This paper uses the methods of System Generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM), mediation effect and linkage effect to investigate the relationship among social organization participation, government governance and the equalization of basic public services from 2007 to 2017 in China. The empirical results show that the participation of social organizations and improvement in the government governance can promote the equalization of basic public services. The government has a greater capacity to drive the equalization of basic public services, but the density of social organizations can serve as a mediator in the equalization of basic public services. The government governance and social organization density have a strong linkage effect, but the link with social organization quality is weak. Furthermore, a linkage effect is evident in medical and health care, public education, environmental protection, and public culture but not in public science and social welfare.

Based on the panel data of 106 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China from 2007 to 2016, this paper explores the impact of city centrality on the green innovation efficiency and proves the mediation effect of migrants by using spatial econometric model. The results show that there are more and more innovation contacts between cities, and the innovation network is becoming more and more dense. The core cities of the downstream innovation network are mainly Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Wuxi, Changzhou, Suzhou and Hangzhou; the core cities in the midstream are mainly Wuhan, Changsha and Yichun; the core cities in the upstream are Chengdu and Bazhong. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between city centrality and green innovation efficiency. In addition, the influence curve of city centrality on the green innovation efficiency of surrounding cities is also inverted U-shaped. Cities with high city centrality attract a large number of migrants that come from cities with lower centrality to improve the green innovation efficiency, but the green innovation efficiency of cities with low city centrality will decline due to lack of talents.

At present, China is in a critical period of transition from labor-intensive industries to capital- and technology-intensive industries. Accordingly, the increasing labor force mobility among Chinese cities has promoted competition over production factors among regions, having a significant impact on local governments’ fiscal expenditure structure. A theoretical analysis shows that the competition of livelihood public good expenditures is playing an increasingly important role in the factor flow competition. Different labor forces’ demand for different public goods and local governments’ demand for different labor forces affect the structural preference of local government fiscal expenditures. Based on panel data on Chinese prefecture-level cities in 2010–2016, this paper empirically tests the impact of different labor mobilities on the structure of local government fiscal expenditures, finding that current decision making on labor mobility is increasingly sensitive to the supply of livelihood public goods, and strengthening labor mobility has reversed the expenditure bias historically caused by the government’s simple capital competition. After dividing the mobile labor force based on whether the labor is settled in the current year, the two labor force types’ demand for different livelihood public goods was found to be different. To attract different labor inflows, local governments should promote an increase in relevant livelihood public good expenditures, showing a strategic fiscal expenditure structural bias. Specifically, with increasing new added general labor mobility, local goverments will increase the proportion of fiscal expenditures on education and medical care, combined with the increase of newly added registered labor mobility, which will correspondingly increase the proportion of environmental protection expenditures.

Does the development of a high-speed railway (HSR) have a significant impact on the equalization of medical and health resources allocated among cities? Based on the panel data of 67 cities in China from 2007 to 2016, this paper investigates the direct and dynamic effects of HSR development on the equalization of medical and health services by using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. The empirical results show that an HSR connection significantly reduces the equalization level of medical and health services in cities and that the effect is larger for the period from the year of the connection to the second year. However, in the long term, HSR development improves the equalization level of medical and health services in cities. Heterogeneity tests show that the effect of the HSR connection shows an “N”-shaped trend under different city scales, the equalization level of medical resources in the largest cities benefit the most from HSR development, and the Eastern and Western regions of China are more sensitive to the HSR connection. While the allocation of medical resources is in the direction of equalization, the level of medical resources is significantly more equal with the HSR development in cities with stronger financial capacity and non-core cities. The analysis of other city characteristics provides policy recommendations for improving the public services delivery mode in China’s heterogeneous cities in terms of HSR development.