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The sustainability payoff of AI: revisiting TFP in corporate and societal performance
Full text linkUsing data on Chinese A-share listed firms and regions from 2011–2023, this paper employs a difference-in-differences (DID) framework to evaluate the productivity returns to artificial intelligence (AI) application from both firm-level and societal perspectives. The findings are as follows: First, AI intensity significantly increases firms' total factor productivity (TFP). Second, AI intensity significantly increases social TFP. Third, green financial innovation exerts a significant positive mediating effect on the pathway from AI intensity to firm TFP. Fourth, green financial innovation also partially mediates the pathway from AI intensity to social TFP. Substantively, the paper links micro-level firm transformation with macro-level regional performance, providing empirical evidence and policy implications for understanding the transmission mechanism from digitalization to greening to high-quality growth
State, food, and me: an autoethnographic reflection on the sociocultural dimensions of Chinese women’s eating disorders
Full text linkBackground: Eating disorders among Chinese women have been growing in recent years, yet, little research has explored these experiences in non-Western contexts. This study aimed to challenge the dominant Western-centric models, which often universalise psychiatric frameworks and overlook culturally embedded aspects of distress. It critically examines how sociocultural forces in contemporary China shape the development and recovery of eating disorders among Chinese women. Method: This paper adopted a critical autoethnographic approach, grounded in the author's decade-long lived experience as a Chinese woman with eating disorders. Results: The paper highlighted key sociocultural barriers faced by Chinese women, including the societal emphasis on women’s appearance, pervasive competition culture, and Confucian gender norms. It also identified specific structural challenges in China, such as inadequate psychiatric resources, treatment paradigms neglecting trauma, entrenched stigma surrounding mental illness, and a cultural history that moralises food consumption and waste. Conclusion: Guided by feminist and poststructuralist critiques, the paper argued that eating disorders among Chinese women are not merely personal or psychological conditions, but reflect broader social tensions linked to neoliberal governmentality, gender inequality, and moral values in contemporary China. Recovery, therefore, cannot be reduced to clinical intervention alone; it also demands reclaiming subjectivity beyond sociocultural constraints
Reducing the large short-lived impact of methane emissions with temporary carbon removals
No full textWe consider potential non-permanence of carbon removal not as an obstacle but as a feature to focus on the compensation for the short-term warming of methane emissions. This could re-open climate finance for nature-based solutions and provide an immediate reduction in temperature stress
Joerg Rieger and Sanjana Das (eds), Decolonizing Development and Religion: Theoretical Frameworks, Case Studies, and Theological Models
No full textRieger, Joerg and Das, Sanjana (eds), Decolonizing Development and Religion: Theoretical Frameworks, Case Studies, and Theological Models (London: SCM Press, 2025); 264 pp.: 9780334066316, £30 (pbk
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017) has long-term effects on corporate pension risk
No full textThe Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 generated a spurt in tax-deductible contributions to corporate defined benefit pension plans. We examine how pension risk altered as a result. We document that sponsors making large voluntary contributions before lower tax rates take effect also (i) make economically significant shifts in asset allocation toward safer investments and (ii) transfer obligations to insurance companies or beneficiaries. We identify the TCJA as a driver of pension derisking, with long-term implications for sponsors, employees, and the PBGC; and particularly of the propensity to transfer pensions to insurance companies or beneficiaries, permanently changing the regulatory status and guaranties associated with them
From Douyin Shop to TikTok Shop: the platformized supply chain, spatialized business model, and regional partnership in cross‐border e‐eommerce
Full text linkThis article investigates how TikTok Shop reproduces the e‐commerce model of Douyin Shop against a backdrop of divergent regulatory challenges and geopolitical distrust. One of the strategic changes we observe in TikTok Shop is the shift of consumer goods suppliers from local merchants to China‐based sellers. The Chinese supply chain is thereby platformized into TikTok's global e‐commerce ecosystem through partnerships with local shipping, warehousing, and international settlements providers. Building on the paradigm shift from location analysis to spatial analysis, as proposed in existing scholarship, we argue that an analytical approach centered on the national origin of platforms obscures the corporate‐led, cross‐border deployment of resources, which scopes value spatially. Although transnational platforms may appear subordinate to state power under which they operate, there is a generative interplay between border‐bound components and borderless intangible assets such as data‐based digital intelligence. This interplay extends digital platforms both geographically and spatially by incorporating territory‐bound business actors into a reconfigured transnational space in pursuit of global profit
