The Moderating Effect of R&amp;D Investment on Income and Carbon Emissions in China: Direct and Spatial Spillover Insights

Shaozhou Qi,Xiujie Tan,Huarong Peng

doi:10.3390/su11051235

Abstract

R&D investment plays a great role in achieving China’s low-carbon economy goals, which has a moderating effect on the relationship between income and carbon emissions. Furthermore, such a moderating effect may have spatial differences, given the possible spatial dependence of carbon emissions. Therefore, this paper explores the direct and spatial spillover moderating effects of R&D investment by adopting the panel spatial Durbin model and data of 30 provinces in China during 1998–2015. The empirical results firstly indicate that R&D investment moderates the positive impact of income on local carbon emissions for both the non-spatial and spatial model, and that more R&D investment can make carbon emissions reach the turning point earlier. Secondly, R&D investment in the local province increases the positive influence of local income on neighboring carbon emissions, which mainly results from the transfer effect of carbon emissions rather than the knowledge spillovers effect. The results are indicated to be robust by three types of robustness analyses. Finally, FDI and patents are the main constrained forces of local and neighboring carbon emissions; coal consumption is the main driver of local carbon emissions.

Highlights

China has set a series of national targets for carbon emissions reduction, to combat climate change and to achieve sustainable development
The results indicate that, when the logarithmic GDP per capita is less than 1.1053/(0.0154 ∗ ln RD), carbon emissions increase with increasing income; when the logarithmic GDP per capita is more than 1.1053/(0.0154 ∗ ln RD), carbon emissions decrease with increasing income; and when the logarithmic GDP per capita is equal to 1.1053/(0.0154 ∗ ln RD), carbon emissions reach the turning point with other conditions unchanged
This paper develops a spatial Durbin model (SDM) to analyze the direct and spatial spillover moderating effects of R&D investment on the relationship between income and carbon emissions, and the direct and spillover effects of energy structure, foreign direct investment (FDI), and patents on carbon emissions by controlling the spatial dependence

Summary

Introduction

China has set a series of national targets for carbon emissions reduction, to combat climate change and to achieve sustainable development. China’s industry structure change has provided little contribution to energy intensity or carbon emissions reduction far [2,3], and it is difficult for China to change the energy consumption structure that has been dominated by coal in a short time [4]. Technological progress is viewed as the main promising trend for reducing carbon emissions. R&D investment in technological innovation activities provides an opportunity to improve production techniques or adopt cleaner technology, resulting in a reduced use of inputs and/or the adoption of less polluting technologies in the process of goods production—decreasing energy consumption and carbon emissions [5]. R&D investment may have a moderating effect in decreasing the positive impact of economic development on carbon emissions

Methods

Results

Conclusion