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Is environmental regulation effective in promoting the quantity and quality of green innovation?

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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 U-shaped 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.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the confidentiality agreement of the patent data, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research received funding from the General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71873075), and from the National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences of China (No. 20155010298). Shen Z. appreciates the financial support from Bei**g Institute of Technology Research Fund Program for Young Scholars and Special Fund for Joint Development Program of Bei**g Municipal Commission of Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central University of Finance and Economics, Bei**g, 100081, China

    **a Pan

  2. Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Tsinghua University, Bei**g, 100084, China

    Wenyin Cheng & Yuning Gao

  3. Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Tomas Balezentis

  4. School of Management and Economics, Bei**g Institute of Technology, Bei**g, 100081, China

    Zhiyang Shen

  5. Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Bei**g, Bei**g, 100081, China

    Zhiyang Shen

Authors
  1. **a Pan
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  2. Wenyin Cheng
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  3. Yuning Gao
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  4. Tomas Balezentis
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  5. Zhiyang Shen
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Contributions

Introduction and literature review, X.P. and W.C.; Method and data, X.P. and W.C.; Empirical results and discussion, X.P., W.C., and Z.S.; Heterogeneity analysis, X.P. and W.C.; Conclusions and discussions, X.P., W.C., Y.G., and Z.S.; Writing–original draft preparation, X.P., W.C., Y.G., and Z.S.; Writing–review and editing, W.C. T.B., and Z.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhiyang Shen.

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Responsible editor: Nicholas Apergis

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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

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Pan, X., Cheng, W., Gao, Y. et al. Is environmental regulation effective in promoting the quantity and quality of green innovation?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 6232–6241 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10984-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10984-w

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