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This paper aims to explore the pathways of carbon transfer in 200 US corporations along with the motivations that drive such transfers. The particular focus is on each firm’s embeddedness in the global value chain (GVC) and the influence of environmental law, operational costs and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The insights gleaned bridge a gap in the literature surrounding GVCs and corporate carbon transfer.

The methodology comprised a two-step research approach. First, the authors used a two-sided fixed regression to analyse the relationship between each firm’s embeddedness in the GVC and its carbon transfers. The sample consisted of 217 US firms. Next, the authors examined the influence of environmental law, operational costs and CSR on carbon transfers using a quantitative comparison analysis. These results were interpreted through the theoretical frameworks of the GVC and legitimacy theory.

The empirical results indicate positive relationships between carbon transfers and GVC embeddedness in terms of both a firm’s position and its degree. From the quantitative comparison, the authors find that the pressure of environmental law and operational costs motivate these transfers through the value chain. Furthermore, CSR does not help to mitigate transfers.

The findings offer insights for policymakers, industry and academia to understand that, with globalised production and greater value creation, transferring carbon to different parts of the GVC – largely to developing countries – will only become more common. The underdeveloped nature of environmental technology in these countries means that global emissions will likely rise instead of fall, further exacerbating global warming. Transferring carbon is not conducive to a sustainable global economy. Hence, firms should be closely regulated and given economic incentives to reduce emissions, not simply shunt them off to the developing world.

Carbon transfer is a major obstacle to effectively reducing carbon emissions. The responsibilities of carbon transfer via GVCs are difficult to define despite firms being a major consideration in such transfers. Understanding how and why corporations engage in carbon transfers can facilitate global cooperation among communities. This knowledge could pave the way to establishing a global carbon transfer monitoring network aimed at preventing corporate carbon transfer and, instead, encouraging emissions reduction.

This study extends the literature by investigating carbon transfers and the GVC at the firm level. The authors used two-step research approach including panel data and quantitative comparison analysis to address this important question. The authors are the primary study to explore the motivation and pathways by which firms transfer carbon through the GVC.

This paper aims to examine the role of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body in China, in addressing environmental challenges.

This study uses 457 CPPCC environmental proposals across 160 cities for the period of 2013 to 2015 and a mediation effect model to examine the effect of CPPCC environmental proposals on environmental quality.

This study shows that CPPCC environmental proposals improve environmental quality; and the relationship between CPPCC environmental proposals and environmental quality is partially mediated by enforcement of environmental laws and regulations only although the proposals positively influence both law enforcement and environmental public budget expenditures.

Future research may examine how the interaction between the government and other important stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations can help improve environmental quality. In addition, future research may examine whether other policy tools such as pollution tax and fees, environmental subsidies, and emissions trading can play a role in dealing with environmental issues.

This study provides evidence that supports CPPCC members to take an even more active role in public governance by engaging with both the government and the public.

The CPPCC’s participation in public governance helps the government respond to critical issues more effectively. The government should pay close attention to CPPCC proposals when making public policies. Furthermore, the government probably needs to review its policies in relation to environmental expenditures.

This study is the first to examine the role of the CPPCC, a political advisory body, in addressing environmental challenges through functioning as a bridge between government and the public, whereas the extant literature has predominantly focused on the role of government, market and the public.

This study examines the impact of oil price volatility on firm profitability. As Shariah-compliant firms operate under restrictions, the study also explores whether oil price volatility affects Shariah-compliant firms differently from their non-Shariah-compliant counterparts.

The study sample includes all non-financial firms listed on Gulf Cooperation Council stock exchanges from 2005 to 2019. In evaluating the oil price volatility–profitability relationship, static (panel fixed effects) and dynamic (system generalised method of moments) models were used.

Oil price volatility significantly depresses firm profitability. In addition, Shariah-compliant firms are more significantly affected by oil price volatility than their non-Shariah-compliant peers. The results suggest that high oil price volatility exposes Shariah-compliant firms to higher bankruptcy risk than non-Shariah-compliant firms and that positive and negative oil price shocks have asymmetric effects on firm performance.

