The development of a difference-in-differences estimator is a new move in patent policy evaluation research. However, such an estimator neglects the possibility that academic patent activities follow a spatial autoregressive process with respect to the dependent variable. The objective of this study was to propose a spatial difference-in-differences estimator accounting for possible spatial spillover effects. In this study, an empirical analysis of a sample of 31 Chinese provinces from 2010 to 2019 indicates that an incentive patent policy has a positive impact on the output and commercialization of academic patents, with positive effects also spilling over into neighboring provinces. This study further found that incentive patent policies play a placebo role in academic patent activities. Provincial patent policies are merely a proxy for other variables that characterize the systemic differences between provinces that implement patent policies and those that do not. Therefore, the promotion of academic patent activities cannot be attributed to policy incentives.

This study is an exploration of the digital divide between urban and rural areas, and it was conducted to assess the impact of the minimum living guarantee system on online education in China. The results of the research showed that 83.38% of students in low-income families have been able to participate in online education at home during the pandemic, while 16.62% of students in low-income families have been unable to do so. The absence of computers, smartphones, and broadband Internet access in low-income households reduces the likelihood of children being able to participate in online education at home. In terms of accessing online education at home, students from urban areas have obvious advantages over those from rural ones, and students from minimum living guarantee families have obvious advantages over those from marginal minimum living guarantee ones. This study also showed that the presence of online education-related amenities, including computers, smartphones, and Internet access, mediates the relationship between the subsistence allowance system, Hukou, and accessibility of online education. To address this issue, this paper includes suggestions for bridging the digital divide in online education.

Despite growing attention to living conditions as a social determinant of health, few studies have focused on its diverse impacts on self-rated health. Using data from the China Family Panel Study in 2018, this study used logistic regression analysis to examine how living conditions affect self-rated health in China, finding that people cooking with sanitary water and clean fuel were more likely to report good health, and that homeownership was associated with higher self-rated health. The self-rated health of people living in high-quality housing was lower than that of people living in ordinary housing, and people living in tidy homes were more likely to report good health. The findings suggest that the link between multiple living conditions and self-rated health is dynamic. Public health policies and housing subsidy programs should therefore be designed based on a comprehensive account of not only housing grade or income status, but also whole dwelling conditions.

Corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is increasingly gaining interest among researchers and practitioners. Despite this extensive interest, systematic research regarding the effect of sales on environmental performance remains scarce. In this study, an empirical analysis on a sample of 909 Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2016 showed that sales positively impact environmental performance. This study also showed that corporate innovation mediates the relationship between sales and environmental performance. Furthermore, this study showed that environmental performance has a positive spatial spillover effect. Enterprises appear to promote their own environmental performance as a response to a rise in the environmental performance of their neighbors. The external control theory of organization has important reference significance and explanatory power for CER behavior in emerging economies.

Traditional studies of firm performance typically focus on the effect of market structure and rarely consider the impact of the spatiotemporal context in industrial competition.Using a sample of 1,555 listed companies from 2015 to 2018 in China, this study shows that the profit center of gravity tends to move from southeast to northwest, and that there are negative effects on firm performance with distance from the profit center of gravity. Moreover, when controlling for organizational variables, strategic interaction at the local level significantly mediates the relationship between spatiotemporal context at the global level and firm performance at the microlevel. This investigation provides preliminary support for strategic interaction as a significant mediator between spatiotemporal context and firm performance, and further highlights the relevance of spatiotemporal context and strategic interaction in determining firm performance. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of the dynamic mechanism of spatiotemporal context affecting firm performance and the role of strategic interaction at the local level in this relationship, which can improve the existing insights into new economic geography.

Perceived social discrimination in China has significant effects on drinking behavior. This finding was reached through multivariate logistic regression analysis of a sample of 22,566 adults in the 2016 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). This was a cross-sectional study conducted with computer-assisted face-to-face interviews to assess alcohol drinking problems and associated factors among Chinese adults. The proportion of adults prone to alcoholism tends to be higher in eastern than central China, and higher in central than western China. Furthermore, gender discrimination and delays in government interactions as a result of unfair treatment have a positive and significant effect on individuals’ drinking. The alcohol consumption rate among Chinese men is about 13 times that of Chinese women. Additionally, older people have a stronger tendency to drink alcohol. In terms of education, those with lower education levels are more prone to alcoholism than those with higher education levels. Regarding marital status, those who are married are more prone to alcoholism than those who are not. Further, those who have been diagnosed with a chronic disease within the past six months are less prone to alcoholism than those without such diagnosis. People with an annual income between 50,000 and 150,000 yuan are more prone to alcoholism than those with an income under 50,000 yuan. Groups that have experienced unequal treatment in public services are also more prone to alcoholism than those who do not suffer such unequal treatment.

This study assesses the relationship between social capital and self-reported health (SRH) by comparing different genders and ages. It utilizes data from the 2016 China Family Panel Study data with a sample of 30,657 adult individuals from 25 provincial-level administrative regions in China. This was a cross-sectional study conducted with computer-assisted face-to-face interviews to assess social capital and self-rated health among Chinese adults. A multi-level Poisson regression model is employed to model social capital-related dependent variables using the independent variable of fair/poor health status. In terms of social relations, mobile phone use can improve men's health. However, this effect is insignificant for women. Moreover, gender and age interact with the relationship between social capital and individual health. The relationship between trust and self-rated health is not significantly different between men and women. The frequency of feeling lonely and the lack of feelings for the community in which they live have a negative impact on self-rated health, but there are no obvious differences in terms of gender. The number of meals per week with family members is negatively correlated with men's SRH, but there is no correlation with adult women 41 and above. Lack of help from neighbors is negatively correlated with men's health, but not with that of adult women 40 and below. Being a member of the Chinese Communist Party or a member of the Chinese Communist Youth League is positively correlated with SRH for women 60 and above.

