The Empirical Analysis of Environmental Regulation’s Spatial Spillover Effects on Green Technology Innovation in China

Abstract

Green technology innovation is one of the driving forces of industrial structure upgrading. This innovation is thought to be related to environmental regulation. The study uses panel data for 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 2009 to 2020 and presents a comprehensive research-based explanation of how environmental regulations impact green innovation. This study employs the spatial Durbin model to analyze the spillover effect of the region. The results show that the total impact of environmental regulations is 0.223%, of which the direct effect is 0.099%. This impact includes the effects of both formal and informal environmental regulation. It indicates that ecological regulations significantly enhance green technology innovation. Furthermore, the spatial spillover effect is significantly positive at the 1% level with a coefficient of 0.124. Such spillover effects represent a learning effect of regional environmental regulation. Based on the results, the study suggests a few policy measures based on the detailed outcomes.

How does market-incentive environmental regulation affect enterprises green growth? The mediating role of R&D investment and innovation output

“…The independent variable is MER. MER is a kind of market-oriented environmental regulations, which can strengthen institutional support for enterprises green growth by implementing economic policies such as pollution emission fines, investment of environmental pollution control, tradable pollution permits, energy-saving and emission reduction subsidies [ 50 , 51 ]. Although pollution emission fines are relatively common, further in-depth discussion is not possible constrained by the lack of enterprise level data.…”

Determining the green technology innovation accelator and natural resources towards decarbonization for the EU countries: evidence from MMQR

“…Environmental regulation promotes GTI by encouraging firms to improve their global competencies and innovative capacities (Porter 1991 ; Porter and Linde 1995 ). Some studies at the national and regional levels contend that environmental regulation encourages GTI (Li and Wu 2017 ; Ahmed 2020 ; Liu and Zhao 2020 ; Shang et al 2022 ; Wang et al 2023 ) because it has a positive spillover effect on GTI, which improves GTI. In a study on OECD countries, Behera and Sethi ( 2022 ) also argue that environmental regulation in the form of environmental taxes has a significant positive impact on GTI by encouraging the economy to support GTI.…”

How do environmental taxes affect green process innovation? Evidence from the Chinese manufacturing industry

“…For less-polluting industries, the benefits of GPI are higher than their marginal emission reductions costs. Faced with ETes and the pressure of strict environmental protection standards, they are more willing to take the lead in pro-environmental GPI (Liu et al, 2017) to gain a first-mover advantage and seize the market share (Tian and Li, 2020;Wang et al, 2021c). To sum up, PH could affect the strength of the four channels of ETes, which in turn influences the GPI in manufacturing industries (Figure 2).…”