This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the financial fraud case of Zhangzi Island based on the Fraud Triangle Theory. The study identifies three key factors that drove Zhangzi Island's financial fraud: pressure, opportunity, and self-justification. Pressure stemmed from the risk of delisting due to consecutive losses for two years; the opportunity was due to internal control deficiencies and the difficulty of verifying biological assets; and self-justification was the management's rationalization of unconventional methods to ensure the company’s survival and development. The study suggests that enterprises should strengthen internal controls and cultivate a culture of integrity. Regulatory agencies should leverage modern information technology to enhance supervisory efficiency in order to effectively prevent and combat financial fraud.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, led by artificial intelligence, has profoundly reshaped contemporary production methods and daily life while exerting a substantial influence on the labor market. In this context, reexamining the historical impact of technological progress on economic development and the labor market—and drawing lessons from the past—holds significant value. By digitizing the original wage ledgers from Lumford Mill (1811) and Belper Mill (1835) and using this newly created dataset as a basis, this study investigates changes in wage levels and labor structures between the water-frame era and the spinning-mule era. This analysis offers a new explanation for the emergence of Engels’ pause during the Industrial Revolution. Specifically, the findings indicate that technological progress in Britain’s cotton-spinning sector during the Industrial Revolution led to a labor structure characterized by a large cohort of low-income, unskilled workers alongside a relatively small group of high-income, skilled workers. This configuration created a disparity between labor productivity growth and real wage increases, ultimately precipitating Engels’ pause within the sector.

With the development of information technology, China’s digital economy has played an increasingly important role in the overall economic structure. However, previous understandings of digital economy advancement have been limited to the national or regional level, with little exploration of how digital economy progress reflects firm-level innovation performance. Therefore, this study aims to address the following questions: Does the development of the digital economy promote corporate innovation? In non-state-owned enterprises, is the positive relationship between digital economy development and corporate innovation performance significant? Addressing these questions can contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between information technology integration and corporate innovation performance. To this end, this study utilizes data from the China Urban Statistical Yearbook (2011–2022), including the total per capita use of telecommunications services in Chinese cities, the proportion of employees engaged in computer services and software, the number of internet users per 100 people, the number of mobile phone users per 100 people, and the China Digital Inclusive Finance Index (jointly compiled by the Peking University Digital Finance Research Center and Ant Group). Using principal component analysis, a digital economy index was constructed for different cities and years. This study systematically examines the impact and mechanisms of digital economy development on corporate innovation, as well as the variations in this impact across different types of listed companies. The findings indicate that the level of digital economy development influences changes in corporate innovation. Specifically, the higher the level of digital economy development, the higher the level of corporate innovation. This research aims to help firms recognize the advantages of digital transformation and the emerging trends in corporate innovation.

The Yellow River Basin is a region in China where poverty is relatively concentrated and the ecological environment is extremely fragile. Farmers in this area face numerous risks and challenges in transitioning their livelihoods. Based on survey data collected by the research team on “Ecological Protection and High-Quality Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas in the Yellow River Basin” from August to September 2022 in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin, this study employs poverty vulnerability theory and econometric models to analyze the mechanism through which farmers’ risk perception influences the impact of poverty vulnerability on their livelihood choices. The research team adopted a combination of stratified and random sampling methods and conducted questionnaire interviews as the primary research approach, obtaining a total of 3,235 farmer questionnaires from six provinces: Qinghai, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan. The findings reveal that: (1) Farmers’ poverty vulnerability significantly affects their livelihood strategy choices — the higher the vulnerability, the more likely they are to adopt agriculture-based livelihood strategies; (2) Farmers’ perception of policy risk plays a significant mediating role in the effect of poverty vulnerability on livelihood strategy choices — poverty vulnerability influences livelihood strategies by lowering farmers’ perception of policy-related risks; (3) Education level, household size, and social interactions are also important factors influencing farmers’ livelihood choices. The conclusions of this study provide important insights for advancing rural revitalization in a way that suits local conditions and for promoting the sustainable transformation of farmers’ livelihoods. It is recommended to enhance farmers’ livelihood capacity and confidence in development in impoverished areas by improving agricultural subsidy and insurance policies, optimizing the allocation of rural educational resources, and building a clean and transparent government-business relationship.

Against the backdrop of the national goal of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, the disclosure of environmental accounting information by enterprises has attracted much attention. The chemical industry is one of the severely polluting industries, and environmental pollution problems are quite serious. The disclosure of environmental accounting information by enterprises plays a crucial role. The article conducted a study on listed chemical enterprises in China, using case analysis to analyze chemical enterprises in heavy polluting industries. Chinese chemical industry enterprises were selected as samples, and the annual reports, social responsibility reports, and environmental reports disclosed by each enterprise were sorted out to analyze their existing problems. Finally, solutions were proposed from different levels to address the issues. The data in the article is mainly manually collected through the Guotai An database, annual reports published by Juchao Information, environmental reports, and social responsibility reports.

