Explore the vast range of titles available.

Reducing coal overcapacity is an important strategy to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutralization in China. Determining the drivers of coal overcapacity is the first step toward this strategy. The existing literature focuses mainly on the macro determinants of coal overcapacity. Micro factors such as local officials’ intervention motivation also plays a role, but has received less attention in the literature. Using data from 25 coal-producing provinces in China, we demonstrate that local officials’ promotion pressure under the GDP-based promotion system significantly leads to coal overcapacity. Mediation effect analysis suggests that factor market distortion is one important channel through which local officials’ promotion pressure affects overcapacity in the coal sector, and the distortion in the capital market plays a more dominant role than distortion in the labor market. To alleviate the negative effect of officials’ promotion pressure on capacity utilization rate, we build a diversified promotion system incorporating environmental indicators. Results show that when the environmental pressure index accounts for at least 50% of the weights in the diversified promotion system, the negative effect of promotion pressure disappears. Our results suggest that to reduce coal overcapacity problem, policymakers may wish to weaken the GDP-based political promotion incentive by adding environmental and ecological indicators and reducing interventions on factor allocation. Results from the present paper has implications for resource-dependent countries facing similar overcapacity problems, especially in the context of the open economy and green recovery in the post-COVID-19 period.

The growth of scientific and technological innovation in China is facing a bottleneck under the influence of domestic and foreign environments. The economic internal circulation policy of China may explore new driving forces for innovation from the perspective of optimizing the efficiency of production factor allocation. This research applies the provincial data from 2001 to 2017 to empirically investigate the spatial effects of factor market distortions on the efficiency of technological innovation. The DEA (Data envelopment analysis) model with variable returns to scale is exploited to measure the efficiency of technological innovation. The production function approach can be harnessed to measure labor market distortions and capital market distortions. The spatial correlation test results and the spatial econometric results regressed with three spatial weight matrices draw the following conclusions: (1) No matter how the spatial connection is established, the efficiency of the scientific and technological innovation in China shows a strong positive spatial correlation. (2) Labor market distortion and capital market distortion lead to low factor allocation efficiency, which inhibits the improvement of scientific and technological innovation efficiency. (3) When considering inter-regional economic connections, the inhibitory effect of factor market distortions on the efficiency of technological innovation shows spillover effects on surrounding areas. (4) Human capital and advanced industrial structure are conducive to the improvement of scientific and technological innovation efficiency. Optimizing the efficiency of factor market allocation can become a significant path for China to release new room for improvement in scientific and technological innovation.

Food insecurity is not a new phenomenon even in leading European economies, but this complex problem area is facing new global challenges. This article traces the research gap in addressing food insecurity by focusing on the role of food retail chains in the former “Eastern Bloc” in light of unprecedented food price inflation and the resulting scale of demand for the services of food banks. Through empirical analysis of secondary financial corporate data, a low level of their profitability in the period of 2011–2019 was revealed, which preceded the synchronicity of two unexpected global economic downturns. Specifically, Return on Sales for food retailers located in the Czech Republic and Hungary was generally below 2%, offset by higher Total Asset Turnover figures, consistent with the need to extend the volume of goods for sale. Development in profitability in selected newer EU member states is just as significantly similar to the situation in Ukraine. The mutual interaction of factors of economic size and the country of residence of business was analyzed regarding a possible influence on their financial performance. This study concluded that the presence of unresolved market distortions can both lead to increased food insecurity and, paradoxically, contribute to increased food waste. AcknowledgmentThe authors are thankful to the Internal Grant Agency of Mendel University in Brno for financial support to carry out this research as the partial output of the project No. IGA-PEF-TP-23-015 “Zajišťování výživových potřeb obyvatelstva vzhledem k aktuálním výzvám v oblasti regenerativních přístupů při vykonávání hospodářských činností podniků agropotravinářského komplexu se zaměřením na roli tuzemských potravinových bank”.

Greenwashing, the phenomenon of misleading stakeholders concerning the environmental sustainability efforts of a company, may undermine the trust of people to a company or to a whole industry and the progress toward sustainability. This paper provides an extensive Literature Review about the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria and their relationship with the Greenwashing Phenomenon. It also examines the historical and regulatory contexts, causes, consequences and mitigation strategies of this phenomenon. By analyzing the market distortions and the environmental harm that may be linked to the Greenwashing Phenomenon, the study highlights the need for enhanced regulation, improved transparency and stakeholder vigilance. The methods employed in this paper include a thematic analysis of the literature and qualitative case study comparisons to derive insights into the multifarious impacts of greenwashing. Such case studies provided in this paper concern companies such as Volkswagen, Zara, Coca-Cola and BP.

