Can Green Technological Innovation Reduce Hazardous Air Pollutants?—An Empirical Test Based on 283 Cities in China

Digital finance provides a premises guarantee for green technology innovation, and effective environmental regulation helps to achieve green and sustainable development. This article selects Chinese urban panel data from 2011 to 2019 to explore the impact mechanism of the influence of digital finance and environmental regulation on the innovation capacity of green science and technology. It is found that extensive financing channels and the strong information-matching ability of digital finance have a significant promoting effect on local green science and technology innovation. Moreover, government environmental regulation not only facilitates the development of green technology innovation locally and in nearby regions, but also strengthens the utility of digital finance in driving green science and technology innovation. Further research found that the influence of digital finance and environmental regulation on the ability of green science and technology innovation has regional heterogeneity, and only digital finance in Central China can promote green science and technology innovation in both local and adjacent areas. Therefore, the government should continue to promote the development of digital finance, optimize environmental regulations by increasing environmental protection subsidies and creating a green innovation environment, and further stimulate willingness to innovate green technologies. At the same time, it is also important to note the coordinated development and governance with neighboring regional governments.

Under the background of global response to climate crisis and environmental pollution, environmental regulation plays an increasingly important role in green technology innovation. This paper uses data from 280 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019 to empirically answer the question whether environmental regulation can improve the level of urban green technology innovation. It is found that environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation. Under the heterogeneity of economic geographical region and resource-based city, environmental regulation has positive promoting effect on urban green technology innovation. Heterogeneity results also show that environmental regulation significantly promotes green technology innovation in central and resource-based cities, but does not significantly promote green technology innovation in eastern and western cities and non-resource-based cities. Further research shows that environmental regulation can promote the level of green technology innovation through the two transmission mechanisms of government technology input and foreign direct investment. For the Chinese local government which is implementing the policy of green economic transformation, the formulation of scientific regional environmental policy is beneficial to improve the level of green technology innovation, increase government technology input and optimize the foreign investment environment.

Under the background of global response to climate crisis and environmental pollution, environmental regulation plays an increasingly important role in green technology innovation. This paper uses data from 280 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019 to empirically answer the question whether environmental regulation can improve the level of urban green technology innovation. It is found that environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation. Under the heterogeneity of economic geographical region and resource-based city, environmental regulation has positive promoting effect on urban green technology innovation. Heterogeneity results also show that environmental regulation significantly promotes green technology innovation in central and resource-based cities, but does not significantly promote green technology innovation in eastern and western cities and non-resource-based cities. Further research shows that environmental regulation can promote the level of green technology innovation through the two transmission mechanisms of government technology input and foreign direct investment. For the Chinese local government which is implementing the policy of green economic transformation, the formulation of scientific regional environmental policy is beneficial to improve the level of green technology innovation, increase government technology input and optimize the foreign investment environment.

The coordination of green economy, education development, and technological innovation is of great significance for reversing the trend of ecological environmental deterioration and promoting high‐quality economic development. This study first designs the indicator system of green economy, education development, and technological innovation, then uses the entropy method to calculate the comprehensive level of green economy, education development, and technological innovation of 30 provinces and cities in China, and finally uses the coupling coordination model to measure the coordination level among them. The research shows that, first, the comprehensive level of green economy, education development, and technological innovation in 30 provinces and cities in China showed a rising trend from 2005 to 2016, but there were some regional differences in their levels. Second, the coordination level of green economy, education development, and technological innovation in different regions of China was in a rising trend from 2005 to 2016, but in 2005, they were extremely uncoordinated. Also, the coordination level of green economy, education development, and technological innovation in most regions of China grew very slowly from 2005 to 2010 but showed a rapid increase from 2011 to 2016. The coordination level of green economy, education development, and technological innovation in eastern China was visibly higher than that of the central region. The coordination level of the central region was higher than that of the northeast region, and the coordination level of the northeast region was higher than that of the western region. Finally, the limitations of this paper are summarized and proposed the direction of future research.

How does heterogeneous green technology innovation affect air quality and economic development in Chinese cities? Spatial and nonlinear perspective analysis

Does the coupling of digital and green technology innovation matter for carbon emissions?

