A study assessing the impact of income relative deprivation and cooperative membership on rural residents' health: A pathway towards improving the health status of rural residents.

Rural residents' health status is related to their happiness, socioeconomic status, personal development, and the ideals of living, but individual income relative deprivation has a negative impact on their health. Hence, this study aimed to examine that how to alleviate the negative impact of income relative deprivation on rural residents' health. Based on a literature review, it is the first study to propose that cooperative membership could help alleviate the adverse effects of income relative deprivation on rural residents' health. It survey data from 466 farm households in Shandong Province in China and employs an endogenous switching probit model to solve the endogenous problems. The results show that relative deprivation positively affects farmers' membership in a cooperative but negatively impacts their health. More importantly, the results indicate that membership in a cooperative improves farmers' health and alleviates the adverse effects of relative deprivation. These findings not only expand the empirical research on the positive impact of relative deprivation but also provide a new pathway towards improving the negative impact of income relative deprivation on rural residents' health. That is, the government should guide smallholder farmers to join professional cooperatives and encourage the development of 'multi-functional' cooperatives to play a greater role in improving rural residents' health.

Moving towards Environmental Sustainability: Can Digital Economy Reduce Environmental Degradation in China?

In the context of environmental sustainability and accelerated digital technology development, China attaches great importance to the prominent role of digital economy in addressing environmental degradation. Utilizing Chinese provincial panel data from 2011 to 2019, this study investigates whether the digital economy can improve China's environmental sustainability proxy by reducing carbon emission intensity. Based on the fixed effects model, the findings reveal that the digital economy has a significant negative effect on carbon emission intensity and the conclusion remains robust after conducting several robustness checks. However, this impact shows regional heterogeneity, which is more effective in resource-based eastern regions and the Belt and Road provinces. Moreover, mediating effect analyses indicate that the transmission mechanisms are energy consumption structure, total factor energy productivity, and green technology innovation. Furthermore, the results based on the spatial Durbin model (SDM) demonstrate that digital economy development has a significant spatial spillover effect. Finally, on the basis of results analysis and discussion, policy recommendations are provided for achieving environmental sustainability.