The Yangtze River Economic Belt is the most important manufacturing economic belt in China. The level of manufacturing green innovation efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt directly affects the overall competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry. With panel data from 11 provinces and cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China for the period of 2008 to 2017, this paper applies the slacks-based measure (SBM)-data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and panel Tobit model to conduct an empirical study of the effects of government research and development subsidies and environmental regulations on the green innovation efficiency of the manufacturing industry of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The results show that, firstly, government R&D subsidies and environmental regulations are both conducive to improving the green innovation efficiency of the manufacturing industry of the Yangtze River Economic Belt; secondly, because of the fact that the interaction terms between government R&D subsidies and environmental regulations failed to pass the significance test, the positive moderating effects of R&D subsidies on environmental regulations and green innovation efficiency of the manufacturing industry are not obvious; thirdly, in terms of control variables, strengthening agglomeration is the only factor that is positively correlated with green innovation efficiency improvement of the manufacturing industry. Enterprise scale and industrial structure have negative effects on green innovation efficiency improvement, and the openness of economy has no correlation with green innovation efficiency.

Environmental regulation is an important driving force of green technology innovation. In this paper, environmental policy instruments are classified into three categories: command-control, market-incentive and social-will. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2017, a fixed effect model and a panel threshold regression model are used to test the heterogeneous effects of different types of environmental policy instruments on the green technology innovation in China. The results show that: (1) Overall, China’s environmental policy instruments do not provide sufficient impetus for green technology innovation; (2) The impact of command-control environmental policy instruments on green technology innovation has a single threshold effect. When its intensity exceeds a certain threshold, green technology innovation is improved. The impact of market-incentive environmental policy instruments on the green technology innovation shows a double threshold effect, that is to say, only when its intensity maintained within a reasonable interval, can green technology innovation be promoted by it; (3) There is significant spatial difference in the impact of different types of environmental policy instruments on green technology innovation. In order to induce green technology innovation, it is necessary to formulate a combined and differentiated environmental policy system, while rationally adjusting the strength of different types of environmental policy instruments.

China is confronted with the dual constraints of economic transformation and carbon emission reduction. As the digital economy is a key force in promoting economic transformation and optimizing industrial structure, it is crucial to analyze the digital economy’s impact on carbon emission reduction from the perspective of energy consumption and industrial value chain implications. We selected data from 251 prefecture-level cities and above in China from 2011 to 2019 as research samples, measured the development level of the digital economy using the entropy value method, and constructed relevant regression models based on two-way fixed effects, intermediary analysis, and moderation analysis. The research reveals that: (1) The digital economy has a significant contribution to carbon emission efficiency, and there are significant regional heterogeneity and city size differences; (2) The digital economy can improve carbon emission efficiency by reducing energy consumption. (3) From a value chain perspective, industrial structure rationalization weakens the carbon emission efficiency improvement effect of the digital economy to a certain extent, whereas industrial structure upgrading obviously enhances the carbon efficiency improvement effect of the digital economy. The above findings enrich the research in the field of digital economy and environmental governance, contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms by which the digital economy affects the carbon emission efficiency, as well as provide policy implications for enhancing the use of the digital economy in the regional energy consumption and industrial value chain.

Background: Over the last decade, the expenditure on public medical and health has increased greatly in China, however, problems as low efficiency and unfairness still exist. How to accurately describe the effectiveness of existing medical and health resources in combination with regional heterogeneity is of great significance to China’s medical and health reform. Methods: Based on provincial panel data for the period of 2005 to 2017, combining expected output and unexpected output, this paper constructs a super-efficiency three-stage SBM-DEA model, to measure and analyze the spatial-temporal heterogeneity characteristics and influencing factors of public medical and health efficiency (PMHE). Results: (1) After the impacts of random error and external environmental factors are removed, the mean value of overall PMHE is 0.9274, failing to reach DEA efficiency, and PMHE shows a fluctuated downward trend. (2) The adjusted PMHE level shows a prominent spatial imbalance at the stage 3. The average efficiency level is ranked by the East > the West > the Central > the Northeast. (3) The increases of GDP per capita and population density are beneficial to the improvement of PMHE, while income level and education level are disadvantageous to PMHE, and last, the urbanization level, an uncertain effect. (4) There is no σ convergence of the PMHE in the East, the Central and the West, that is, the internal differences may gradually expand in the future, while the Northeast shows a significant σ convergence trending of PMHE. (5) The state’s allocation of medical and health resources has undergone major changes during “The Twelfth Five-Year Plan”. Conclusion: This study innovatively incorporates undesired outputs of health care into the efficiency evaluation framework by constructing the main efficiency evaluation indicators. The results of the robust evaluation conclude that China’s existing investment in medical and health resources is generally not effective. Therefore, although China’s health care reform has made certain achievement, it is still necessary to expand the investment in health care resources.

This study examined the eHealth literacy, health knowledge, health behavior of a population of older Chinese adults, and the impact of using library or community activities for health information seeking. A survey was conducted among 215 participants 45 years or older. Data were analyzed using chi-square test, one-way analysis of variance, bivariate correlation, and multiple regression. The results showed that participants who were urban residents, non-farm workers, and had 9 years of education or more were more likely to use the library or community activities for health information seeking. Health behavior had a significant relationship with eHealth literacy and health knowledge. Both eHealth literacy and health knowledge showed a significant positive relationship with using the library or community activities for health information. These results support the idea that libraries play an important role in providing high-quality eHealth literacy services to enhance healthy behavior and health outcomes in their communities.