Distorted allocation of capital factors will lead to the loss of capital market-based soil as the background support for green technology innovation, which will not be able to climb up the value chain and eventually become an economic "colony." This study empirically investigates the relationship between distorted capital factor allocation and green technology innovation using data from 2005 to 2018 for prefecture-level cities in China. The empirical results show that the distortion of capital factor allocation not only has a significant inhibiting effect on green technology innovation in the city, but also hinders the development of green technology innovation in neighboring cities. Mechanism test analysis suggests that there is negative impact via generating mismatch, crowding out, and rent-seeking effects. Further research shows that the effect of distorted capital factor allocation on urban green technology innovation is more influential in the eastern and western regions. The conclusions of this study have important practical significance for optimizing the rational allocation of factor resources, promoting green technology innovation, and achieving high-quality economic growth.

In the era of green economic development, green finance serves as a crucial catalyst for green technological innovation, and both may significantly drive the upgrading of industrial structures. This study combines green finance, green technological innovation, and industrial structure into a research framework, analyzing data from 29 Chinese provinces (2003–2020) to empirically assess their impacts on China’s industrial structure using a two-way fixed-effects model. The results show the following: first, green finance and green technological innovation can significantly promote the upgrading of China’s industrial structure directly and synergistically, a finding corroborated by various robustness tests. Secondly, heterogeneity analysis reveals that there is a “path-dependency effect” in the development of green finance and technology innovation: in areas with higher population density, more developed technological markets, and lower fiscal pressure, the synergistic promotion of the upgrading of industrial structure is stronger. Thirdly, further research indicates that green finance and technology innovation impact the upgrading of industrial structure variably under command-and-control, market-incentive, and voluntary environmental-regulation tools. The most effective policy is the voluntary regulation tool, which involves higher levels of public participation. This study offers valuable insights for fostering green technology innovation, refining environmental policies, and enhancing the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure.

Following the recommendations of COP28 and Sustainable Development Goal -13 (Climate Action), the present study examines the role of financial depth and green technology innovation in carbon neutrality and climate change. This study measures the relationship between green innovation, technological innovation, ICT, financial depth, economic growth, carbon emission, and ecological footprint from 1990-2021 in the USA. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model examines the relationship between the above-mentioned variables and their impacts on each other. Results reveal that green innovation, technological innovation, ICT, and financial depth significantly negatively impact ecological footprint and carbon emissions in both the short and long run. In contrast, economic growth positively impacts carbon emissions and ecological footprint. Green and financial innovation-centric policies are suggested to the USA to attain net zero emission and SDG-13.

This research delves into firms' green innovation response to climate policy uncertainty (CPU). We distinguish green management innovation from green technological innovation and investigate the moderating effect of belonging to a high‐energy‐consuming industry and investors' climate attention. Based on Chinese A‐share listed firms in 2008–2022, we reveal a positive influence of CPU on green management innovation but a more limited effect on green technological innovation. However, firms' green technological innovation response is found to be more positive in the high‐energy‐consuming industry, and increased climate attention by investors strengthens CPU's facilitating effect on both green management and green technological innovation. In terms of longer‐term outcomes, we reveal that firms' participation in green technological innovation prompted by CPU significantly bolsters firms' competitive advantage. Our research offers novel insights into the inconsistent debate relationship between CPU and green innovation and influencing contextual factors.

Climate risks include two elements: physical risks and transition risks. Exploring the impact of climate risks on green technology innovation contributes to sustainable development. This study uses panel data from 269 cities in China from 2008 to 2022 to explore the impact of climate risks on green technology innovation, and it employs Spatial Dubin Models for spatial effects analysis. The main research conclusions are as follows. First, the two components of climate risks—physical risks and transition risks—significantly hinder green technology innovation. Second, physical risks suppress green technology innovation by reducing market potential, while transition risks do so by decreasing foreign direct investment. Third, over time, green technology innovation shows a spatial clustering pattern of “low-low” and “high-high.” Fourth, physical risks create negative spatial spillover effects, while transition risks generate positive ones. Fifth, the spatial spillover effects of physical risks are mainly seen in the central region, while those of transition risks are primarily observed in the eastern and western regions, indicating significant regional heterogeneity. Finally, transition risks promoted green technology innovation in the period of 2018–2022, which is different from their suppressive effects in other time periods. In general, this study establishes a more comprehensive analytical framework that fills existing research gaps.

