China’s R&D Investment’s Impact on Environmental Pollution: An Integrated Approach Based on Panel Moderated Mediation and Regression Discontinuity

Abstract

How to reduce environmental pollution is fundamental for current civilization. Increasing in R&D investment may reduce the environmental pollution, yet whether and how R&D investment influence the environmental pollution needs further discussion and verification. Considering that the R&D investment can directly and also indirectly influence the environmental pollution by affecting the economic growth, and the fact that there is an obvious discontinuity for economic growth during the observed period, this paper firstly proposes an integrated approach based on panel moderated mediation analysis and regression discontinuity. It examines the R&D impact on environmental pollution on the basis of province-level data in China and uses the integrated approach to test its direct and indirect effect. Finally conclusion is made according to the findings.