Is environmental regulation effective in promoting the quantity and quality of green innovation?
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Is environmental regulation effective in promoting the quantity and quality of green innovation? Xia Pan 1 & Wenyin Cheng 2 & Yuning Gao 2 & Tomas Balezentis 3 & Zhiyang Shen 4,5 Received: 11 July 2020 / Accepted: 23 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Green innovation (GI) is an important means of achieving a win-win outcome in the form of both economic development and environmental protection. Using a unique Chinese Patent Census Database to identify the quantity and quality of GI in each province and panel data for Chinese industrial sector in 30 provinces from 2002 to 2015, we investigated the impact of environmental regulation (ER) on GI in China. This study presents the first attempt to identify green innovation quality in China. Empirical results show that there is an inverted-U relationship between ER and GI. The heterogenous effects are further investigated in order to obtain more accurate policy implications. The results indicate that the impact of ER on GI is insignificant in the central and western regions, implying the necessity of adjusting ER policies in these regions. Second, the inverted Ushaped relationship between ER and GI only occurred in provinces with high state-owned enterprise (SOE) ratio, figuring out the special role of Chinese SOEs in promoting GI. Third, the impact of ER on GI is insignificant in regions with high levels of pollution, indicating high potential of green innovation and policy adjustments there. Keywords Green innovations . Patent quality . Environmental regulation . State-owned enterprises . Pollution
Introduction The use of natural resources alongside pollution mitigation has been an important topic for economic research
(Jerónimo Silvestre et al. 2018; Fedulova et al. 2019). Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China has experienced rapid economic growth but severe environmental deterioration. According to data from the World Bank, the average
Highlights • This study attempts to identify green innovation quality in China. • An inverted U-shaped relationship between ER and GI is observed in some regions. • The impact of ER on GI is insignificant in regions with high levels of pollution. Pan X. and Cheng W. share the first co-authorship Responsible editor: Nicholas Apergis * Zhiyang Shen [email protected] Xia Pan [email protected] Wenyin Cheng [email protected] Yuning Gao [email protected] Tomas Balezentis [email protected]
1
Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China
2
Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
3
Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics, Vilnius, Lithuania
4
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
5
Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing 100081, China
Environ Sci Pollut Res
annual growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) (constant 2010 US$) in China is 9.37% from 197
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