Environmental Technological Innovation Research Articles

Does technological innovation reduce water pollution intensity in the context of informal environmental regulation?

AbstractIn the new era of Chinese economy stepping toward high‐quality development, with the enhancement of the public environmental protection awareness and continuous improvement of technological innovation level, it is of great significance to study how technological innovation reduces water contamination against unofficial environmental regulations, which is also the primary task of construction of ecological civilization. The purpose of this paper is to study the contribution of technological innovation to water pollution intensity at different quantile levels and to test the nonlinear relationship between technological innovation and water pollution emission intensity under informal environmental pollution. On the basis of the provincial panel data of China from 2002 to 2018, the model of quantile and panel threshold was constructed to empirically analyze the structural mutation and threshold effects of technological innovation on the intensity of water pollution in China against the environment of informal environmental regulation. The study found that the marginal effects of technological innovation on the intensity of water pollution in China had undergone structural changes. Under different water pollution intensity, technological innovation can reduce pollution between 0.167% and 0.415%; with informal environmental regulation as the threshold variable, when the intensity of informal environmental regulation is less than the threshold value of 0.2168, technological innovation has a significant inhibitory effect on China's water pollution intensity, and when the intensity of informal environmental regulation exceeds the threshold value, the mitigation effect of technological innovation on China's water pollution intensity is more significant. The inhibition effect of technological innovation on water pollution emission intensity changed from 0.437 to 0.474. Therefore, when formulating environmental pollution policies, local governments should make rational use of informal environmental regulations and technological innovation, improve the informal environmental regulation system, and promote water pollution control with science and technology.

Research on the Synergistic Effect of Environmental Protection Investment and Technological Innovation on Corporate Performance

The research is financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China . No. 71874103 and Shanxi Provincial Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project . No. 2019B015 (Sponsoring information) Abstract Based on the theory of corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory and resource-based theory, using the panel data of China's listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2013 to 2017, the paper reveals the complex relationship between environmental protection investment, technological innovation and corporate performance from both short-term and long-term perspectives, especially the synergistic effect of environmental protection investment and technological innovation on corporate performance. The results show that: (1) with the passage of time, the impact of environmental protection investment on corporate performance changed from negative to positive; (2) corporate technology innovation has a positive impact on corporate performance, but the hysteresis exists in the impact; and (3) the impact of environmental protection investment and technological innovation on short-term and long-term performance of enterprises forms a synergistic effect of 1+1>2. Therefore, enterprises should establish the strategy of integration of environmental protection and technological innovation. While government departments strengthen the supervision of environmental violations, they should properly increase the intensity of environmental protection and R&D subsidies. The public should support the development of green enterprises with practical actions. Keywords: environmental protection investment, technological innovation, corporate performance, synergistic effects DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-11-01 Publication date: April 30 th 2020

How does environmental regulation promote technological innovations in the industrial sector? Evidence from Chinese provincial panel data

Promoting technological innovations by environmental regulation is one of the essential means to achieve green transformation. This study investigates the effect of environmental regulation on technological innovations based on the provincial panel data of industrial sectors in China during the years 2005–2015. The two-way fixed-effect panel data model is used to investigate the marginal and heterogeneous impacts empirically. Results indicate a U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and technological innovations. In the short-term, environmental regulation has an “offsetting effect” on the research and innovation capacity of China's industrial sector. However, with the deepening of environmental regulation, it forces the industry to reduce the cost of pollution control by improving technological innovation capacity, thus creating a “compensation effect”. Results also show that environmental regulation policies changed the location and industry selection of foreign capital, which weakened the positive effect of FDI on technological innovations, indicating the “pollution shelter” effect. From the perspective of different types of enterprises, due to the higher cost of energy conservation and emission reduction, environmental regulation is detrimental to the technological innovations of state-owned enterprises. In particular, we find that industries with a higher degree of market competition and higher human capital investment tend to have stronger technological innovation capabilities.

