Inclusive Finance, Environmental Regulation, and Public Health in China: Lessons for the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The slow-down of the Chinese economy and the depression in the global economy during the COVID-19 show that governments should provide stimulus packages. These policies should be inclusive in terms of financial gains. Using the panel data of 30 regions in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper uses the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator to analyze the impact of inclusive finance on public health. The results show that inclusive finance has a significant positive effect on public health. The performance of the eastern region is significantly better than that of the central and western regions. When we consider the combined effect of environmental regulation, the improvement effect of inclusive finance on public health is still significant, and the coefficient increases in the eastern region. Similarly, there is also a significant improvement effect in the central and western regions. Our findings reveal that environmental regulation promotes the beneficial effect of inclusive finance. Therefore, it is important to improve the inclusive financial development mechanism and enhance environmental regulation intensity for solving public health issues. Lessons related to the COVID-19 pandemic are also discussed.

Approaches to Health Efficiency across the European Space through the Lens of the Health Budget Effort

“…During the pandemic, economies of the political powers were affected, in particular due to the restriction of economic trade, so that the governments of these countries had to act in terms of health protection but also to stimulate the affected domestic business environment in the global trade segment in order to recover. The authors [ 13 ] propose a system based on PPML (Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood) estimators, so that the financial development mechanism strengthens public health care by promoting financial flows through state-owned firms. While this may be negative in the long term, in the short term, the proposed solution may achieve its goal.…”

The Impact of Sustainable Growth and Sustainable Environment on Public Health: A Study of GCC Countries

“…They also assert that due to rapid economic growth and a high amount of fossil fuel consumption, the health of the population is severely affected due to carbon emission. Similarly, Chen et al ( 32 ), Liu and Guo ( 33 ) and Zhao et al ( 34 ) also addressed the relationship between carbon emission and public health.…”

How can green credit decrease social health costs? The mediating effect of the environment

“…The research in China has drawn a relatively consistent conclusion: green credit has a positive impact on health. Liu and Guo (12) discussed the significant positive effect of inclusive finance on public health based on China's data. Hu et al (13) found that China's green credit has significant effects on the transformation of the industrial structure.…”

“…λ i represents the fixed effect, and µ it and v it represent the residuals, assuming that they all follow a normal distribution and are independent of one another. Substituting Equation (13) into Equation (12), we obtain:…”

“…The estimated results for Equations ( 12) and ( 13) are shown in Table 5, which examines the mediating effect of environmental pollution. Equation (12) takes environmental pollution as the explained variable. The elasticity coefficient of green credit was −0.269, passing the 1% significance level test, indicating that green credit plays an important role in environmental protection.…”