The findings of the paper call for more economic diversification by supporting non-oil sectors in the region and raise the need for more development of Islam-compliant products that compete with traditional instruments to help Shariah-compliant firms cope with uncertainty. Moreover, managers need to prepare quick alert and response procedures to reduce the negative impacts of oil price volatility on profitability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the relationship between oil price volatility and profitability of non-financial firms. Further, the study extends prior Islamic corporate finance literature by enhancing the understanding of how Islamic corporate decisions affect firm performance during instability.

The emission from marine engines has a crucial effect on energy economy and environment pollution. One of the effective emission reduction schemes is to minimize the friction loss of main friction pairs such as cylinder liner-piston ring (CLPR). Micro-groove textures were designed to accomplish this aim.

The authors experimentally investigated the effects of micro-groove textures at different cylinder liner positions. The micro-groove texture was fabricated on samples by chemical etching and cut from the real CLPR pair. Sliding contact tests were conducted by a reciprocation test apparatus.

The average friction coefficient of grooves at 30° inclination were reduced up to 58.22% and produced better tribological behavior at most conditions. The operating condition was the critical factor that determined the optimum texture pattern. The surface morphology indicated that textures could produce smoother surfaces and less scratches as compared with the untextured surface.

Inclined grooves and V-grooves were designed and applied to real CLPR pairs. The knowledge obtained in this study will lead to practical basis for tribological design and manufacturing of CLPR pair in marine diesel engines.

Prestressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP) is a kind of high quality composite pipe, whose mechanical behavior is not uniform because of its complicated structure and work condition. The mechanical model is established in PCCP working stage, based on the elastic plane strain theory of axisymmetric multilayer cylinders and the mechanism of the ring-like strands action. Then the design method of prestress is put forward according to the crack control. The stress is analyzed with finite-element analysis in the condition of different hydraulic pressures, and also the method is amended compared with the finite-element analysis. It is indicated that the design method of prestress is reasonable compared with both domestic and international specifications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential impact of the approved Australian carbon emissions reduction plan on the cost of capital and the association between companies’ carbon emission intensity and the cost of capital.

A sample of Australian Stock Exchange 200 (ASX 200)-indexed companies from 2006 to 2010 is used. Hypotheses are tested based on Heckman’s two-stage approach. Three regression models are developed to examine the association between carbon emissions and the cost of capital.

Using a sample of ASX 200-indexed listed companies, the paper finds that the cost of capital, including the cost of debt and the cost of equity, will increase for emissions-liable companies. Results also show that the cost of debt is positively correlated with a company’s emission intensity. However, little evidence supports that the emission intensity affects the cost of equity.

As it is evident that the emissions reduction plan will adversely affect corporate entities’ cost of capital, this study suggests that companies, investors and lenders need to include carbon emission in risk analysis. An emissions-liable company should establish strategies to combat the impact of the Plan on rising cost that comes with the enforcement of the Plan. Government assistance is essential in the transitional period.

The synthetic application and interaction of/between the internet, Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, Industry 4.0 and other new patterns and new technologies shall breed future Web-based industrial operation system and social operation management patterns, manifesting as a crowd cyber eco-system composed of multiple interconnected intelligent agents (enterprises, individuals and governmental agencies) and its dynamic behaviors. This paper aims to explore the basic principles and laws of such a system and its behavior.

The authors propose the concepts of crowd science and engineering (CSE) and expound its main content, thus forming a research framework of theories and methodologies of crowd science.

CSE is expected to substantially promote the formation and development of crowd science and thus lay a foundation for the advancement of Web-based industrial operation system and social operation management patterns.

This paper is the first one to propose the concepts of CSE, which lights the beacon for the future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of high-speed railway (HSR) on industrial pollution emissions using the data for 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2016.

The research method used in this paper is the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model, which is an effective policy effect assessment method. To further address the issue of endogeneity, the DID integrated with the propensity score matching (PSM-DID) approach is employed to eliminate the potential self-selection bias.