Environmental Regulation, Technological Innovation, and Export Competitiveness: An Empirical Study Based on China’s Manufacturing Industry

A current and universal challenge, particularly in developing nations, is the establishment of effective environmental regulation policies that protect the ecological environment without adversely affecting the international competitiveness of the domestic manufacturing industry. To deal with this dilemma, this study investigates the export competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry from the viewpoint of export value added. The Porter hypothesis is applied for an empirical investigation of the effect of environmental regulation on export competitiveness and to determine the presence of intra-industry heterogeneity. Furthermore, this study seeks to understand the mechanisms through which environmental regulation affects export competitiveness by exploring the two main approaches to technological innovation. The findings reveal that environmental regulation has a promotion effect of approximately 2% on the export competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry; however, this effect is non-linear and displays a “U-shaped” tendency, indicating that certain prerequisites must be fulfilled to validate the Porter hypothesis. In addition, the effect of environmental regulation displays significant intra-industry heterogeneity, which is evident primarily in heavily polluting sub-industries and to a lesser extent in moderately polluting sub-industries but insignificant in lightly polluting sub-industries. Environmental regulation also differs significantly in the mechanisms through which it affects different approaches to technological innovation. Independent research and development is affected by environmental regulation through the compliance cost effect, which limits export competitiveness, while technology introduction is affected by the innovation offset effect, which favors export competitiveness. These findings offer political implications for the sustainable development of the ecological environment and foreign trade.

Linking environmental regulation and economic growth through technological innovation and resource consumption: Analysis of spatial interaction patterns of urban agglomerations

• Verify the inverted-U between environmental regulation and economic growth. • Economic development of the Yangtze River Delta shows a good interactive pattern. • Environmental regulation and economic development display good interaction pattern. • The impact mechanisms are the innovation and the resource consumption effects. • The economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta is in an orderly manner. The Yangtze River Delta region is a representative region for the development of China's urban agglomerations. This study explores the inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and economic growth in the Yangtze River Delta region during 2002–2010 using the spatial panel data model. After the introduction of instrumental variables, the U-shaped curve is still robust, which is the theoretical value of this paper. The research verifies that technological innovation and resource consumption are important mechanisms for environmental regulation to influence economic growth. Cities in the Yangtze River Delta region have good interaction patterns in environmental regulation, economic development, technological innovation and resource consumption. Economic integration development is at a good level and can provide valuable experience for the development of other urban agglomerations.

The impact of FDI on environmental technology innovation from the perspective of environmental regulation

Based on the perspective of environmental regulation, this paper selects panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2016, establishes Hansen panel threshold regression model, and investigates the impact of FDI on environmental technology innovation of industrial enterprises in China under the threshold of environmental regulation. The results show that FDI has a significant inhibitory effect on the environmental technological innovation of industrial enterprises; the effect has a significant dual threshold of environmental regulation, with the intensity of environmental regulation across the threshold, the negative impact of FDI gradually weakened; market demand and industry scale have a significant positive impact, the role of technological progress is not significant. The findings of this paper provide a certain reference for the rational use of environmental regulation policies, the maximization of FDI technology spillover, the promotion of environmental technology innovation of industrial enterprises, and the realization of “win-win” of environment and economy.

What impact does environmental regulation have on technological innovation?

The research on the relationship between environmental regulation and technological innovation has a long history, and so far no conclusion has been reached. This article uses 2008-2017 China’s statistical data for empirical research, uses technology input to measure technological innovation level, and uses innocuous treatment of domestic waste and sulfur dioxide emissions as explanatory variables to perform regression. The empirical results have obtained the positive impact of environmental regulation intensity on the level of technological innovation, indicating that environmental regulation promotes technological innovation.

Research on Marine Ecological Civilization Policies in Shandong Province Based on Content Analysis

The policies of marine ecological civilization involve multiple policy areas such as marine economy, marine environment, and marine society. This paper sorted out 54 related policies of marine ecological civilization in Shandong Province, constructed a co-word matrix of policy keywords, and used co-word analysis method to conduct quantitative analysis. Through the measurement of policy network centrality, policy theme groups and structural holes, the coordination of policy contents and the centrality of policy points were analyzed. The study has found that among the comprehensive policies for marine ecological civilization construction in Shandong Province, the marine ecological environmental protection policies have more focuses and have formed a relatively complete system, but the relevancy of the policy points of marine science and technology innovation related to marine support policies is not high, and the support for marine environmental protection technology innovation is not strong. These discoveries are also reflected in the subsequent content analysis of marine social support policies, and they also affect the coupling degree between the marine ecological environment and marine ecological society in Shandong Province to a certain extent.

Does Environmental Regulation Promote Green Technology Innovation in Chinese Manufacturing?

The Porter Hypothesis states that environmental regulation promotes technological innovation among enterprises, thereby supporting economic growth. However, whether the hypothesis is valid in China remains to be tested. To assess this, we construct an environmental regulation panel model to assess the impact of regulation on green technology innovation, examining data from 27 manufacturing industries in China from 2006 to 2015. Based on extant research results on environmental regulation and technological innovation in China and abroad, we divide green technology innovation into green product innovation and green process innovation as the dependent variables, using environmental regulation as the independent variable and total industry profits and innovative human resources as the control variables. Our results show that at this stage, for the 27 industries, the implementation of strict environmental regulations has inhibited both green process innovation and green product innovation. The result verifies that the Porter Hypothesis is not valid in the current Chinese manufacturing environment.