Purpose ― In the present study, the effects of labor market distortions on economic structure and efficiency are estimated for seven emerging-market countries: Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey. Methods ― The estimates are based on a computable equilibrium (CGE) model that allows simulation of the inter-industry links of 56 industries plus a sector representing the rest of the world from data collected in the World Input-Output Database (Release 2016) for the period 2000-2014. Findings ― The results show that wage differentials appear to be distortionary, especially in the cases of countries with high wage-income inequality. Moreover, it seems that labor market distortions in emerging-market countries are subject to the rural-urban dichotomy and urban labor-market imperfections. Finally, the results show that the removal of wage differentials affects the terms of trade, which are improved in most but not all cases. Implication ― The conclusions of the present study have policy implications. In countries where the rural-urban dichotomy is the main distortion in labor markets, increasing urbanization can stimulate efficiency; when this is not the case, further reform of urban labor markets is needed. However, it cannot be ruled out in advance that a policy aimed at enhancing labor mobility may have a negative impact on the terms of trade. Originality ― The estimation method used in the present study presents certain advances over others found in the literature, as it becomes possible to estimate the effects of labor-market distortions while considering the interdependencies between different sectors, as well as to plausibly estimate the effects on trade. The present study also uses a large quantity of data, which is expected to add robustness to the study’s conclusion.

Purpose ― In the present study, the effects of labor market distortions on economic structure and efficiency are estimated for seven emerging-market countries: Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey. Methods ― The estimates are based on a computable equilibrium (CGE) model that allows simulation of the inter-industry links of 56 industries plus a sector representing the rest of the world from data collected in the World Input-Output Database (Release 2016) for the period 2000-2014. Findings ― The results show that wage differentials appear to be distortionary, especially in the cases of countries with high wage-income inequality. Moreover, it seems that labor market distortions in emerging-market countries are subject to the rural-urban dichotomy and urban labor-market imperfections. Finally, the results show that the removal of wage differentials affects the terms of trade, which are improved in most but not all cases. Implication ― The conclusions of the present study have policy implications. In countries where the rural-urban dichotomy is the main distortion in labor markets, increasing urbanization can stimulate efficiency; when this is not the case, further reform of urban labor markets is needed. However, it cannot be ruled out in advance that a policy aimed at enhancing labor mobility may have a negative impact on the terms of trade. Originality ― The estimation method used in the present study presents certain advances over others found in the literature, as it becomes possible to estimate the effects of labor-market distortions while considering the interdependencies between different sectors, as well as to plausibly estimate the effects on trade. The present study also uses a large quantity of data, which is expected to add robustness to the study’s conclusion.

Purpose ― In the present study, the effects of labor market distortions on economic structure and efficiency are estimated for seven emerging-market countries: Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey. Methods ― The estimates are based on a computable equilibrium (CGE) model that allows simulation of the inter-industry links of 56 industries plus a sector representing the rest of the world from data collected in the World Input-Output Database (Release 2016) for the period 2000-2014. Findings ― The results show that wage differentials appear to be distortionary, especially in the cases of countries with high wage-income inequality. Moreover, it seems that labor market distortions in emerging-market countries are subject to the rural-urban dichotomy and urban labor-market imperfections. Finally, the results show that the removal of wage differentials affects the terms of trade, which are improved in most but not all cases. Implication ― The conclusions of the present study have policy implications. In countries where the rural-urban dichotomy is the main distortion in labor markets, increasing urbanization can stimulate efficiency; when this is not the case, further reform of urban labor markets is needed. However, it cannot be ruled out in advance that a policy aimed at enhancing labor mobility may have a negative impact on the terms of trade. Originality ― The estimation method used in the present study presents certain advances over others found in the literature, as it becomes possible to estimate the effects of labor-market distortions while considering the interdependencies between different sectors, as well as to plausibly estimate the effects on trade. The present study also uses a large quantity of data, which is expected to add robustness to the study’s conclusion.

Factor market distortion is a critical factor that affects environmental pollution, and technological innovation is regarded as a new opportunity to alleviate environmental pollution. Based on panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2019, this study constructs an intermediary effect model to test the influence mechanism of factor market distortion on regional environmental pollution and the intermediary effect of technological innovation, exploring these effects based on spatial differentiation characteristics. This study shows that factor market distortion protects industries with backward production capacity, high resource consumption, serious pollution, and low production efficiency from elimination; hinders the transformation and upgrading of the regional industrial structure; and forms a lock in the sloppy growth mode, which directly affects the improvement of regional environmental quality. This study reveals the influence of factor market distortions on environmental pollution. This provides empirical evidence for giving play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and promoting green technology innovation.

This study explores the effect and internal mechanism of local government competition on green total factor productivity (GTFP) from the factor market distortion perspective. A three stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was applied to measure the GTFP of 30 provinces from 2008 to 2017. Furthermore, this study analyzes the influence of local government competition and factor market distortions on GTFP using the spatial Durbin model (SDM) and mediation effect model. The statistical results reveal that the spatial correlation of GTFP is significant across Chinese provinces. The growth of GTFP is significantly inhibited by local government competition that can indirectly restrict its improvement through factor market distortions. Regional heterogeneity indicates that in the eastern and central regions, local government competition does not significantly inhibit GTFP growth. Additionally, local government competition failed to restrain the improvement in GTFP through factor market distortion. Moreover, in the western region, local government competition inhibited the growth of GTFP by causing factor market distortion.