The Impact of Local Economic Growth Target Setting on the Quality of Public Occupational Health: Evidence From Provincial and City Government Work Reports in China

The impact of the digital economy on occupational health: A quasi-experiment based on "Broadband China" pilot

The recent years' booming digital economy can not only benefit businesses, but also be an important way to improve people's wellbeing. This paper aimed to identify the relationship between the digital economy based on the "Broadband China" pilot policy and occupational health by applying DID method. The empirical results highlight that occupational health in the pilot cities of "Broadband China" are significantly improved compared with those in non-pilot cities, indicating that the digital economy can significantly improve occupational health. However, this effect varies across regions with different levels of economic development. Compared with developed areas, the digital economy has a more obvious effect on the improvement of occupational health in less developed areas, which indicates that this effect conforms to the law of diminishing marginal effect. Therefore, the digital economy should be continuously promoted to improve occupational health. Governments at all levels should strengthen the network infrastructure to provide a good basic environment for the development of the digital economy. At the same time, governments should introduce more detailed digital economy goals and programs according to the actual situation of their jurisdictions to fully release the economic and social benefits of the digital economy.

Learning from Neighbors: The Spatial Spillover Effect of Crisis Learning on Local Government

Accident prevention is an important prerequisite for achieving sustainable development, and effective crisis learning is a necessary path to it. This article focuses on whether local governments in non-accident areas learn from crises in accident areas, that is “learn from the mistakes of neighbors” and “grow in wisdom.” Using panel data from 2006–2017 for 30 provinces in China, our empirical test discovered that there is not a one-to-one relationship between “learning from neighbors” and “growing in wisdom”; it is a U-shaped relationship between the frequency of major accidents and the crisis learning effect of local government. When the occurrence frequency of major accidents is low, the regulatory effect caused by major accidents leads to the effective crisis learning of local governments. However, when major accidents occur frequently and reach a certain threshold, the crisis learning effect will deteriorate due to an excessive deterrent effect. In this non-linear relationship, the impact of political pressure occurs on two fronts, a gentle U-shaped curve and a shift in the inflection point to the left, implying that political pressure plays a dual role in the crisis learning process of local government. Accordingly, local governments should fully seize the window of time to initiate crisis learning with regulatory effects and delegate political authority to supervise local crisis learning with reasonable compliance.

The Impact of Environmental Pollution and Economic Growth on Public Health: Evidence From China

A comprehensive understanding of the impact of economic growth and environmental pollution on public health is crucial to the sustainable development of public health. In this paper, an individual fixed effect model is used to analyze the impact of environmental pollution and economic growth on public health, based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2018. The research finds that: First, the health status of China's four regions is not only affected by economic growth and environmental pollution, but also affected by the per capita disposable income and urbanization rate. Second, there is a long-term balanced relationship between China's economic growth, environmental pollution and public health. Third, environmental pollution harms children's health and significantly increases the perinatal mortality, while economic growth helps to reduce the perinatal mortality. Fourth, environmental pollution plays a regulatory role between economic growth and public health. Fifth, there are significant regional differences in the impact of environmental pollution and economic growth on public health. Among them, the degree of harm caused by sulfur dioxide emissions on mortality in northeastern China is significantly higher than that of the eastern China, eastern China is higher than that of the western China, and western China is higher than that of the central China. Finally, in order to reduce the adverse consequences of environmental pollution on public health in the process of economic development, this study puts forward relevant policy suggestions.