The Nonlinear Causal Relationship Between Environmental Regulation and Technological Innovation—Evidence Based on the Generalized Propensity Score Matching Method

The existing research on testing Porter’s hypothesis has not considered the selective bias in the sample when establishing a model. However, the selective bias is likely to cause instability of estimation results and reduce the reference value of conclusions. This article, based on individual enterprises in the China Industrial Enterprise Database, aims to verify the selective bias existing in previous research. Then, using the generalized propensity score matching method, a frontier method in the field of causal inference, we re-examined the causal relationship between environmental regulation and two types of technological innovation, weakened endogenous and reverse causal effects, and obtained a more complete and accurate dynamic impact of environmental regulation on the level of technological innovation for enterprises. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: (1) The influence of environmental regulation on the level of process innovation has two dimensions: time and intensity, and the causal relationship between these dimensions changes from an N shape to an inversed-U shape over time. (2) The influence of environmental regulation on product innovation levels only includes the intensity dimension, and the two produce a U shape. (3) Process innovation and product innovation, to a certain extent, are reflected in the intriguing situation that they cannot gain and lose at the same time. (4) Light industries have a lower tolerance of environmental regulation than heavy industries, and they are more likely to be stimulated by environmental regulation. The conclusions of this paper can provide valuable advice to governments in relation to the formulation of environmental policies and laws.

The Impact of Innovation and Green Fiscal Incentives on Employment in Spain

Questions remain whether the government is aware of difyculties of incentive schemes, its effectiveness, implications and conditions that are required so policy instrument can be put to the best use. Using a corporate tax dataset for MSMEs (micro yrms) and SMEs in 2008, we use OLS to study the relationship between employment and environmental investment tax credit (EI) and technological innovation tax credit (R&D&I). Our results show a positive impact of EI and R&D&I tax credit on employment for MSMEs and SMEs. The impact is stronger for R&D&I tax credit than for EI tax credit and stronger for MSMEs than for SMEs. Also, the impacts of both tax credits are independent of each other. We help to provide insights into the impacts of two types of tax credits on employment level for micro and SMEs that are the backbone of an economy. The important thing is the government must remain engaged in both green and technology policies to ensure policy intervention schemes are powerful and effective.

Environmental regulatory spillovers, institutions, and clean technology innovation: A panel of 32 countries over 16 years

The empirical literature on environmental regulatory-induced innovation is extensive and finds equivocal results, following the seminal works by Lanjouw and Mody (1996) who show a positive innovation effect and Jaffe and Palmer (1997) who largely find a negative effect of regulations on environmental technology innovation. Yet most of the literature explores domestic regulatory effects on domestic firms’ innovations, while the small amount of studies on cross-border induced innovation is typically confined to a small group of OECD countries. Our departure is to conceive of a global cleantech paradigm whereby domestic firms are induced by foreign country environmental regulations, under the important condition that institutional quality distance between the sending and receiving country is not very far apart. In short, this article demonstrates an important relationship between environmental regulations, institutional quality, and clean technology innovations. Our main hypothesis is that institutional distance moderates the inducement effect of foreign regulations on domestic innovators. To test this hypothesis, we collect a sample of 32 countries, including select OECD countries and the colloquially-named “BRICS” countries. The results of our models suggest there is indeed a significant inducement effect across borders from foreign regulations. These findings are important for both innovators and policymakers. While the former already appear to participate in the global clean technology paradigm, the latter should be aware of the potential ramifications of pioneer regulations for the global clean technology innovation frontier.

Direct and moderating effects of environmental regulation intensity on enterprise technological innovation: The case of China.

There is few significant attempt to integrate environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation in a methodological framework. Employing the data of the industrial enterprises with an annual turnover of over 20 million yuan from 30 Chinese provinces or municipalities between 2008 and 2016, this paper applies the fixed effect regression model to reveal the relationships between environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation simultaneously. Results show that: (1) there exists a U-shaped relation between environmental regulation intensity and technological innovation of enterprises which declines first and then climbs up, and China is still at the stage of inhibition before the "inflection point". (2) government financial support does not significantly work on technological innovation directly, but environmental regulation drives this effect to be achieved; when the value of lnER is higher than 3.69, government financial support can significantly facilitate corporate technological innovation. (3) the comparison between regional samples reveals that heterogeneity exists in the influence of environmental regulation intensity and government financial support on corporate technological innovation. The threshold value of enabling effects of environmental regulation in eastern region is higher than that of the central and western region. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks. Theory and policy implications of our work are discussed.