There has been a vast amount of discussion about the positive and negative regional effect on policy diffusion. During this debate, the role of neighborhood structure is ignored and the linear assumption is still prevailing in this field. By analyzing the spatial convergence of local vocational education development with data of 31 provinces from 1995 to 2008 in China, we explore the effects of neighborhood interactions on policy diffusion, paying specific attention to the dynamical role of neighborhood structures in policy diffusion. The empirical results clearly indicate that the development of local vocational education systems in China is spatially autocorrelated to the neighboring provinces. Local vocational education systems converge more slowly if a spatially lagged dependent variable is introduced, while they converge faster if a spatially error variable is introduced. The policy transition between neighbors considering their local spatial context is analyzed with Spatial Markov Chain and a fundamental nonlinear connection between neighborhood structure and policy transition is unveiled. Using spatial econometric models, we also find that the socio-spatial diffusion patterns with the social factors such as consumption, urban/rural distribution and occupation serve as barriers to and amplifiers of policy diffusion. These results not only resonate with conventional linear wisdom on policy diffusion but also offer a new nonlinear perspective on socio-spatial patterns of policy diffusion that are clearly embedded within the local neighborhood structures.

The full models are estimated by spatial econometric models using county-level data from 1513 Chinese counties. The results indicate the existence of spatial contagion effects among local governments with respect to spending on local education. Financial shortages in education tend to be contagious; they affect counties or regions in geographic proximity. Contagion occurs due to three different fundamental causes: Intergovernmental competition, political economy and neighborhood watch. The possibility of contagion depends strongly on education investment, financial and economic conditions, cultural diversity, urban/rural distribution, and population structure. Poor counties are much more likely to become “infected” by neighboring financial behavior in education. The empirical evidence suggests that the speed of contagion is faster in economically underdeveloped areas than in economically developed areas.

How geographical neighboring competitors influence the strategic price behaviors of universities is still unclear because previous studies assume spatial independence between universities. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics college navigator dataset, this study shows that the price of one university is spatially autocorrelated to its neighboring competitors and such neighborhood structure induces cooperation Nash equilibrium in a spatial price game. In the spatial price game of universities the possibility of the cooperation solution is about 76%, while that of the defeat solution is about 24%. This study demonstrates that the relation between price difference and geographical distance of universities is an inverse U-shaped curve rather than a line.

Few would deny the contribution of vocational education on economic growth and social development, but the spatial dynamics behind the economic role of vocational education in transition economies has not been examined by the literature on economics of education. Specifically, two hypotheses are tested. First, the economic growth and vocational education development have significant global spatial autocorrelation, which means the development of economy and vocational education of one province depends on the economic or education level of neighboring provinces. Second, the economic growth and vocational education development have significant local spatial autocorrelation. With per capital GDP and vocational education scale data of 31 provinces in China from 1995 to 2008, both hypotheses are supported. Finally, the results show that the elasticity with spatial metrics is 1.522, which means the stronger economic role of vocational education because the elasticity is larger than 1, while the elasticity without spatial dynamics is only 0.926 which implies the weak economic role of vocational education. It also shows that the OLS model is confronted with the risk of spurious regression without considering spatial dynamics and the spatial error model is preferred because it’s robust.

How can one country narrow the regional disparity during the tremendous expansion of higher education? This issue remains unexamined and critical analysis is needed to unveil the spatial dynamics behind expansion of higher education. The spatial analysis shows that there is significant strategic interaction among neighboring provinces in China during the expansion of higher education. It implies that the expansion of higher education intensifies spatial interaction among provinces which facilitates narrowing gap of higher education among provinces in China. The convergence analysis shows that the speed of σ-convergence is 1.3% and the average speed of β-convergence is 2.1%, which give robust evidences to support the increasing spatial equalization of China’s higher education. Meanwhile, local spatial dynamics analysis shows that the catch-up strategy and cluster growth strategies of China are effective to achieve the balanced expansion goal.

In this paper, a multivariate spatial autoregressive model of local public education expenditure determination with autoregressive disturbance is developed and estimated. The existence of spatial interdependence is tested using Moran’s I statistic and Lagrange multiplier test statistics for both the spatial error and spatial lag models. The full model is estimated by spatial econometric models approach using county-level data from 1,520 Chinese counties. The results indicate the existence of significant spillover effects among local governments with respect to spending in local public education services. The economic level determines local education expenditure level significantly. There are non-linear relationships between education expenditure and predictors such as the proportion of non-agricultural population, the immigrant population from other provinces and children population. It reveals that countries in coastal area and in inland area respond asymmetrically to neighbors’ education expenditures, respectively.

How geographical neighboring competitors influence the strategic recruiting behavior of universities is still unclear because previous studies assume spatial independence among universities. Using data of Subordinate Universities of the Ministry of Education in China, this study found that the choice of admission score level by one university was spatially autocorrelated with its neighboring competitors and four strategies came into being within spatial enrollment competition. The intenseness of spatial competition decreased as the number of neighboring competitors increased while the difference of admission score increased as the distance between competitive universities increased.