Green total factor productivity (GTFP) is an essential indicator to measure economic and environmental efficiency. Moreover, formulating a reasonable environmental regulation system and promoting green technological innovation is a systematic way to improve GTFP. However, previous related studies lack to investigate the impact of environmental regulation on GTFP from the perspective of green technological innovation. For this purpose, this paper aims to examine the specific impact of environmental regulation on GTFP based on the perspective of green technology innovation, so as to provide some policy insights for the formulation of more effective implementation of environmental regulation, improve green technology innovation level, and achieve a win-win situation for both economic growth and environmental protection. Furthermore, epsilon-based measure (EBM), which includes both radial and non-radial distance functions, is used to measure the GTFP. The spatial autoregressive method is also employed to quantify the impact of environmental regulation on GTFP from the perspective of green technological innovation using panel data of 269 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2018. The main findings indicate that there is a significant spatial autocorrelation between environmental regulation and GTFP. Environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on GTFP. Environmental regulation in the local regions also significantly contributes to GTFP in neighboring regions. Besides, environmental regulation indirectly promotes GTFP by enhancing green technological innovation level. Regional heterogeneity results show that environmental regulation can not only directly promote GTFP but also indirectly significantly promote GTFP through green technological innovation in the eastern and central regions, but insignificant in the western region. Based on the above findings, we conclude that policymakers should not only develop differentiated environmental regulation standards and steadily improving the intensity and rationality of environmental regulation but also add green innovation funds supply, enhance green innovation factor allocation efficiency, and strengthen R&D talents, funds, and policies to green technology innovation, so as to drive GTFP improvement.

Green technology innovation is crucial to green transformation. Accordingly, the influence of Chinese-style fiscal decentralization on green technology innovation is contingent on whether effective green competition can occur among hierarchical governments. Against this backdrop, the Spatial Durbin Model is used to empirically estimate the impact of Chinese-style fiscal decentralization on green technology innovation, which utilized the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020. The findings revealed a significant spatial agglomeration effect for green technology innovation in various regions. Besides, fiscal decentralization is evidenced to not only have a positive spatial spillover effect on green technology innovation but also promote green technology innovation at the local level and in surrounding areas, indicating that local governments have formed green preferences and facilitated green innovation technology competition. Moreover, further analysis of induced resource allocation reveals that financial support and environmental regulation have adverse inhibitory and positive promotion effects on green technology innovation, respectively. Furthermore, foreign direct investment, research and development intensity, knowledge reserve level, and industrial structure have varying spatial spillover effects on the level of green technology innovation. In light of these findings, this study recommended that the Chinese government further improves its fiscal decentralization, implements green performance evaluation of local governments, and enhances the coordinated development of various innovation incentives.

The advancement of technological capabilities within lithium battery enterprises crucially facilitates the high-quality development of the new energy industry. This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the technological innovation capacities of these enterprises, with a specific focus on the lithium battery sector in China. Utilizing data from 34 publicly listed companies spanning the period from 2012 to 2022, we employ the multi-period double-difference method for comprehensive analysis. Researchers have observed that the implementation of merger and acquisition (M&A) strategies by new energy companies leads to an approximately 1.5 percentage point increase in their technological innovation level. However, the improvement in the green technological innovation level is not significant. After a series of robustness tests, the aforementioned conclusion remains valid. Additionally, with the enhancement of firms’ knowledge absorption capacity and regional intellectual property protection, M&A activities can further promote technological innovation in new energy companies and contribute to the enhancement of green technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis has revealed that technological M&A crucially facilitates the improvement of technological innovation levels among listed companies in the lithium battery industry. Implementing M&A strategies not only benefits the enhancement of firms’ technological innovation levels but also significantly fosters green technological innovation. Furthermore, further research has indicated that changes in the level of green technological innovation after the implementation of M&A strategies by new energy companies facilitate the reduction of industrial wastewater and sulfur dioxide emissions. The main innovation of this study, which utilizes new energy companies as the research object, is as follows: it reveals the causal relationship and regulatory mechanism between M&A, technological innovation, and green technological innovation in new energy companies. Furthermore, the study analyzes the mechanism that promotes green technological innovation in new energy companies from the intellectual property protection perspective. Moreover, it assesses the heterogeneous impacts of changes in both technological innovation levels and green technological innovation levels on environmental governance after the implementation of M&A activities.

Does green technology innovation promote green economic growth? –Examining regional heterogeneity between resource-based and non-resource-based cities