The low-altitude economy (LAE) refers to economic activities conducted within airspace below 1,000 meters. Drawing on related theories on socio-technical transitions, LAE can be understood as a future regime challenging the dominant urban mobility paradigm. As an emerging field, it has yet to be systematically examined through an empirical study, especially about local response. In this paper, we construct an Integrated Local Support Index (ILSI) based on the number of relevant local policies and the level of public interest measured by the Baidu search index. Private sector readiness is measured by the LAE Development Scale (DS) based on the registered capital of relevant enterprises locally. Focusing on the top 50 cities in China’s LAE sector, we conduct a comprehensive empirical study to explore the relationships between DS, ILSI, and other natural and socio-economic factors between 2012 and 2023. The dynamic interactions of key stakeholders (local government, foreign capital, and talents) are analysed by game theory. The findings suggest that the ILSI, education level, and foreign investment have significant positive impacts. Wind speed is identified as a negative factor for LAE development. The game theory analysis further reveals that the three positive factors tend to foster efficient and stable growth when working synergistically. This implies that enhancing local government support could trigger chain reactions that attract more investment and talents, thereby accelerating LAE development. Projecting to the future, local LAE DS in 2026 is predicted via a panel time-series model with random effects. This study provides both empirical evidence and governance strategies for decision-makers navigating the socio-technical transition of the LAE.

Financial crises rarely erupt without warning; they are preceded by long periods of hidden fragility. Yet traditional market indicators such as the VIX capture only realized volatility, offering little foresight. This paper introduces the Stability Gap Model (SGM), developed iteratively from a simple intuition: fragility arises when risk-taking diverges from fundamentals and systemic buffers are insufficient. We trace the evolution of the model from its original formulation, through corrections and extensions, to its present form. The Classic SGM captures instantaneous imbalance, while the Beta SGM incorporates memory of past shocks. Empirical analysis demonstrates that the SGM provided clear early warnings ahead of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the 2011 Eurozone debt episode, the 2015 China/oil slowdown, and the 2018 tightening cycle, while also trending upward in 2019 before the COVID-19 crash. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates the model's utility in assessing fragility in hedge funds and proposes its application as a universal framework for stability analysis across diverse systems, from corporate finance to supply chains.

Why do fertility subsidies consistently fail in China? Why do consumptionand fertility collapse globally despite intact household book wealth? This paper proposes the Family Long Cycle Hypothesis (FLCH), extending thedecision-making unit of the life cycle hypothesis from an individual to an intergenerational family network, and expanding the budget constraint from a singlelifetime resource constraint to a dual constraint of “total resources + liquiditystructure”. The core mechanism is: intergenerational “blood-transfusion” homepurchase locks in network liquidity without changing household net assets, completing a balance sheet morph of “book wealth unharmed, decision-making paralyzed” at the moment of purchase. This liquidity depletion spikes effective riskaversion, forming a multiplier effect with income uncertainty, causing fertility—the irreversible commitment with the longest duration—to enter the corner solution region first. Within this region, the elasticity of fertility decisions to costsubsidies is strictly zero, but they remain highly sensitive to liquidity repairand uncertainty reduction. Consequently, this paper proves the fundamentalmechanism difference between consumption subsidies (cash rewards, childcarefee waivers) and capital transfers (mortgage principal write-down, unconditionalcash transfers), and proposes three effective policy directions: reducing incomeuncertainty, repairing family liquidity, and raising the reference income of thebottom 90% of the population. The model nests the standard life cycle hypothesis as a special case and is distinguishable from the competitive saving hypothesis on six pairs of opposing predictions. The theory also explains theasymmetric “fast-falling, slow-rising” adjustment of housing prices: the drop isdriven by defensive behavior (business cycle scale), while the recovery is constrained by intergenerational liquidity reconstruction (intergenerational scale of10–20 years).

This paper studies how dividing candidates in a tournament into separate tracks with differentiated performance criteria affects incentives and aggregate outcomes. We exploit China’s Major Function Oriented Zoning plan, which assigns counties to devel-opment or conservation tracks, with the latter de-emphasizing growth indicators. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design, we find that prefectures introducing a con-servation track achieved higher aggregate economic performance despite relaxing growth-based evaluation for part of their subordinate counties. To explain this counterintuitive ef-fect, we develop a stylized Tullock contest model that highlights two institutional features: promotion opportunities remain open to officials in both tracks, and counties within the same prefecture continue to interact across tracks. The model further predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between the size of the conservation track and overall performance, which is supported by empirical evidence.

High-quality development of water conservancy (HDWC) is of critical value for safeguarding the stability of production systems, livelihoods, and ecosystems. As the digital revolution intersects with China’s “dual carbon” targets, development of water conservancy must transition from traditional engineering approaches to data-driven ecological models. Drawing on institutional logic theory and employing dynamic qualitative comparative analysis across 30 Chinese provinces, this study examines how digital ecology facilitates the HDWC. The findings reveal that none of digital government, digital infrastructure, digital economy, digital capability, or digital society constitutes a necessary condition for the HDWC. Instead, it is the result of the combined effects of multiple institutional logics. Five configurations leading to HDWC are identified and categorized into four types: government-market-driven model, government-market-society-driven model, market-society-driven model, and government-society-driven model. The consistency of the configurations significantly increased during the study period. Furthermore, their distribution showed substantial regional differences. There are two configurations that inhibit the HDWC, namely the government-market-absence type and the market-society-absence type. Digital society emerges as a critical factor. This research uncovers multiple pathways through which digital ecology can empower HDWC, providing valuable insights for optimizing regional digital environments.

