PLOS ONE: [sortOrder=DATE_NEWEST_FIRST, sort=Date, newest first, q=subject:"Science policy and economics"]PLOShttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/webmaster@plos.orgaccelerating the publication of peer-reviewed sciencehttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/search/feed/atom?sortOrder=DATE_NEWEST_FIRST&unformattedQuery=subject:%22Science+policy+and+economics%22&sort=Date,+newest+firstAll PLOS articles are Open Access.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/resource/img/favicon.icohttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/resource/img/favicon.ico2024-03-28T10:03:35ZA pathway towards high-quality development of the manufacturing industry: Does scientific and technological talent matter?Dan LIQiuyu YAO10.1371/journal.pone.02948732024-03-18T14:00:00Z2024-03-18T14:00:00Z<p>by Dan LI, Qiuyu YAO</p>
Against the background of the accelerated evolution of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial change, scientific and technical talents, as essential innovation resources, play an important role in promoting the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2021, the article constructs a fixed-effects model and systematically researches the impact of scientific and technological talents on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. The results show that scientific and technical talents play a significant role in promoting the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, and the upgrading of the consumption structure and the accumulation of productive service industries play a mediating role. Heterogeneity analysis found that the promotion effect of scientific and technical talents is more favorable in the eastern region, medium-technology level manufacturing, and labor-intensive manufacturing. Among the three sub-dimensions of scientific and technological talents, the scale of scientific and technical talents has the most significant impact on the development of the manufacturing industry. The analysis of the spatial spillover effect finds that scientific and technological talents will have a positive spillover effect on the development of the manufacturing industry in neighboring areas. The study provides a basis for relevant departments to formulate effective strategies and policies.Research on quantitative evaluation of digital economy policy in China based on the PMC index modelShuai HongTianzun WangXiaoyi FuGuo Li10.1371/journal.pone.02983122024-02-15T14:00:00Z2024-02-15T14:00:00Z<p>by Shuai Hong, Tianzun Wang, Xiaoyi Fu, Guo Li</p>
The development of digital economy is a strategic choice to grasp the revolution of new science and technology and the new opportunities of industrial reform. The development of digital economy depends on the good support of policy and theoretical system. Therefore, the quantitative evaluation of policy texts provides the basis of decision-making and the suggestions of path optimization for the formulation and improvement of digital economy policy of China. By selecting the text of digital economy policy issued by China government, the paper constructs a quantitative evaluation model of digital economy policy using the methods of content analysis and text mining. The empirical research results show that the overall design evaluation of the selected policy is relatively reasonable. Six policies were evaluated as excellent and two as acceptable. In view of the problems such as lack of predictive policy in the policy type, lack of specific policy in the policy timeliness, imbalance in the use of policy guarantee, and lack of comprehensive coverage in the policy objectives, the paper puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.Green credit policy and corporate excess cash holdingsJinhui NingGuiping WangFengshan XiongShi Yin10.1371/journal.pone.02940792024-01-16T14:00:00Z2024-01-16T14:00:00Z<p>by Jinhui Ning, Guiping Wang, Fengshan Xiong, Shi Yin</p>
Green credit is changing industrial structure and corporate behavior, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between green credit and corporate cash management behavior. Based on the typical fact that the allocation of traditional bank credit funds is biased towards heavily polluting industries and the exogenous impact event of green credit policy, this paper takes A-share listed companies in China’s capital market from 2008 to 2015 as samples, and uses the DID model to investigate the impact of green credit policy on excess cash holdings of heavily polluting enterprises. The findings indicate that the green credit policy has reduced the excessive cash holdings of heavily polluting enterprises, suggesting that it can correct the issue and align their cash holdings with the requirements of normal production and operations. The mechanism test demonstrates that the green credit policy can alleviate agency conflicts and influence enterprise cash holdings. Moreover, a cross-sectional investigation reveals that the inhibitory effect of the green credit policy on cash holdings is more pronounced in large-scale and state-owned enterprises compared to small-scale and non-state-owned enterprises. Finally, an analysis of the economic consequences reveals that the green credit policy indirectly enhances corporate value by reducing