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.

Scientific and technological innovation and human capital savings are important ways to promote the high-quality development of China's economy. On this basis, using the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2017, this paper empathically tests the impact of university research activities on high-quality growth of China's economy, and explores the influence mechanism from two dimensions of talent cultivation and achievement transformation. Based on the spatial perspective, the regional heterogeneity of these influences is analyzed. This paper finds that: First, research and development activities in universities effectively boost the high-quality development of China's economy. Secend, the stimulating effect of university research and development on economic growth. On the one hand, through the talent training function of scientific research activities, it enriches the accumulation of human capital and drives the economic development; On the other hand, constrained by the predicament of scientific research achievement transformation, the stimulating effect of university scientific research activities on economic growth will be limited to a certain extent. Third, there are significant regional differences in the promoting effect of university research activities on high-quality economic development, and this difference may come from the spatial spillover effect of university research activities. This study has important enlightening significance to understand the relationship between university scientific research activities and high- quality economic development.

The Public Welfare Foundation of a listed company is a non-profit organization with independent legal personality. It is established and funded by a listed company. The purpose of establishing a foundation for a listed company is generally to carry out charitable activities and make important contributions to charitable causes. However, due to the special power separation model, the autonomy of the foundation is poor, and there may be serious agency conflicts, ultimately leading to listed companies becoming beneficiaries of the foundation's charitable activities. We have found from the perspectives of commercial credit, sales, and cooperative relationships that social responsibility initiating organizations (listed companies) can obtain potential benefits from social responsibility fulfilling organizations (listed company public welfare foundations) in supply chain commercial relationships, that is, listed companies that establish public welfare foundations have good supply chain commercial relationships. When a listed company and a public welfare foundation have a close relationship in terms of fund donation, decision-making, business, and naming, the public welfare foundation has a strategic preference in selecting project names, project service areas, project beneficiaries, and project service areas. It prioritizes the interests of the listed company, enabling the listed company to obtain better supply chain business relationships.

Financial development and industrial structure optimization are two-wheeled engines for promoting high-quality development, but the causal identification of the two is still poorly understood. This paper addresses this research gap by comprehensively analyzing the relationship between them. Regional economic growth is a necessary condition for achieving high-quality development. Taking China as an example, this study empirically examines the role of financial development and industrial structure optimization in high-quality development using the entropy method, fixed effects, mediation effects and instrumental variable regression. The study results show that (i) financial development has actively promoted regional economic growth. (ii) The driving effect on the central and western regions is greater than that on the eastern region. (iii) There are differences in the mediating effect of industrial structure optimization and rationalization between different levels of financial development and economic growth. (iv) In addition, the mediating effect of industrial structure optimization is larger in the eastern region than in the central and western regions. (v) The mediating effect of industrial structure rationalization is not obvious in the eastern region, but has a masking effect in the central and western regions. Our findings provide new strategies for financial development and industrial structure optimization in developing countries.

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.

As the COVID-19 epidemic swept the world in early 2020, it is worth watching how it affects the total factor productivity of enterprises. Based on the theory of information asymmetry and the data of A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2021, this paper conducts an empirical study on the relationship between COVID-19 and the total factor productivity of enterprises. The results show that the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic can significantly reduce the total factor productivity of enterprises, and the conclusion is still true after a series of robustness tests. Taking the financing constraint as an intervening variable, it clearly reveals a transmission mechanism, that is to say, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic exacerbates the financing constraint of the enterprise, thus it makes the total factor productivity of the enterprise reduce. It is further found that the above effects are more obvious for small and medium-sized enterprises and non-intelligent enterprises. Based on this, the government should implement some active economic development policies to create a free, relaxed and orderly market environment for enterprise financing. At the same time, enterprises should not only pay attention to digital and intelligent development, and transform into technology-intensive enterprises, but also strengthen the awareness of worry. Enterprises should store "more grain" for preparing for the cold winter.

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.