In defense of environmental target laws
No full textThis article argues that an emerging body of ‘target laws’ - legislation that incorporates binding, quantified environmental targets with specified deadlines - represents a crucial evolution in environmental governance. Whereas traditional environmental risk regulation was valuable for managing discrete environmental impacts, it has proven inadequate to address systemic challenges like climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse. Target laws, by contrast, are better equipped to deliver the transformative change needed to respond to systemic threats. Drawing on examples from climate legislation and the EU Nature Restoration Law, the analysis demonstrates how target laws can overcome environmental law's persistent vulnerabilities to short-termism, marginalisation, and public obscurity. However, targets are paradoxical entities that inject considerable complexity into legal frameworks, creating novel challenges around temporality, legal status, implementation, and enforceability. While acknowledging these formidable difficulties, the article contends that target laws merit vigorous defense as they offer environmental legislation unprecedented dynamism, resilience, and transformative potential
#YouthMentalHealth: hashtag analysis of global trends, stakeholder engagement, and impact on X platform (formerly known as Twitter)
Full text linkAim: This study aims to evaluate the outreach achieved by psychiatry-related posts using the hashtag #YouthMentalHealth, highlighting how social media platforms can shape public discourse on adolescent mental health. Methods: We utilized the Fedica research analytics tool to characterize posts containing #YouthMentalHealth from January 10, 2018, to January 10, 2023. This analysis examined the #YouthMentalHealth activity timeline, identifying the number of posts containing the hashtag and the geographical distribution to assess the effectiveness of hashtag campaigns. Results: The #YouthMentalHealth movement resulted in 58,000 posts shared by around 25,000 X users, generating 292.7 million impressions (views). The top three countries from which most posts containing #YouthMentalHealth were shared included the United States (35.14%), Canada (29.15%), and the United Kingdom (14.37%). The three largest contributor groups were management companies (20.6%), educational advocacy organizations (17.5%), and social advocacy groups (14%). Conclusions: This first-of-its-kind study explores the impact and utilization of #YouthMentalHealth globally, reporting trends and patterns from digital media platforms. By mapping the hashtag’s global footprint, the study offers novel insights into how digital advocacy can amplify youth mental health awareness and connect multidisciplinary stakeholders. These findings contribute to emerging frameworks in digital psychiatry by underscoring the role of social media as a complementary tool for mental health promotion and community engagement, while illuminating diverse strategies to aid the psychiatric community in effectively addressing the mental health needs of adolescents
The softness of hard data: discursive psychology, conversation analysis, and psychological science
No full textQualitative methods are sometimes criticised on the grounds that they do not provide ‘hard’ data. But, on inspection, ‘hard’ data turns out to be produced by unavoidably ‘soft’ human interaction and activities. That means that psychologists must work directly with what people do and say, and either transform it into abstractions – with potential distortions along the way – or stay with the raw events to see what questions they may answer. We argue for the latter: using discursive psychology and conversation analysis to ground claims about human sociality in the evidence that it provides, unfiltered, in everyday interaction. But, taking this argument further, we demonstrate how discursive psychological and conversation analytic scrutiny may reveal the ‘softness’ of both quantitative (experiments, standardisation) and qualitative (interview and survey questions) research tools, with implications for the production, openness, and validity of psychological knowledge
A megastudy of behavioral interventions to catalyze public, political, and financial climate advocacy
Full text linkAddressing climate change depends on large-scale system changes, which require public advocacy. Here, we identified and tested 17 expert-crowdsourced theory-informed behavioral interventions designed to promote public, political, and financial advocacy in a large quota-matched sample of US residents (n = 31,324). The most consistently effective intervention emphasized both the collective efficacy and emotional benefits of climate action, increasing advocacy by up to 10 percentage points. This was also the top intervention among participants identifying as Democrats. Appealing to binding moral foundations, such as purity and sanctity, was also among the most effective interventions, showing positive effects even among participants identifying as Republicans. These findings provide critical insights to policymakers and practitioners aiming to galvanize the public behind collective action and advocacy on climate change with affordable and scalable interventions