Abstract
Based on panel data of 28 manufacturing industries sectors in 2005–2015 years, this paper first estimated the level of 28 manufacturing industries sectors technological progress, and then, using panel threshold technology, calculated the impact of three environmental regulation change rates on technological progress change rate to analyze the relationship between environmental regulations and technology innovation. The results show that: (1) The influence of the change rates of waste gas, wastewater and solid waste’s environmental regulation intensity towards the change rate of production technological progress has two thresholds. Only the proper change rate of environmental regulation intensity can lead to a desired change rate of production technological progress. However, there are differences in the thresholds of the change rates of three kinds of environmental regulation intensities, and the optimal change rates of waste gas, wastewater and waste solid are 15.07%–55.31%, 17.06%–38.02% and 33.12%–47.99%, respectively. (2) In the change rates of waste gas, wastewater and waste solid’s environmental regulation intensity, there are 8, 10 and 3 industries at a reasonable level, respectively, while others industries are below or above the reasonable level and unable to stimulate technical and management innovation in enterprises. Hence, to achieve a win-win situation between environmental protection and production technological progress, different environmental regulation intensities should be planned according to different pollutants in various manufacturing industries.
Highlights
Porter Hypothesis [1] argues that reasonable environmental regulation can give the manufacturing industry a signal that inefficient resource allocation exists and that technology needs to be improved, triggering an innovation compensation effect, which can offset the compliance costs, and increase manufacturing productivity and competitiveness
Bhatnager & Cohen [4] studied the effect of environmental regulation on industrial technology innovation in 146 American manufacturing industries from 1983 to 1992, and the results demonstrated that there is a significant positive correlation between pollution abatement cost and environmental patent filings.Whitford & Tucker [5] found that, for every 1% increase in pollution abatement costs, Research and Development (R&D) expenditure will increase 0.15%, which means that there is a positive correlation between R&D expenditure and pollution abatement cost
For the regression of waste solid regulation intensity change rate, we found that the variable on both sides of the two thresholds are positive, indicating that, as the variable value increases, it always brings a positive role in promoting production technology progress
Summary
Porter Hypothesis [1] argues that reasonable environmental regulation can give the manufacturing industry a signal that inefficient resource allocation exists and that technology needs to be improved, triggering an innovation compensation effect, which can offset the compliance costs, and increase manufacturing productivity and competitiveness. This hypothesis provides a theoretical support for the win-win situation of environmental regulation and economic growth, and the basic premise of this theory requires a significant innovation compensation effect. The differing viewpoints can be divided into three categories: promote theory, suppression theory and uncertainty theory
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