The results show that the HSR has significantly reduced industrial pollution emissions, which is validated by several robustness tests. Compared with peripheral cities, HSR exerts a greater impact on industrial pollution emissions in central cities. In addition, the mechanism test reveals that the optimised allocation of inter-city industries is an important channel for HSR to mitigate industrial pollution emissions, and this is closely related to the location of HSR stations.

Previous studies have paid more attention to evaluating the economic effects of HSR, however, most of these studies overlook its environmental effects. Consequently, the impact of HSR on industrial pollution emissions is led by using multi-period DID models in this paper, in which the environmental effects are measured. The results of this paper can provide a reference for the pollution reduction policies and also the coordinated development of economic growth and environmental quality.

For the basic problems on platform innovation, such as platform innovation connotation and characteristics, the driving mechanism and the influence mechanism are less been studied. This study aims to explore how to achieve platform innovation in traditional service enterprises.

Based on the theory of enterprise network and binary learning, respectively, this paper discusses the behavior of binary learning based on network structure and network impact on efficiency and innovative platform innovation, and analyzed the realization of the platform innovation path.

The research draws the following conclusions: the network structure-based exploitative learning can promote the efficiency platform innovation, while the network behavior-based exploratory learning can promote the novelty platform innovation. The interaction between network structure and network behavior embedded in traditional services is more conducive to exploratory learning so as to promote novelty platform innovation, and the platform innovation of traditional service enterprises is a process from efficiency-oriented to novelty-oriented. The innovation effect generated by exploratory learning based on network behavior is much higher than that generated by exploitative learning based on network structure. The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows: first, this study compares the similarities and differences between service innovation of platform-oriented enterprises and platform innovation of service enterprises. On this basis, it clearly defines the concept of platform innovation and divides it into two categories: efficiency platform innovation and novelty platform innovation. Second, it reveals the two paths for traditional service enterprises to realize platform innovation, and the interaction between these two paths are also explored, which promotes the scenario-based and dynamic study of platform innovation in traditional service enterprise. The conclusion of this study provides theoretical reference for traditional service enterprises to carry out platform innovation.

Theoretical contribution of this paper lies in: first, the concept of platform innovation is clearly defined. Current research about platform innovation is mainly around the innovation of platform enterprise and the platform innovation of traditional enterprise, but there is no document that makes clear distinction; some literature even equates innovation of platform enterprise with platform innovation of traditional enterprise. In this paper, through a detailed literature review and analysis, clearly define the concept of platform innovation and divided into efficiency platform innovation and novel platform innovation, which has made theoretical contribution to the depth of the research. Second, expand the platform innovation research of traditional service industry. In recent years, the platform innovation research of traditional enterprise has become a hot spot, but they focus on the attention of the platform transformation of traditional manufacturing industry, such as Haier; the traditional service industries seem to be “empty,” but, in fact, the traditional service industry platform innovation is of great significance and more worth looking forward to. In this paper, the longitudinal case studies can promote academic concerns focus on the traditional service industry, and also provides the theory instruction practice. Third, it promotes the platform innovation research of traditional enterprise and dynamic analysis. Based on the theory of enterprise network and binary learning, respectively, it discusses the behavior of binary learning based on network structure and network impact on efficiency and innovative platform innovation, and analyzed the realization of the platform innovation path. On the one hand, it enriches the research type of platform innovation; on the other hand, the dynamic evolution mechanism of platform innovation research can make up for the deficiency of the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of education in the labor market and to understand how returns to education change over time in rural China.

Using nationally representative survey data from 2004 to 2015, this study provides insights on wage determination in the labor market and examines how the returns to education in rural China differ with time and educational endowment. This study applies ordinary least squares estimation and the Heckman selection model to estimate the returns to education.

The returns to education decreased during the observed years from more than 6 percent in 2004 to only about 3 percent in 2011, rising to nearly 4 percent in 2015. The overall trend is robust and observed within groups defined by education. Additionally, the returns to education vary greatly with educational endowment. Tertiary education has always maintained a high rate of returns at nearly 10 percent, while returns to senior high school education and below have gradually diminished.

The authors believe that the results will not only enrich studies on the returns to education in rural China, but also provide a basis for diagnosing the changes of rural labor market in the early twenty-first century.