Abstract
Understanding green innovation efficiency (GIE) is crucial in assessing achievements of the current development strategy scientifically. Existing literature on measuring green innovation efficiency with considering environmental undesirable outputs at the city level is limited. Consulting existing studies, this paper constructs an evaluation index system to measure green innovation efficiency and its socioeconomic impact factors. Employing a super slacks-based measure (Super-SBM) model, which takes into account undesirable outputs (industrial wastewater emissions, industrial exhaust emissions and CO2 emissions), and a Global Malmquist–Luenberger index (GML), we calculate the green innovation efficiency of 15 cities in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration from 2009 to 2017, exploring the impact factors behind green innovation efficiency using a Tobit panel regression model. The empirical results are as follows: Due to the heterogeneity of urban functional division and economic development in the Pearl River Delta, more than half of the region’s cities were found to be in ineffective or transitional states with respect to their green innovation efficiency. A GML decomposition index shows that technological efficiency and technological progress are out of step with one another in the Pearl River Delta, an asymmetry which is restricting regional green innovation growth. The influencing factors of industrial structure, the level of economic openness, and the urban informationization level are shown to have promoted green innovation efficiency in the Pearl River Delta’s cities, while government R&D expenditure and education expenditure exerted negative effects. This paper concludes by highlighting the importance of cooperation between the government and enterprises in achieving green innovation.
Highlights
Following the economic system reform, Chinese society entered a phase of rapid development and structural transformation
This is further confirmed by the fact that the average pollutant emission index (PEI) values of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Dongguan—all cities with industrial clusters and highly developed economic levels—were much higher than other cities in the Pearl River Delta (PRD)
In the face of international and domestic pressure to address resource shortages and environment deterioration globally, green innovation represents an effective path for regional sustainable development
Summary
Following the economic system reform, Chinese society entered a phase of rapid development and structural transformation. This growth came at the cost of a series of persistent environmental issues, which have become apparent in recent decades [1] and have hindered China’s regions in shrugging off path dependencies and updating outmoded roles [2]. The construction of market economy system has stimulated the activity and diversification of economic behaviors in China. With the liberation of social productivity and increases in income levels, China’s economy is characterized by a cyclic loop of “high savings and high consumption” [4]. The country’s high savings rate has accelerated urbanization and
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