Purpose: Drawing on the motivation theory, this study investigated the effect and consequences of personal motivation and innovative climate on innovative behavior among university students in mainland China. The study also examined whether the effect of personal motivation and innovative climate on Chinese university students’ innovative behavior is heterogeneous between disciplines and place of residence. Methods: A quantitative study was conducted to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from 245 undergraduate students at Chinese universities with paper-based questionnaires. Self-report scales were used to measure levels of personal motivation, innovative climate, and innovative behaviors. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the scale and questionnaire’s reliability and validity. The logistic model was applied to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Results: Personal motivation and innovative climate have significant effects on Chinese university students’ innovative behavior. The effect of personal motivation and innovative climate on students’ innovative behavior is heterogeneous between disciplines and place of residence. Further, extrinsic motivation serves as a positive incentive. Mentor support, good academic climate, and knowledge sharing affect students’ innovative behavior positively. However, insufficient guaranteed resources has a significant negative influence. The data demonstrated no statistically significant difference between intrinsic motivation and students’ innovative behavior. Conclusion: This study contributes to the empirical literature on mechanisms that influence innovative behavior by testing the relation between personal motivation, innovative climate, and innovative behavior on the part of Chinese university students. In addition, these findings also provide evidence for ways to improve university students’ innovative consciousness and innovative ability, as well as universities’ management practice of innovative education.

Using housing market data of Beijing and Hangzhou, China, we conduct a case study to detect how the difference of urban structure can affect the relationship between the subway system and housing prices. To quantify the characteristics of urban structure, we propose a constrained clustering method, which can not only reveal the spatial heterogeneity of the housing market, but also provides a link between heterogeneity and the underlying urban structure. Applying constrained clustering to Beijing and Hangzhou, we find that the relationship between accessibility to metro stations and housing prices is weak and vulnerable, while the improvement of commuting efficiency, measured by a key variable, the metro index, does have a robust connection to metro premium on housing units. In particular, only a large metro index can be associated with a positive metro premium. Structural features, such as the size of urban core and the existence of multiple sub-centers, influence the metro premium by affecting the value and spatial distribution of the metro index. The evidence from Beijing and Hangzhou supports that in a mono-centric city, the size of the urban core is positively associated with the metro index and the metro premium, while in a poly-centric city with a small urban core, the metro index tends to be lower in the core region and higher in the satellite regions, which enforces the metro premium to be negative in the core while positive outside of the core.

This paper took the panel data of 1052 heavily-polluting listed companies from both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2017 to empirically analyze the impact of environmental regulation (ERG) on firm performance (FP). The article introduces a mediating effect model to test the mediating role of corporate tax burden (ETR) within the relationship between ERG on FP. The results showed that: (1) ERG has exerted a significant enhancement effect on the performance of heavily polluted firms via the ETR reduction mechanism. (2) The mediating effect of ETR depends on the duration of ERG. A significant time lag exists before the mediating effect starts to work, and the magnitude of the mediating effect increases with the time lag from the execution of the ERG. (3) The mediating effect of ETR varies significantly with the nature of corporate property rights. It is significant for the state-owned firms, while for non-state-owned firms, there is no evidence supporting the existence of the mediating effect of ETR despite ERG still having a significant direct-impact on FP. Based on these findings, we discuss the policy suggestion to optimize the impact of environmental regulation policies in terms of incentivizing the green development of polluting firms.

This paper uses data from job-recruiting platforms to study the distribution patterns and migration destination choices of a skilled internal migrant population. We find that, in most first-tier cities and most emerging second-tier cities, more than half of the skilled jobseekers do not hold local household registration. The most important finding of this paper is the heterogeneity of attributes prioritizations between intra- and inter- provincial migrants. Intra-provincial skilled migrants put more value on employment opportunities than on amenity attributes, while their inter-provincial counterparts prioritize amenity over employment aspects.

As an important ecological barrier in Southwest China, the Qingjiang river basin plays a vital role in shaping the mountainous terrain. This paper analyzes the Ecosystem Services Value (ESV) using a series of methods based on the data of changes in land use from 2000 to 2015 and the statistical yearbook. The changes in land use between 2000 and 2015 were dominated by forest land, which accounted for 60.63% of the total area, followed by arable landwhich accounted for about 22.26%, while grassland and other land use contribution rates were the lowest, accounting for only about 17.11%. Environmental changes and economic development were uneven. The regional comprehensive strength of En’shi City, Changyang County, and Yidu City were among the highest, while Badong County, Hefeng County, and Wufeng County were among the lowest in the area under study. In addition, the ESV in 2035 was estimated to be 1.56 billion dollars, a decrease of 27.64% when compared with the year 2000. The ESV of Yidu City, Lichuan City, Jianshi County, and Hefeng County grew faster, at the rates of 94.76%, 65.12%, 96.96%, and 92.38%, respectively. However, the ESV of En’shi City, Badong County, Wufeng County and Xuan’en County showed a downward trend, at the rates of −32.53%, −487.80%, −368.07%, and −181.52%, respectively.