Firm survival, as a key indicator of regional economic resilience, has gained increasing attention in the context of global economic uncertainty and the deep adjustments in industrial structures. In the Pearl River Delta (PRD), a core region of China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, the characteristics of firm life cycles are crucial for understanding spatial development inequalities and institutional effects in emerging economies. This study focuses on firms in the PRD, using full life-cycle data from registration, operation, to deregistration. An XGBoost regression model is employed, incorporating the SHAP explanation algorithm, to systematically analyze the main factors influencing firm survival. The results show that: (1) Firm establishment time is the primary factor influencing survival, with significant “survival threshold” and “growth leap” effects—mature firms exhibit a distinct survival advantage; (2) Among spatial structure variables, moderate industry specialization and diversity enhance firm survival rates, while excessive concentration and diversification show diminishing or negative returns, reflecting an “ecological threshold” effect; (3) External shocks have a significant suppressive impact on startups, while policy support and capital size show limited explanatory power; (4) The ownership structure, especially state-holding, has a positive moderating effect on firm survival in specific contexts, indicating that private enterprises’ flexibility and adaptability can compensate for institutional gaps. This study offers insights into the spatial heterogeneity of firm survival mechanisms, providing quantitative evidence for regional economic policy adjustments and firm resilience-building. Recommendations include promoting differentiated policies, optimizing industrial ecological spatial layouts, and piloting systems to enhance survival resilience, especially for mixed-ownership firms.

The relationship between economic decentralization and regional economic growth has attracted wide academic attention. However, existing literature rarely explores the validity and applicability of decentralization theory from the perspective of location endowments. This study takes China’s county-to-city reform - a decentralization policy - as a point of entry to construct a decentralization model incorporating location endowments. Using county-level panel data from 1992 to 2009 and employing a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, the study evaluates the impact of county-to-city reform under the constraint of location endowments on county-level economic development. The findings reveal that the policy effects of local decentralization are constrained by location endowments. Specifically, in regions with poorer location endowments, county-to-city reform significantly inhibits local economic development. Indeed, mechanism analysis further indicates that in such disadvantaged regions, local decentralization under the county-to-city reform generates a “political resource curse” effect, which hinders economic growth through three channels such as distorted fiscal expenditure structures, corruption, and misallocation of land resources. The conclusions of this study provide a valuable perspective for understanding the conditions under which decentralization theory holds, while also offering rigorous empirical evidence for government agencies to design more targeted decentralization policies.

Capital market internationalization is widely regarded as an important pathway to improving resource allocation efficiency and enhancing governance quality, while simultaneously imposing higher requirements on corporate sustainability and social responsibility. However, its impact on firms’ internal income distribution remains subject to academic debate. This study treats the inclusion of China’s A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as a landmark exogenous shock of capital market internationalization. Based on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2014 to 2022, we manually compile firm-level MSCI inclusion data and construct a multi-period difference-in-differences model for empirical testing. The results indicate that firms’ inclusion in the MSCI Index significantly increases their labor income share. The mechanism analysis reveals that this promoting effect operates mainly through three channels: alleviating financing constraints, fostering innovative development, and strengthening investor governance. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is more pronounced among technology-intensive firms, firms under greater competitive pressure, and firms with higher degrees of internationalization. By incorporating income distribution outcomes into the framework of capital market internationalization, this paper enriches the evidence on the economic and social effects of internationalization and provides policy implications for emerging economies to advance high-level capital market opening and optimize income distribution.

Traditional production function theory treats executive characteristics as exogenous fac-tors, failing to capture how managerial heterogeneity dynamically influences productiv-ity. This study integrates Upper Echelon Theory and Dynamic Capabilities Theory to develop an endogenous production function framework where executive attributes serve as dynamic parameters reshaping capital and labor elasticities. Using fixed effect-s panel-data models, we analyze Chinese listed companies, examining how executives’ education, experience, and compensation interact with production parameters. Re-sults show executive characteristics significantly moderate factor productivity: higher education and board independence enhance capital productivity, while compensation intensity transforms labor elasticity from negative to strongly positive values. Hetero-geneity analysis reveals effects vary across ownership types and technology intensity, with technology-intensive firms showing strongest responsiveness. This research recon-ceptualizes executives as active architects of production processes, provides a rigorous framework for endogenizing management factors, and offers evidence-based guidance for corporate governance and talent strategy optimization.

We examine whether firms with high organization capital (OC) are more likely to purchase Directors’ and Officers’ (D&O) liability insurance, using a panel of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2021. We document a robust positive association between OC and the propensity to carry D&O insurance. The effect remains statistically and economically significant after controlling for firm characteristics and employing multiple identification strategies to address endogeneity. We propose two economic channels through which OC affects D&O insurance demand, namely, agency and information asymmetry. Consistent with these mechanisms, we find that the positive OC–D&O relationship is significantly stronger in firms with weaker internal governance and those facing opaquer information environments. Additional cross-sectional analyses show that this effect is concentrated in privately-owned firms and in regions with more developed market institutions, suggesting that external pressures accentuate the value of insuring key decision-makers. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications and remain stable after using propensity score matching, instrumental variable approaches, and the Heckman two-stage model. Overall, the findings highlight OC as a critical internal driver of corporate insurance decisions. Firms with substantial intangible assets strategically obtain D&O coverage to strengthen governance and reduce information frictions, especially in emerging markets like China where formal investor protections are still evolving.