limits this convergence effect, highlighting the importance of collaborative innovation. The study further shows that the impact of data factor flow is more significant in smaller, privately owned enterprises in the eastern regions and in industries with low to high technology intensity and high market concentration. Key insights include (1) a positive synergy between government data openness policies and enterprise data flow, which reinforces the narrowing of TFP gaps; (2) a nonlinear relationship between data flow and TFP gaps, suggesting an optimal range for its maximum impact. The study concludes that an integrated framework optimizing both data governance and collaborative innovation ecosystems can foster innovation diffusion and support productivity-based competition. These findings provide valuable insights for innovation policy formulation and strategic decision-making in the digital economy.

How administrative-division adjustments influence agricultural production constitutes a vital issue to unpack the linkage between county-level urbanization and food security across China. This paper treats China's new round of county-to-city upgrading (CCU policy) as a quasi-natural experiment and uses county-level panel data from 2000 to 2022 to examine its effect on total grain production through a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The results show that CCU policy significantly increases county-level total grain output. This finding indicates that administrative upgrading does not simply crowd out agricultural production; instead, it may promote grain production through administrative empowerment. Mechanism analysis shows that CCU policy works mainly through three channels: improving agricultural production conditions, optimizing county-level factor allocation, and promoting the transformation of agricultural operations. Further analysis shows that the production-enhancing effect of CCU policy is accompanied by an increase in fertilizer input in the long run, suggesting that grain output growth may exhibit input-intensification characteristics and generate pressure on green agricultural production. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of CCU policy on total grain output is more pronounced in counties with higher terrain ruggedness, in non-major grain-producing areas, and in counties with stronger economic foundations. From the perspective of administrative empowerment, this study extends the literature on the agricultural consequences of county-level urbanization and provides empirical evidence for coordinating administrative division adjustment, grain production capacity, and green agricultural transformation.

Achieving China’s “dual-carbon” goals requires effective institutional innovation, and environmental courts may play an important role in this process. Using the establishment of environmental courts as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of environmental judicial specialization on carbon governance. Based on panel data for 284 Chinese cities from 2006 to 2022, we employ a multi-period difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of environmental courts on both total carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity. The results show that the establishment of environmental courts significantly reduces both measures. Mechanism analysis suggests that this effect operates through industrial restructuring and technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the effect is stronger in non-resource-based cities and cities with lower levels of industrial pollution. In addition, green finance plays a differentiated moderating role, suggesting that rule-of-law constraints may complement administrative governance, foster firms’ self-regulated low-carbon compliance, and enable market-based financial instruments to play a greater role. Overall, this paper highlights the role of environmental judicial reform in advancing China’s carbon governance and suggests that better coordination between environmental courts and green finance policies may help build a more effective and differentiated emissions reduction framework.