Examining Whether Government Environmental Regulation Promotes Green Innovation Efficiency—Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt

Feng Wu,Dan Wu,Stavros Sindakis,Ting Zhang,Xiaopeng Fu

doi:10.3390/su14031827

Abstract

Based on the panel data of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2005 to 2018, this paper uses the SBM-DEA efficiency model with undesired output to measure the green innovation efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The panel Tobit empirical analysis model was used to quantitatively analyze the impact of three different forms of government environmental regulations on the efficiency of green innovation. The research results show that the government’s mandatory environmental regulations and government financial subsidies for green innovation technology are two regulatory methods that positively promote the efficiency of regional green innovation, but government investment in environmental governance has a negative impact on the efficiency of regional green innovation. Then the study found that this negative impact has a significant inflection point effect: when it exceeds a certain threshold, the negative impact turns into a positive effect. At the same time, the impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency of green innovation has significant regional heterogeneity, and the three environmental regulations have a greater impact on downstream provinces and cities.

Highlights

Received: 9 December 2021Since the reform and opening up of China’s economy, it has experienced a long period of rapid development and achieved remarkable economic development, but behind the rapid economic growth is huge resource consumption and environmental pollution.Domestic and international experience shows that the development path of high energy consumption and high pollution leading to high growth is not sustainable
The panel Tobit fixed-effects model is selected in the empirical analysis section to analyze the effect of environmental regulation on the green innovation effect in the Yangtze River Economic Belt
This study addresses these issues in an attempt to understand the relationship between the different environmental regulations and green innovation efficiency

Summary

Introduction

Since the reform and opening up of China’s economy, it has experienced a long period of rapid development and achieved remarkable economic development, but behind the rapid economic growth is huge resource consumption and environmental pollution. Domestic and international experience shows that the development path of high energy consumption and high pollution leading to high growth is not sustainable. In this context, the Chinese government has been committed to properly handling the relationship between economic development and environmental protection and enhancing the capacity of sustainable economic development. Due to the development of heavy industry, the region has seen rapid growth in energy and resource consumption, environmental pollution, and water and soil erosion

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion