Abstract:The current Russia-Ukraine war has elevated the issue of oil and gas security to a new strategic height. Accurately assessing the future supply and demand fornatural gas is of great strategic significance for the construction of major natural gas energy security projects. This paper innovatively divides natural gas consumption into three categories: survival, production, and non-bottom-line consumption.It predicts medium- and long-term natural gas consumption under conditions of multi-factor collaborative uncertainty and makes a comprehensive study and judgment of the natural gas supply and demand situation under the bottom-line thinking. The results show that, first, under the three scenarios of recoverable reserves, natural gas production will peak in 2030, 2033, and 2037, with peak productions of 2 441.46, 346.492 and 422.795 billion cubic meters, respectively.Second, by 2030, the lowest production consumption accounts for 31.70% of the bottom-line consumption, but its average annual growth rate far exceeds that of survival consumption.Third, the bottom-line consumption in 2025 and 2030 will reach 3 057.19~3 578.61 and 3 704.95~4 730.81 billion cubic meters, respectively. If the cascade gas consumption thinking is strictly implemented, subsistence consumption can basically achieve self-sufficiency under any production scenario.However,the lowest self-sufficiency rate for production and consumption under the most optimistic scenario of natural gas production at the end of the “15th Five-Year Plan” does not exceed 52%.Furthermore, even under ascenario of one times production and consumption, there may be complete dependence on external sources. Fourth, in the scenario of two times or 1.5 times natural gas production, the external dependence on natural gas can be strictly controlled within 50%; however, the effect of using different scenarios to reduce this external dependence is limited, with a maximum reduction of 8.71%. The research conclusions are of great significance for ensuring the balance between the supply and demand of natural gas in my country and implementing the energy security strategy.

Abstract:Chinese official media uses various types of news framing to report entrepreneurial failure. However, there is limited knowledge on how the official media make sense of (sensemaking) and give sense to (sensegiving) entrepreneurial failure events, and its subsequent effects on public cognition and failure tolerance climate. Using entrepreneurial failure events reported by Chinese official media in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong from 2015 to 2017, this study employs content analysis to construct a process model of sensemaking and sensegiving by the official media in their reporting of entrepreneurial failure. There are three main findings. 1) Chinese official media uses two types of news framing to make sense of entrepreneurial failure: Risk framing and opportunity framing. 2) The sensegiving structures of these two types of framing differ significantly in terms of the event category of entrepreneurial failure, the attributes of entrepreneurial failure, and the outcomes interpretation of entrepreneurial failure. 3) The type of news framing used is dependent on regional entrepreneurial activity and can shape the public’s cognition of entrepreneurial failure and entrepreneurial intention. Combining the knowledge of news framing in communication studies with sensemaking theory in strategic management, this study investigates the social construction processes of entrepreneurial failure by Chinese official media. The findings offer important implications for recognizing how official media systematically and structurally choose the type of news framing to construct entrepreneurial failure stories and their roles in shaping of public cognition.

Abstract:Manufacturers’online arms enlarge market sales for them, but pose a competitive threat to online retailers. While most prior literature concerns manufacturers’channel encroachment strategies, this paper investigates the online retailers’choice of selling model among the reseller model, the marketplace model, and the hybrid model when facing potential encroachment threats from manufacturers. Modelling the spillover effect between manufacturers’ online and offline channels, the impact of channel encroachment on the profits of both parties is analyzed under different business models. The results show that manufacturer encroachment is not always detrimental to online retailers. Under the reseller model, manufacturers will reduce wholesale prices when they build their online channels, and retailers can be better off when manufacturers’direct selling costs are high. Under the marketplace model and the hybrid model, adding direct sales channels can help alleviate manufacturers’pricing distortions caused by spillover effect. As a result, online retailers can be better off with a high positive or high negative spillover effect. In addition, online retailers should use the marketplace model under weak spillover effects and low direct sales costs, while opting for the reseller model (or the hybrid model) under extremely positive (or negative) spillover effects. The results cannot only provide guidance for online retailers to deal with manufacturer encroachment, but also offer decision support for manufacturers to introduce direct sales channels.

Abstract:This paper integrates manufacturers’carbon emission reduction and retailers’low-carbon advertising into the analysis framework and introduces reciprocity into the strategies interactions of the low-carbon supply chain. By constructing and solving game-theoretic models, this paper tries to carry out the optimization decision-making and coordination mechanisms research. The results show that: 1) Regardless of the manufacturer’s reciprocal preference, the low-carbon supply chain can be perfectly coordinated through a combined contract of co-op advertising and carbon emission reduction cost-sharing. When the manufacturer has a highly altruistic preference, the low-carbon supply chain can be perfectly coordinated through the co-op advertising contract. When the manufacturer does not have a highly altruistic preference, the co-op advertising contract can only mitigate the double marginal effectsbut cannot achieve perfect coordination. 2) Under the two-way cooperation mode, the low-carbon supply chain generates the most carbon emissions while obtaining the highest profit. Both the overall profit and total carbon emissions are independent of the reciprocity coefficient. Under the advertising cooperation mode, both the overall profit of the supply chain and the total amount of carbon emissions increase as the reciprocity coefficient increases. Without any cooperation, the overall profit of the supply chain increases with the reciprocity coefficient, while the total carbon emissions decrease with the reciprocity coefficient. The reciprocal preference of the manufacturer is not only conducive to economic goals but also conducive to environmental goals. 3) No matter which cooperation mode is adopted, the total carbon emissions will first increase and then decrease with consumers’ low-carbon preference and advertising influence coefficient. When consumers’ low-carbon preference or advertising influence coefficient is small, the carbon emissions under the two-way cooperation mode are the highest.As consumers’ low-carbon preference or advertising influence coefficient increases, total carbon emissions under the two-way cooperation mode will first reach apeak and then decline sharply.

Abstract:This paper considers a two-echelon supply chain in which demand is jointly influenced by network externalities, advertising, and price. The purpose is to investigate the impacts of network externalities on the pricing and advertising decisions of supply chain members, as well as on contract selection. The results show that network externalities increase product prices and advertising investments, which creates a double superposition advertising effect that significantly increases sales and benefits both the retailer and the manufacturer. However, double marginalization still exists in the decentralized system, meaning that product sales, advertising investment and system profit are all better under the centralized system. The advertising cooperative contract and revenue-sharing contract are examined to coordinate the supply chain. It is found that only the revenue-sharing contract can successfully coordinate the supply chain when the strength of network externalities is weak, under some conditions. When network externalities are strong, both contracts can coordinate the supply chain, but the revenue-sharing contract is more efficient.

Abstract:Market liquidity is determined by the interplay between liquidity providers and liquidity consumers.Employing a rational expectations equilibrium framework, this article delves into the effects of investor composition on the liquidity‘provider-consumer’structure and the formation mechanism of liquidity in the Chinese Stock Market, focusing on the order behaviors of various investor types in the limit order book.The model incorporates three distinct categories of traders: Informed, uninformed, and noise traders, and explores the strategic interactions not only between informed traders and uninformed traders but also within uninformed traders.Our findings reveal that both informed and uninformed traders predominantly utilize limit orders to supply liquidity, thereby influencing the market’s liquidity formation. The model highlights that uninformed traders are more active liquidity providers compared to informed traders; However, an increase in outstanding unexecuted limit orders among uninformed traders deteriorates overall market liquidity. Interestingly, limit orders placed by informed traders can regulate the competition of uninformed traders, thus enhancing liquidity. The study further identifies that the relative proportion of uninformed to noise traders significantly impacts the liquidity ‘provider-consumer’structure. Moreover, it is observed that higher stock price volatility diminishes the influence of this ‘provider-consumer’ dynamic, leading to a more stabilized liquidity structure predominantly governed by ‘informed-noise’ interactions.

Abstract:To investigate the contagion characteristics of different types of risks in equity markets during major global events, this paper develops a dynamic jump-diffusion two-factor cross-feedback model to decompose market variance into continuous volatility and discontinuous jump risks. This study conducts a nonlinear Granger causality test to identify the existence of risk contagion and implements the network topology method to quantify the specific degree of volatility spillover and jump risk transmission. The proposed econometric framework allows us to map the contagion network of volatility and jump risks during specific global shocks. The empirical results show that the U.S. and European markets remain the primary risk exporters globally, while the Chinese market acts as a major risk receiver.It also demonstrates persistent volatility spillover and limited jump propagation to other global markets. Furthermore, there is a stronger degree of jump propagation, but it lasts for a shorter duration during unexpected and severe global shocks compared to volatility spillover. Furthermore, the same event exhibits distinct features across different geographical locations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where the U.S. exerted a significant risk spillover to China in a unidirectional manner. This study advances the understanding of risk contagion mechanisms between markets and provides theoretical and empirical insights for policymakers to lay out effective regulatory strategies for different risks.

Abstract:Based on the improved Greenwood et al. (2015) model, this paper studies China’s banking systemic risk caused by cross-border lending. The results show that: 1)Under the impact of cross-border lending, systemic risk is mainly determined by the asset side’s shock, and China’s banking systemic risk has four stage characteristics. 2)Systemic risk is affected by risk exposure, institutional asset size, leverage and indirect correlation, with these factors playing different roles during different shocks and different stages. As an external shock, risk exposure is less important than internal factors, such as the scale of institutional assets and indirect correlation. 3)The increase of systemic risk caused by cross-border lending can lead to adverse changes of macroeconomic variables in the future, and the systemic risk’s index is effective.