The Dually Negative Effect of Industrial Polluting Enterprises on China's Air Pollution: A Provincial Panel Data Analysis Based on Environmental Regulation Theory

Spatio-temporal process and influencing factors of polluting enterprises' migration: an empirical study based on the Yangtze River Delta

The migration of polluting enterprises (MPE) is a crucial subject within the fields of Environmental Economic Geography and Enterprise Geography. An analysis was conducted on the temporal-spatial evolution and influencing factors of the MPE by employing the full-sample enterprises data from the "Qichacha" system. The main findings were obtained: (1) The polluting enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta have undergone an evolutionary process of proximity migration, intra-provincial proximity to intra-provincial long distance migration, with intra-provincial migration being the main focus supplemented by inter-provincial migration, and coexisting intra-provincial and inter-provincial migration. (2) The estimation results, based on the panel negative-binomial model, reveal that the variables having a greater impact on the MPE encompass environmental regulation, industrial upgrading policies, cost factors, geographical distance, coastal and inter-provincial boundaries, etc. These influencing factors display time heterogeneity and industry heterogeneity. (3) By taking the Nijiaxiang Group, which was involved in the 321 Explosion Accident in Xiangshui, as an example, it was discovered that insufficient inheritance of environmental protection concepts, corruption of officials, and social governance problems have resulted in shortcomings in the area. This has led to a lowered level of local environmental regulation, transforming the local area into a haven for polluting enterprises such as the Nijiaxiang Group. The contribution of this study lies in observing the MPE from the perspective of "inter-regional association," and within the group enterprises. It addresses the deficiencies of existing research that mainly examines the evolution of industrial geographic patterns and statically observes polluting enterprises' entry and exit behavior. Moreover, this study demonstrates that the Pollution Shelter Hypothesis is not universal and has an impact in the Yangtze River Delta region after 2012.

Green merger and acquisition decision driven by environmental regulation and its impact on green innovation: evidence from Chinese heavily polluting listed enterprises

How heavily polluting enterprises achieve sustainable development has become an urgent issue to be solved. Based on the data of Chinese heavily polluting listed enterprises during the period of 2010-2020, this paper adopts the probit method to examine how heterogeneous environmental regulations affect green merger and acquisition (GMA) decision, and propensity score matching and difference-in-differences method to explore innovation performance of GMA. The findings are as follows: (1) Command-and-control environmental regulation (CMCER) can promote GMA, while there exists a U-shaped relationship between market-based environmental regulation (MBER) and GMA; (2) from a dynamic perspective, it turns out that GMA can promote green innovation (GI) in the first and second post-acquisition year, but this effect disappears in the third year; (3) compared with CMCER, MBER has a more pronounced positive effect on the relationship between GMA and GI; (4) heterogeneous analysis indicates that the above GMA performance is more persistent when the acquirer is state-owned, with high media attention, with high internal control or engages in vertical GMA. The findings further enrich the literature on GMA driver and performance and provide references for optimizing ER policies and promoting corporate sustainable development.

A comparison of a single bout of stretching or foam rolling on range of motion in healthy adults

PURPOSE

Stretching and foam rolling are common warm-up exercises and can acutely increase the range of motion (ROM) of a joint. However, possible differences in the magnitude of change on ROM between these two interventions on the immediate and prolonged effects (e.g., 10 min after the intervention) are not yet well understood. Thus, the purpose of this review was to compare the immediate and prolonged effects of a single bout of foam rolling with a single bout of stretching on ROM in healthy participants.

METHODS

In total, 20 studies with overall 38 effect sizes were found to be eligible for a meta-analysis. For the main analysis, subgroup analysis, we applied a random-effect meta-analysis, mixed-effect model, respectively. The subgroup analyses included age groups, sex, and activity levels of the participants, as well as the tested muscles, the duration of the application, and the study design.

RESULTS

Meta-analyses revealed no significant differences between a single stretching and foam rolling exercise immediately after the interventions (ES = 0.079; P = 0.39) nor a difference 10 min (ES =  - 0.051; P = 0.65), 15 min (ES =  - 0.011; P = 0.93), and 20 min (ES =  - 0.161; P = 0.275) post-intervention. Moreover, subgroup analyses revealed no other significant differences between the acute effects of stretching and foam rolling (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

If the goal is to increase the ROM acutely, both interventions can be considered as equally effective. Likely, similar mechanisms are responsible for the acute and prolonged ROM increases such as increased stretch tolerance or increased soft-tissue compliance.