The Chinese central government established eight pilot zones in five provinces for green finance reform and innovations (GFRI) in 2017. The pilot zones promote green finance development and explore the propagable and reproducible experiences regarding mechanisms and institutions. Adopting a sample of China's listed companies from 2012 to 2021, this paper constructed a quasi-natural experiment and investigated the GFRI policy's effect on firms' total factor productivity (TFP) using the difference-in-differences (DID) method to verify the implementation effect of the GFRI policy. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis and mechanism analysis were conducted to identify the guidance effect and deep mechanisms of the GFRI policy. The empirical results demonstrated that firms' TFP in pilot zones increased substantially after implementing the GFRI pilot policy, confirming that the policy had a strong incentive effect. The corresponding promoting effect was particularly significant for non-state-owned companies, the eastern and central regions, and firms in the growth stage. Further mechanism analysis revealed that the GFRI pilot policy can stimulated firms' TFP by promoting technological innovation and improving resource allocation efficiency. This paper's empirical findings are essential in improving relevant policies and expanding the pilot zones.
This paper thoroughly examines the time distribution, author collaboration, research institutions, research hotspots, theme clustering, and research changes and trends based on 345 CNKI literatures in the field of blended learning for Business English majors in China from 2012 to 2022. It reveals that: Research on blended learning for Business English majors in China from 2012 to 2022 can be divided into Steady Start Stage (2012-2017), Rapid Growth Stage (2018-2020) and Stable Development Stage (2021-2022). High-frequency keywords such as blended teaching mode, MOOC, flipped classroom, SPOC, etc. are hotspots of current scholars' attention. The themes of research on blended learning of business English majors in China mainly include Teaching Reform of Business English Majors, Exploration of Blended Teaching Mode and Design, and Application of Internet Teaching Platform. "Teaching Reform", "Online and Offline", "Application of Smart Platform" are the current research frontier issues in the development of blended learning for Business English majors in China. In general, China's research on blended learning for business English majors has achieved fruitful results under China's policies. Future research should concentrate on the construction of a technology environment for blended learning between learners, a variety of intelligent learning tools and mobile devices, and should be steadily bolstered in the field of blended learning for business English majors, particularly in practical application, effectiveness analysis, distance education, training and continuing education, innovation education, etc.
During 30 years of unprecedented urbanization, plant diversity in Shenzhen, a young megacity in southern China, has increased dramatically. Although strongly associated with plant diversity, butterfly diversity generally declines with urbanization, but this has not been investigated in Shenzhen. Considering the speed of urbanization in Shenzhen and the large number of city parks, we investigated butterfly diversity in Shenzhen parks. We measured butterfly species richness in four microhabitats (groves, hedges, flowerbeds, and unmanaged areas) across 10 parks and examined the relationship with three park variables: park age, park size, and distance from the central business district. Butterflies were identified based on wing morphology and DNA barcoding. We collected 1933 butterflies belonging to 74 species from six families; 20% of the species were considered rare. Butterfly species richness showed weak negative correlations with park age and distance from the central business district, but the positive correlation with park size was statistically significant (p = 0.001). Among microhabitat types, highest species richness was recorded in unmanaged areas. Our findings are consistent with others in suggesting that to promote urban butterfly diversity it is necessary to make parks as large as possible and to set aside areas for limited management. In comparison to neighbouring cities, Shenzhen parks have high butterfly diversity.
Perceptions of, and attitudes toward, wildlife are influenced by exposure to, and direct experiences with, nature. Butterflies are a conspicuous and ubiquitous component of urban nature across megacities that are highly urbanized with little opportunity for human-nature interactions. We evaluated public familiarity with, perceptions of and attitudes toward butterflies across nine megacities in East and Southeast Asia through face-to-face interviews with 1774 urban park users. A total of 79% of respondents had seen butterflies in their cities mostly in urban parks, indicating widespread familiarity with butterflies. Those who had seen butterflies also had higher perceptions of butterflies, whereas greater than 50% of respondents had positive attitudes toward butterflies. Frequent visits to natural places in urban neighbourhoods was associated with (i) sightings of caterpillars, indicating increased familiarity with urban wildlife, and (ii) increased connectedness to nature. We found two significant positive relationships: (i) between connectedness to nature and attitudes toward butterflies and (ii) between connectedness to nature and perceptions of butterflies, firmly linking parks users' thoughts and feelings about butterflies with their view of nature. This suggests that butterflies in urban parks can play a key role in building connectedness to nature and consequently pro-environmental behaviours and support for wildlife conservation among urban residents.