excessive cash holdings. Based on this, banks and financial institutions continue to treat the credit granting of heavily polluting enterprises cautiously, optimize the structure of green financial products, fully consider the different types and nature of customers, and develop differentiated lending conditions and diversified evaluation mechanisms. This paper has enriched the research on the economic consequences of green credit and the influencing factors of corporate cash holdings, and provided policy enlightenment for regulators and listed companies to correctly understand and make full use of green credit policies to keep corporate cash stable through the crisis.Analyzing the impact of sustainable economic development from the policy text network: Based on the practice of China’s bay area policyHuijie ZhouShangjia YuPengyue Wu10.1371/journal.pone.02962562023-12-29T14:00:00Z2023-12-29T14:00:00Z<p>by Huijie Zhou, Shangjia Yu, Pengyue Wu</p>
In order to break through the surface analysis of the content structure of policy texts, an in-depth discussion of the linkage between regional policy makers and objectives is helpful to analyze the formation mechanism of policy effects. Through social network analysis and multi-index analysis, this study takes the QianwanNew Area of Ningbo and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as representatives to explore the policy framework for the sustainable development of manufacturing industry in the two bay areas respectively. Through the construction of government department cooperation network, policy keyword co-occurrence network, department keyword correlation network, and the analysis of network density, network centrality, structural holes, and cohesive subgroups, it is found that the impact results show great differences, which is related to the network structure of manufacturing policy text.The impact of tax reduction on enterprises’ financialization-A quasi-natural experiment based on the reduction of VAT rateShu DuanYuzhong LuYujia ChengQian Liu10.1371/journal.pone.02933852023-12-21T14:00:00Z2023-12-21T14:00:00Z<p>by Shu Duan, Yuzhong Lu, Yujia Cheng, Qian Liu</p>
This study examines the influence of the reduction in value-added tax (VAT) rates in China during 2018 and 2019 on corporate financialization. By employing a difference-in-differences model and utilizing data from Chinese A-share listed companies between 2017 and 2020, we assess the effects of tax reduction policies. Moreover, it achieves this outcome through three main pathways: alleviating financing constraints, boosting fixed asset investment, and weakening corporate financial arbitrage motives. Further analysis demonstrates that the inhibitory effect of VAT rate reduction on corporate financialization is more pronounced for non-manufacturing companies, businesses reliant on the basic tax rate as their primary revenue source, companies with low intermediate input rates, and those with a strong ability to shift the tax burden. Additionally, debt financing costs play a crucial role in moderating the relationship between tax reduction policies and corporate financialization. The conclusions drawn from this study provide valuable empirical evidence that can contribute to the refinement of VAT reduction policies and the prevention and resolution of financialization at the micro-level.Digital economy drives regional industrial structure upgrading: Empirical evidence from China’s comprehensive big data pilot zone policyCaihong Yang10.1371/journal.pone.02956092023-12-08T14:00:00Z2023-12-08T14:00:00Z<p>by Caihong Yang</p>
With the development of the digital economy, industrial structure upgrading plays an important role in realizing high-quality development. Exploiting the quasi-natural experimental setting provided by the Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone (BDCPZ) policy in China in 2016, this study evaluates the impacts of the BDCPZ policies on regional industrial structure upgrading using a combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) with panel data of 30 regions for the period 2008–2021. The results are as follows: (1) BDCPZ policies significantly promote regional industrial structure upgrading. This finding holds after conducting the placebo test and replacing explained variables. (2) BDCPZ policies enhance upgrading through technological innovation and financial deepening. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the promotional effect of BDCPZ policies on industrial structure upgrading is more obvious in economically developed regions, megacities, and east-central regions; overall, regions with high industrialization benefit more. These findings have important implications: First, they provide new empirical evidence from the perspective of policy evaluation on how the digital economy affects industrial structure upgrading. Second, this study sheds light on the mechanism underlying this relationship, helping us understand how the digital economy can further affect the development of the industrial structure. Third, the policy effect is heterogenous, providing a scientific basis for the government to formulate differentiated implementation policies for different regions. This can help local industrial transformation and upgrading, and economic development in these regions through the implementation of big data and digital technologies.The impacts of economic policy uncertainty on firm cash holding in ChinaXin ChenJiannan LiDecai TangLi ShangValentina BoamahJiayi XuZixuan Deng10.1371/journal.pone.02933062023-11-22T14:00:00Z2023-11-22T14:00:00Z<p>by Xin Chen, Jiannan Li, Decai Tang, Li Shang, Valentina Boamah, Jiayi Xu, Zixuan Deng</p>
