Determinants of Bioenergy Consumption in the European Continental Countries: Evidence from GMM Estimation

This study contributes to the existing literature by examining bioenergy consumption and related factors in continental European countries (ECC). This study extends the current research through its focus on the ECC, which mainly consists of nationwide studies. This study analyses the determinants of bioenergy consumption in the ECC from 2005-2013, estimates its economic variables and evaluates the influence of each variable on bioenergy consumption and related significance level. A generalised method of moments estimator (GMM) was designed for ECC. The estimated models show that bioenergy capital input (CI) positively impacts bioenergy consumption. The most influential factor on use was the price of bioenergy (PR) followed by investment (INV), then gross domestic product (GDP). These results should be considered and used as a tool to develop legislation and policies that could benefit the bioenergy sector in ECC. The evidence shows that CI, INV, and PR have been the primary keys in improving bioenergy consumption in recent years in ECC countries. Thus, they have advanced the efficiency of bioenergy consumption.

A capital input/output theory-based profit model for sharing bicycles

Based on the capital input/output theory, this paper establishes the input and output value model of Sharing bicycles. In the big data era, it analyzes the acquired data using mathematical statistics, as well as using the Logit model to analyze the current Sharing bicycles model to evaluate profit conditions. The research results have shown that the Sharing bicycle has greatly enhanced people’s green travel style since its launch, and it has great development potentials as well. The investors can clearly define different profit models based on the growing, developing, and stabilizing periods of the Sharing bikes business. The survey data shows that the Sharing bicycle adapts to the concept of green travel, low carbon, and environmental protection concept, which also has met the urgent demand for short-distance riding. This research provides effective ways and references for the future value-adding in the Sharing travel field. Keywords:

Environmental Taxes and Innovation in Chinese Textile Enterprises: Influence of Mediating Effects and Heterogeneous Factors

Climate change and environmental conditions call for more attention to be paid to eco-friendly economic behavior. As a market-oriented environmental regulation, environmental tax can stimulate and guide enterprises’ environmental innovation in a neutral way. However, what elements connect the environmental tax and enterprise innovation activity together? Are all the enterprises’ innovation activities affected by the environmental tax in the same way? To answer the questions, the study uses the data of Chinese textile listed companies between 2004 and 2018 to explore the intermediary role of manpower and capital investment in the innovation chain and further analyze the influence of the heterogeneous factors such as property right, segmented industry, and region. The results show that the environmental tax can effectively promote the innovation capital input of Chinese textile enterprises, and the innovation manpower input plays a partial mediation role. At the same time, environmental tax can effectively promote the innovation performance output of Chinese textile enterprises, and innovation capital input plays a complete mediation role. In addition, heterogeneous factors such as property right, segmented industry and region will affect the relation of environmental tax to innovation input and output quality and greenness to varying degrees. The study makes a profound analysis of the relation of environmental tax on Chinese textile enterprises innovation by using the microdata at the enterprise level, providing a more targeted reference for making policies in the future.

American Productivity Center (APC) and Craig-Harris Productivity Model method in measuring the productivity of customs companies

The purpose of this study is centered on measuring the total and partial productivity of customs companies using the American Productivity Center (Apc) Method and the Craig-Harris Productivity Method where the difference between the two is the Craig-Harris Productivity Method directly measures the level of total efficiency obtained from company growth. overall while the American Productivity Center (Apc) method is a measurement to determine the level of the productivity index, profitability and price improvements. The results obtained from measurements in 2018 to 2019 for twenty-four periods are the productivity index of the APC model, the largest decrease in index occurred in capital input in April 2019, which decreased by 22.06%, while with the Craig-Harris Method the largest decrease in productivity figures occurred in power input. Employment in June 2019 decreased by 25.077% from the initial period. From the results of the two methods, there are differences in measurement results, namely the largest decrease in APC occurs in the Capital variable, while the largest decrease in the Craig-Harris Method occurs in Labor and the smallest decrease in productivity occurs in Material input.

Research on the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to Chongqing’s economic growth Based on the Solow Growth model

In the context of current proposed transformation of economic development of the region are actively rely on capital from investment to promote economic growth mode to a mode relying on technological progress to promote economic growth up. Therefore, this paper selects the sample data of Chongqing from 2010 to 2017, and based on the empirical analysis of the Solow residual value model, using SPSS statistics 25 software, studies the contribution of Chongqing’s capital investment and labor input, especially technological progress, to economic growth. The research shows that the contribution rate of Chongqing’s capital input to economic growth has always been at a relatively high level, but it has shown a general downward trend. At the same time, the elasticity coefficient of capital input is small, indicating that its contribution to economic growth is small; the contribution rate of labor input fluctuates greatly but the impact is small; the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress to economic growth shows an overall upward trend, which has become an important factor for driving Chongqing’s economic growth after capital investment. Therefore, governments must accelerate the transformation of the economic development mode, vigorously promote the development of science and technology, and rely more on scientific and technological progress to promote economic growth and achieve sustainable economic development.

A Theory of Return-Seeking Firms

We introduce a theory of return-seeking firms to study the differences between this and profit-maximising models. A return-seeking objective takes into account the opportunity cost of each additional resource input to a firm’s production as being a potential capital input choice in an alternative project. We find that firm supply curves cease to exist in perfectly competitive markets, supply curves in general may slope up as well as down, that economies of scale are necessary for production, and that firms always produce on a decreasing portion of their cost curve.

The Sustainability of Energy Substitution in the Chinese Electric Power Sector

The Chinese electric power industry, including its coal industry and other energy industries that are not efficient, contributes to China’s serious energy shortages and environmental contamination. The governing authority considers energy conservation to be one of the most prominent national targets, and has formulated various plans for decarbonizing the power system. Applying the trans-log cost function, this paper examined the trans-log cost function to analyze the potential inter-factor substitution among energy, capital and labor. We also investigated what role human capital played in energy substitution for the electric power sector during the period from 1981 to 2017. Three key results were derived: (1) energy is price-insensitive, (2) there exists large substitution sustainability between both capital and labor with energy, and (3) human capital input not only enhances the extent of energy substitutability with capital and labor but also is a substitute to energy itself. These findings imply that the liberalization of the electric price mechanism is conducive to lessening energy use and augmenting non-energy intensiveness, and that energy conservation technology could become more sustainable by investing more capital in the electricity sector, thereby achieving a capital–energy substitution and a decrease of CO2 emissions. We further suggest that the priority for the Chinese electric power industry should be to attach more importance to increasing human capital input.