Zombie firms that rely on government subsidies and bank loans have seriously affected the healthy development of economies. This paper uses data from Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises from 2007 to 2017 to test and analyse the relationship between political connections and zombie enterprises. The study finds: (i) political connections are positively correlated with the 'zombification' of enterprises; (ii) credit subsidies play an intermediary role between political connections and 'zombification' of enterprises, with the acquisition of large credit subsidies the main path to the 'zombification' of politically connected enterprises; and (iii) firms that have political connections may use credit subsidies for inefficient over-investment. This study has value for other countries in clarifying the causes of zombie firms and preventing politically connected enterprises from becoming zombie firms.

As an important policy to promote global energy transition and carbon emission reduction, does the carbon emission trading policy help promote foreign direct investment inflows, thus alleviating the contradiction between environment and economic development? Based on the “OLI paradigm,” by using the data of China’s 30 provinces from 2007 to 2016 and taking China’s pilot implementation carbon emission transaction policy in 2013 as the natural experiment, so as to construct a differences-in-differences model, this study empirically analyzed the impact of carbon emission transaction policies on foreign direct investment and conducted an in-depth analysis and discussion on related heterogeneity. The empirical results show that 1) there is a positive correlation between the carbon emission trading policy and foreign direct investment; 2) the results of heterogeneity analysis show that the effect of carbon emission trading policy on the increase in FDI is more significant in the areas with a stronger environmental regulation, a higher degree of marketization, and low energy consumption. The conclusions of this study enrich the analysis of the effectiveness of government environmental policies from the perspective of both environment and economic development and provide relevant policy enlightenment for developing countries in environmental regulation and attracting foreign direct investment.Systematic Review Registration: [website], identifier [registration number].

As an important policy tool to realize the vision of "carbon peaking and carbon neutralization", the carbon emission trading system is considered to be useful for alleviating enterprise financing constraints and stimulating high-quality technological innovation. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies, this paper tests the above policy effects by setting a quasi-natural experiment. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The introduction of the market mechanism for carbon emission control can improve the quality of enterprise R & D, and the mitigation of financing constraints has a positive contribution to this improvement; (2) The innovation incentive effect of carbon emission trading system is significant in the sample of state-owned enterprises with government credit endorsement, but it shows the opposite statistical results in non-state-owned enterprises; (3) The incentive effect of carbon emission trading system on innovation quality is higher in heavy pollution industries than others. The above conclusions have important reference value for developing countries to achieve the dual goals of high-quality economic development.