Cash holding is an important strategic decision of enterprises. As a macro-level factor, economic policy uncertainty causes risks, affecting enterprises’ cash holdings. Taking the quarterly financial data of China’s A-share non-financial listed firms for 2010–2020 as a sample, this study adopts the OLS and fixed effect models to investigate how corporate cash holdings are affected by economic policy uncertainty. The findings indicate that economic policy uncertainty is directly proportional to the level of cash that listed corporations hold. The higher the uncertainty, the more cash the company holds. Among them, state-owned enterprises and the manufacturing industry are more significantly affected by economic policy uncertainty. Finally, considering the regional marketization level and the differences in financing constraints enterprises face, it is concluded through grouping empirical studies that enterprises located in regions with lower marketization levels are more susceptible to policy uncertainty, while financially constrained enterprises are more susceptible to economic policy uncertainty. The study of economic policy uncertainty is helpful to guide enterprises to realize the importance of coping strategies in advance under the background of intensifying economic policy uncertainty. Therefore, this paper proposes to introduce policies on the premise of fully considering the smoothness of the economy and the differences in the conditions of firms of different natures, as well as some proposals to alleviate financing constraints, reduce the adverse effects of uncertainty on firms, and bolster the marketization process.Can the establishment of an innovative city improve the level of technological entrepreneurship?Ye XuZhi-Chao Wang10.1371/journal.pone.02898062023-10-10T14:00:00Z2023-10-10T14:00:00Z<p>by Ye Xu, Zhi-Chao Wang</p>
Based on the data of 278 prefecture-level city panels in China from 2008 to 2020, this paper presents the policy of innovative pilot city as a quasi-natural experiment. It is found that (1) the implementation of innovative urban policy can significantly improve the level of science and technology entrepreneurship, but the pilot policy has a time lag effect and has a continuous promoting effect since the third year. (2) For large cities, areas with high levels of economic development, central and eastern regions and cities with high new infrastructure, innovative cities can improve the level of technological entrepreneurship; (3) Innovative cities improve the level of technological entrepreneurship by improving the incubator of technological enterprises and strengthening the flow of human capital; (4) The effect of the establishment of innovative cities on the level of technological entrepreneurship mainly shows that the siphon effect does not show radiation effect, and this siphon effect mainly improves the level of technological entrepreneurship by increasing the number of incubators of technological enterprises.Goodwill impairment, M&A, and industry development—Empirical evidence from listed companies in ChinaYadi Wen10.1371/journal.pone.02904422023-08-24T14:00:00Z2023-08-24T14:00:00Z<p>by Yadi Wen</p>
Goodwill has been a controversial issue in China since 2007 when the new accounting standards changed the subsequent measurement of goodwill from periodic amortization to impairment testing. Using the change in subsequent measurement of goodwill, this paper examines the impact of goodwill accounting on corporate M&A and industry development. The paper finds that adopting the goodwill impairment test significantly increases firms’ M&A incentives, as evidenced by a significant increase in the frequency and probability of M&A and a significant reduction in the time interval between successive M&A at the industry level. From an industrial perspective, the impairment policy has significantly improved industry concentration, total factor productivity, and competitive advantage in international trade across Chinese industries. The positive impact of goodwill impairment policy on M&A is more pronounced among firms with asset-light characteristics or high P/E ratios, and its contribution to industry competitiveness is more pronounced in asset-light or high P/E ratios industries. From the perspective of promoting capital market mergers and acquisitions and industry competitiveness, the article finds that the current goodwill impairment policy can have positive economic consequences. Our study breaks through existing perspectives to provide compelling empirical evidence for the current theoretical and practical controversy over goodwill measurement standards.Spatial spillover effect of China’s tax and fee reduction policies on independent research and development evidence from dynamic Spatial Dubin analysisMeng WuRuoyuan Sun10.1371/journal.pone.02885352023-08-03T14:00:00Z2023-08-03T14:00:00Z<p>by Meng Wu, Ruoyuan Sun</p>