Green innovation plays a crucial role in promoting high-quality regional development. Enhancing green innovation efficiency is of great significance for implementing the innovation-driven development strategy and improving urban green development. Based on panel data from 277 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2011 to 2021, this paper uses a super-efficiency SBM model to measure green innovation efficiency. The Kernel density estimation method and Dagum Gini coefficient are adopted to analyze the dynamic evolution trend and regional disparities of green innovation efficiency. Furthermore, spatial convergence models are constructed to explore its convergence characteristics. The findings are as follows: (1) Overall, green innovation efficiency in China shows a fluctuating upward trend, entering a stable growth phase after 2017. (2) In terms of dynamic evolution, from 2011 to 2021, urban green innovation efficiency is mainly concentrated at a medium level, showing a rightward trend and a certain degree of convergence. The eastern region shows a transition from a bimodal to a unimodal distribution, indicating a weakening polarization; the central region has the weakest agglomeration and the most severe polarization; while the western region shows some agglomeration but with a pronounced left tail. (3) In terms of regional differences, the regional disparities in green innovation efficiency among Chinese cities exhibit a fluctuating downward trend, reflecting spatial imbalance and relatively slow overall development. The eastern region has the largest internal disparities, while the central and western regions differ most from each other. Hypervariable density is the main source of regional disparities. (4) Regarding convergence, green innovation efficiency across the country and in the three major regions exhibits significant σ convergence, absolute β spatial convergence, and conditional β spatial convergence. Influencing factors vary across regions.

This study investigates the determinants of current account balances in 11 EU countries from 2010 to 2023. By applying a two-way fixed effects model, the analysis assesses the role of macroeconomic and demographic variables such as private investment, fiscal deficit, old-age dependency ratio, REER, and terms of trade. The results reveal that private investment and fiscal deficits have significant effects on the current account, while other variables show limited or context-specific influence. Robustness checks and heterogeneity analysis further validate the findings, contributing to a deeper understanding of external balance dynamics in the EU.

Studying the causes of abnormal consumption in love is of great significance in the context of young people's love anxiety. This article explores the irrational phenomena and behavioral mechanisms in the love consumption behavior of Chinese college students based on Richard Taylor's psychological account theory. Research has shown that romantic consumption is classified as an intimate relationship account, isolated from other practical accounts, leading to a decrease in consumer sensitivity to prices and a willingness to pay premiums for symbols such as "romance" and "ritual". By integrating the theories of fund classification, tag effect, and emotional accounts, this study systematically analyzes the psychological motivations behind behaviors such as gift exchange and symbolic consumption, and reveals how businesses can use these psychological motivations to increase sales. This article focuses on the psychological account theory of young people in China, explaining their abnormal behaviors in love consumption (such as overspending, ritualistic consumption, etc.), providing a new perspective for understanding emotional consumption behavior, and providing theoretical basis for optimizing product positioning and formulating emotional marketing strategies for businesses. It also helps college students establish a rational consumption concept, alleviate love anxiety, and contribute to the mental health of young people.

This paper focuses on China's A-share market and empirically examines the relationship between investors' attention to the absolute prices of stocks and the volatility of low-priced stocks. Based on daily trading data of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2021 to June 2024, we employ a fixed-effects panel regression model to investigate this issue. The findings reveal that the lower the stock price, the greater its volatility, indicating the existence of a "low-price, high-volatility" phenomenon. Investors' "nominal price illusion" leads to excessive attention to absolute stock prices, thereby amplifying the volatility of low-priced stocks. Moreover, changes in the price limit policies moderate the effect of absolute price attention on the volatility of low-priced stocks. This study not only provides a new perspective for understanding how investor psychological biases impact stock price volatility but also offers new insights and approaches for studying volatility mechanisms in emerging markets by considering the unique institutional background of China's A-share market.

In the highly competitive e-commerce industry, retailers must develop and implement diverse marketing strategies to influence consumer purchase decisions. As one of the largest e-commerce platforms in China, Taobao offers a wide set of promotions including discount coupons, full discount promotions, limited time discounts, and even promotions with full freebies aimed to attract and keep their customers. This study examines the impact of various promotional strategies on consumer purchase intentions, with a particular focus on the mediating effects of price perception and promotion participation. By analyzing the survey results of 302 users of Taobao, descriptive statistics were created and a set of various techniques like reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, Pearson correlation, and regression modeling was employed. The results confirm the hypotheses that the price discount, gift promotion, and emotional marketing significantly impact the purchase frequency while price cognition and promotion participation are intervening variables. These insights offer valuable guidance for marketers and e-commerce platforms, helping them optimize promotional strategies, enhance consumer engagement, and ultimately drive higher sales.