Educational equity is the foundation of social equity, and education equalization is one of the serious issues to be solved by the government. This work considers one education equalization reform conducted by Suzhou Industrial Park of China, namely, the comprehensive "five to nine" (CFTN) housing purchase admission qualification adjustment policy, as an example and uses the resold housing transaction data to identify the effect of the equalization policy by the difference-in-differences (DID) method. Based on this natural experiment, the quantitative assessment results show that (1) the CFTN policy has a significantly positive effect on housing prices in nine-year consistent (NYC) school districts that belong to high-quality school districts; (2) the CFTN policy has no significant effect on housing prices in non-NYC consistent school districts that belong to ordinary school districts. These results uncover that the one-size-fits-all CFTN policy can only obtain significant housing price equilibrium effects in school districts above a certain level of education quality. For regions with backward education levels, the policy is ineffective. For these regions, continuously increasing high-quality educational resources and increasing educational service levels are essential solutions to reduce educational inequality.

The policy of ethnic equality and solidarity aims to narrow the ethnic gap and develop harmoniously. At the level of higher education, it should promote the equity of ethnic education. This paper uses the administrative data of undergraduate students from 2008 to 2015 in a liberal arts university in southwest China to study the differences, causes and dynamic trends in the scores of college students from different nationalities. The results show that compared with Han students, the average GPA of ethnic minority students is 0.13 points lower (equivalent to 0.23 and 0.3 standard deviations of the scores of ethnic minority and Han students), the fourth grade scores are 0.28 standard deviations lower, and 7.3% lower. This difference is more significant in the western region, especially in Xinjiang, Yunnan, Hubei and other provinces inhabited by ethnic minorities; Kazak and uygur are the nationalities with the biggest gap with han students; The difference between girls is more significant than that between boys. The "peer effect" and cultural distance between roommates are important reasons for this difference. Further analysis shows that although the ethnic differences in academic performance are gradually expanding, the growth rate tends to converge. The above conclusions are helpful to clarify the object and time of making national higher education policy, and also have important reference significance for primary and secondary education.

Public diplomacy is a significant factor in promoting policy communication, people-to-people bonds, and the protection of foreign assets between two nations, but there is little research on the economic worth of public diplomacy. Python was used to crawl the daily search frequency of "China", "African countries", and related terms to construct the heat index of China-Africa public diplomacy during 2011-2019, and a two-way fixed effect model was developed to examine the impact of public diplomacy on China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in Africa. The empirical results show that public diplomacy has a considerable favorable effect on China’s OFDI in Africa, and after a series of robustness tests, the basic conclusion still holds. Heterogeneity tests show the investment promotion effect of public diplomacy is more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa and that the promotion mechanism exhibits the characteristics of poverty alleviation and risk aversion. In addition, the promotion effect of public diplomacy on China’s OFDI becomes greater as time goes on. In terms of impact mechanisms, public diplomacy may promote OFDI by enhancing financing capacity and improving national governance. The research conclusion has policy implications for promoting China-Africa public diplomacy and investment cooperation in the new era.

The use of All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) has gained considerable attention within the recreation industry. The incorporation of ATVs into tourism and recreational activities has demonstrated substantial economic potential for local economies. However, there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding the economic impact of ATV recreation. This paper conducts an extensive review of existing literature from 2004 to 2022, evaluating the economic impact of ATVs on local economies in the United States. The review aims to identify commonalities and disparities among existing economic impact studies and assess whether these studies have included costs associated with ATV-induced environmental, societal, and public health damages in their economic assessments. To this end, there is a scarcity of scientific peer reviewed journal articles that exclusively focus on the economic impact of ATVs. As such, we reviewed a total of seven publications comprising reports. The results of our analysis shed light on similarities and differences in aspects of resident and non-resident ATV spending, type of ATV expenditures, and the approaches used to evaluate economic impact assessment. The findings indicate that existing studies have assessed the economic impact of ATVs solely based on gross expenditures, lacking comprehensive inclusion of the costs associated with ATV damages to the environment, society, and human health. This study advocates for the need for a more comprehensive consideration of both benefits and costs in the economic impact of ATVs to assist ATV business managers, policymakers, and researchers in making informed decisions and planning future programs.

The enactment of policies that bolster new research and development (R&D) institutions stands as a pivotal strategy to catalyze urban innovation and development. Adopting a strategic lens of innovation chain management and employing the Differences-in-Differences (DID) method to scrutinize panel data from 43 Chinese cities spanning 2008 to 2019, this study probes the efficacy and underlying mechanisms of policies designed to support nascent R&D institutions in facilitating urban innovation. Empirical findings reveal that policies in support of new R&D institutions have markedly enhanced the three integral stages of the urban innovation chain: research and development, transfer, and application. Furthermore, the innovation ambiance within cities and the innovative activities of enterprises emerge as significant mediators between support policies and the output of urban innovation across these stages. A regional heterogeneity analysis unveils that the impact of support policies on the output of urban innovation diverges across regions, with a notably more pronounced effect observed in the eastern region compared to central and western regions. An objective appraisal of the policy's impact on urban innovation not only aids in delving into the profound implementation effects of policy instruments but also furnishes policy-makers with decision-making references for optimizing the utilization of support policies for new R&D institutions to advance the edification of the national innovation system.

Human factor inputs are key to promoting agricultural modernisation. Traditional economic theory suggests that improving human capital is the key to boosting agricultural productivity, but can this conclusion hold in China's dualistic economic structure? We use Chinese provincial panel data from 2000-2017 to examine the impact of rural human capital inputs on agricultural total factor productivity. We find that, on the whole, rural human capital inputs have a negative effect on agricultural total factor productivity, and that there is a "rural human capital trap". Mechanism analysis reveals that rural human capital inputs, on the one hand, cause labour loss and reduce the quality of agricultural workers, while on the other hand, they may promote the application of mechanization, which has both positive and negative effects on agricultural total factor productivity. Heterogeneity analysis finds that this negative effect is more pronounced in the central region of China because of the serious loss of rural labour. This study provides new policy insights for further improving the structure of rural education inputs and promoting human capital accumulation in agriculture.

The long-term low level of residents' property income is not only detrimental to the wealth accumulation of farmers, but also aggravates the urban-rural income imbalance. This paper uses an empirical approach to explore the mechanism of digital literacy's impact on farm households' property income. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) Digital literacy and its sub-dimensions can significantly increase the level of farmers' property income, with the strongest contribution of digital information acquisition literacy. (2) Digital literacy has a greater boosting effect on the property income of farm households with low education level heads, low physical capital households, and villages with better economic development. (3) Digital literacy increases the property income of farm households mainly through expanding social capital and improving risk preferences. The innovation of this paper is to construct a digital literacy evaluation index system based on a micro perspective that fits the behavioral characteristics of farmers, and reveal the impact and mechanism of digital literacy and its sub-dimensions on farmers' property income. This study expands the theoretical research related to digital literacy and farmers' property income, and provides a scientific basis for the choice of strategies to enhance the digital literacy of the majority of farmers, which is important for promoting wealth accumulation of farmers and achieving common prosperity.