To test the driving effect of China’s tax and fee reduction policies on independent innovation, we established a model of Dynamic Spatial Durbin (SDM) and introduced DMSP/OLS night lighting data and Malmquist productivity index for partial differential decomposition. We found that: (1) Affected by the tax and fee reduction policies, the local province tends to increase the level of independent innovation in the short term, while neighboring provinces tend to purchase and rely on foreign technology; (2) In the long term, the tax and fee reduction policies do not significantly increase the level of independent innovation in local and neighboring regions; (3) There is a strategic choice behavior of local government between political promotion incentives and promoting independent innovation; (4) The policy externality of tax reduction and fee reduction has a two-way feedback effect. We conclude that: (1) The spatial agglomeration characteristics of tax and fee reduction policies require the government to fully consider the local innovation and economic foundation, and break the resource endowment of administrative divisions; (2) The spatial feedback feature of the tax and fee reduction policies requires the government to focus on the two-way interaction of independent innovation in the adjacent regions, rather than just one-way assistance, imitation and learning; (3) The spatial lag characteristics of tax and fee reduction policies require the government to establish a accountability system or life-long system for innovative performance evaluation. Moreover, the study fails to provide causality evidence from the spatial agglomeration and spatial time-delay.Supply chain concentration and enterprise financialization: Evidence from listed companies in China’s manufacturing industryHuanhuan HeZongwen Zuo10.1371/journal.pone.02853082023-05-10T14:00:00Z2023-05-10T14:00:00Z<p>by Huanhuan He, Zongwen Zuo</p>
Enterprise financialization will block the equipment update and technological innovation of enterprises by crowding out the main business funds. The risks and benefits of supply chain concentration will affect the enterprise financialization. This paper selects the panel data of A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2021, and uses fixed effect regression to analyze the impact of supply chain concentration on enterprise financialization. The conclusions show: both suppliers and customers concentration significantly promote the financialization of enterprises, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of tests; This kind of financialization effect is heterogeneous in four aspects: the nature of property rights, the scale of enterprises, the intensity of industrial competition and the level of economic development in the region where the enterprises are located; the mechanism analysis show that customer concentration can affect enterprise financialization through upstream commercial credit, but supplier concentration cannot affect enterprise financialization through downstream commercial credit.When scientific experts come to be media stars: An evolutionary model tested by analysing coronavirus media coverage across Italian newspapersFederico NeresiniPaolo GiardulloEmanuele Di BuccioBarbara MorselloAlberto CammozzoAndrea SciandraMarco Boscolo10.1371/journal.pone.02848412023-04-26T14:00:00Z2023-04-26T14:00:00Z<p>by Federico Neresini, Paolo Giardullo, Emanuele Di Buccio, Barbara Morsello, Alberto Cammozzo, Andrea Sciandra, Marco Boscolo</p>
The article aims to understand the process through which scientific experts gain and maintain remarkable media visibility. It has been analysed a corpus of 213,875 articles published by the eight most important Italian newspapers across the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. By exploring this process along the different phases of the management of the emergency in Italy, it was observed that some scientific experts achieve high media visibility—and sometimes notwithstanding their low academic reputation–thus becoming a sort of “media star”. Scientific literature about the relationship between experts and media is considerable, nonetheless we found a lack of theoretical models able to analyse under which conditions experts are able to enter and to remain prominent in the media sphere. A Media Experts Evolutionary Model (MEEM) is proposed in order to analyze the main conditions under which experts can acquire visibility and how they can “survive” in media arena. We proceeded by analysing visibility of experts during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and considering both their individual credentials previously acquired and the media environment processes of selection; MEEM acts hence as a combination of these two levels. Regarding the credentials, we accounted for i) institutional role/position, ii) previous media visibility, and iii) matches between scientific credentials and media competence. In our analysis, we collected evidence that high visibility in newspapers can be seen as evolutionary in the sense that some profiles—i.e. a particular configuration of credentials—are more adapt to specific media environments.Innovation factor double circulation: Cross-border mobility and the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivityWei SongJing He10.1371/journal.pone.02836932023-04-26T14:00:00Z2023-04-26T14:00:00Z<p>by Wei Song, Jing He</p>
Objectives <p>The improvement of the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity depends not only on innovation factor double circulation, but also on cross-border mobility to a large extent.</p> Methodology <p>This paper constructs a model that demonstrates the impact of innovation factor double circulation and cross-border flow on the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity, and it seeks to estimate this impact by using panel data from China’s manufacturing industry taken from the period 2009–2020.</p> Findings <p>It finds the path dependence of innovation factors significantly increased their double circulation cost, and did not significantly improve the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity.</p> Conclusion <p>It finds the path dependence of innovation factors significantly increased their double circulation cost, and did not significantly improve the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity. Cross-border flow improves the marginal efficiency of innovation factors, realizes the spatial agglomeration of high-end innovation factors and greatly promotes the double circulation of innovation factors in a way that effectively improves the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity.</p> Implications <p>These conclusions have profound policy implications: cross-border flows can promote the incremental adjustment of innovation factors; fully release the development potential and toughness of the dual circulation of innovation factors; and are essentially conducive to improving the manufacturing industry’s total factor productivity.</p>Does the low-carbon pilot policy improve urban economic resilience? Evidence from ChinaZhiyu Liu10.1371/journal.pone.02847402023-04-21T14:00:00Z2023-04-21T14:00:00Z<p>by Zhiyu Liu</p>
Identifying the relationship between carbon neutrality initiatives and its economic impact is crucial in evaluating the cost of low-carbon transition for policy makers. In this paper, a theoretical model is built to discuss the effects of the low-carbon pilot policy in China on urban economic resilience and an empirical test is conducted to examine the relationship using the Heckman two stage model and a panel data of 277 cities from 2004 to 2020. The results show that low-carbon pilot policy significantly enhanced urban economic resilience and the stimulating effect is mainly achieved by motivating technology innovations. In addition, further analysis indicates that low-carbon pilot policy has a more pronounced effect on improving urban economic resilience of cities in the central and western regions than eastern regions. The effect is also more prominent in non-first-tier cities than first-tier cities. The results are robust to placebo test, the Propensity Score Matching Difference-in-Difference test and the test for alternative measure of urban economic resilience. The findings show that the low-carbon pilot policy is consistent with the goal of improving urban economic resilience and technology innovation is the essential pillar of sustainable development.Did place-based industrial policy promote regional economic growth? ---- Evidence from ChinaJianzhao LiuNa LiXueli Du10.1371/journal.pone.02836882023-04-04T14:00:00Z2023-04-04T14:00:00Z<p>by Jianzhao Liu, Na Li, Xueli Du</p>
Whether the place-based industrial policy promotes regional economic growth is a hot issue in the field of regional industrial economic practice. As a major national strategy in China, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei industrial coordinated development policy has been implemented more than 8 years. Verifying its effect on regional economic growth and revealing the policy action path will help to further optimize the policy implementation process through feedback. In this paper, the policy effect and its differentiation are empirically studied from ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ respectively by establishing a growth model using the Dual Differences method. The results show that the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei industrial coordinated development policy improves total factor productivity by 2.26% in terms of ‘quality’, and reduces GDP growth rate by 4.65% in terms of ‘quantity’. For the different region, the GDP growth rate increased by 1.28%, while total factor productivity decreased by 2.63% in Beijing, the GDP growth rate decreased by 3.17% and total factor productivity increased by 0.87% in Tianjin, and the GDP growth rate increased by 2.56% and total factor productivity increased by 1.58% in Hebei. The policy is mainly realized by fixed asset investment, capital deepening degree and enterprise scale expansion, while the effect of labor input, R&D investment and enterprise number is not significant. The policy is to give full play to the driving role of fixed asset investment such as "new infrastructure", increase investment in labor and research and development in the region, strengthen the construction of a competitive market environment, and stabilize the ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ to further release policy dividends.