Flexible environmental policy, technological innovation and sustainable development of China’s industry: The moderating effect of environment regulatory enforcement

Abstract How to rely on market mechanism for achieving industrial sustainable development is an important issue both to current scholars and policymakers. Technological innovation is regarded as a mediator to construct a driving mechanism that flexible environmental policy affects sustainable development from the “narrow” perspective of Porter’s hypothesis. Meanwhile, environment regulatory enforcement is introduced as a moderator to explore the institutional scenario that drives sustainable development of China’s industry. Then we have adopted industrial panel data of 30 provinces in 2006–2015 and employed the sys-GMM method for empirical test. The findings show that: (1) flexible environmental policy can significantly facilitate industrial sustainable development. (2) Flexible environmental policy has a significantly positive impact on technological innovation. Meanwhile, technological innovation is significantly and positively related to industrial sustainable development, and technological innovation partially mediates the relationship between flexible environmental policy and industrial sustainable development. (3) Environment regulatory enforcement positively moderates the relationship between flexible environmental policy and technological innovation. However, it has a potentially positive but not significant moderating impact on the relationship between technological innovation and industrial sustainable development, indicating that there is still an “implementation gap”. (4) From a regional point of view, technological innovation has partly mediating effects between flexible environmental policy and industrial sustainable development in the eastern and western regions, and environmental regulatory enforcement can positively moderate the role of flexible environmental policy in promoting technological innovation in the eastern region. Finally, this paper puts forward the policy implications.

Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Low carbon city (LCC) has emerged as the latest sustainable urbanism strategy in China as a response to climate change impacts. Yet, minimal scholarships have explored the sustainability of the urban planning model towards understanding the complexity of the components. Using a two-step triangulation approach, this paper presents a structured overview of the LCC initiative in China as it relates to the transition to a sustainability paradigm. The data collection approach includes a comprehensive review of 238 articles on LCC to identify and categorize LCC components. Furthermore, discourse and framing analysis was used to develop and synthesize a conceptual framework for assimilating the components into four core sustainable development principles: Integration, implementation, equity, and scalability and replicability. The results indicate that LCC development in China is bias towards economic and environmental technological innovations and strategies. Additionally, several critical sustainability issues of LCC pilots were identified. These include a lack of social equity planning concerns for the most vulnerable population, dearth of social reforms that cater to lifestyle and behavioral change, top-down planning and decision-making processes, a technocratic rationalization planning approach, inconsistent LCC targets on inter-generational justice concerns, absence of an effective national “sharing and learning” city–city network system, and several barriers to implementation. We conclude that the applied theoretical and conceptual inquiry into the field of LCC is pertinent to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable urban development.

China’s provincial total-factor air pollution emission efficiency evaluation, dynamic evolution and influencing factors

Abstract In recent years, air pollution situation becomes more severe and has seriously threatened sustainable economic development and public health in China. Combining the improved slacks-based measure (SBM) model, global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) productivity index and panel Tobit model, this paper investigates the regional differences, dynamic evolution and influencing factors of China’s provincial air pollution emission efficiency over the period 2006–2015 under the total-factor framework. Our results show that: (1) China’s total-factor air pollution emission efficiency is relatively low and exhibits significant regional differences; (2) technological progress is the main contributor to ameliorate China’s provincial total-factor air pollution emission efficiency; (3) the total-factor air pollution emission efficiency gap between the higher- and the lower-efficient provinces will probably widen in the future; (4) China’s provincial total-factor air pollution emission efficiency is significantly positive related to the level of economic development, industrial structure optimization, technological innovation and foreign direct investment (FDI), is significantly negative related to the energy consumption structure. The above results indicate that China has made remarkable achievements in improving regional total-factor air pollution emission efficiency. However, there is considerable potential for further improvement. Policy options for China’s regional total-factor air pollution emission efficiency improvement include but not limited to optimizing industrial and energy consumption structure, promoting environmental technology innovation, strengthening cooperation and exchange between different regions, deepening the reform of energy market and energy pricing mechanism, actively introducing foreign investment, and further improving environmental regulation level.

Study on the Evolution of Water Resource Utilization Efficiency in Tibet Autonomous Region and Four Provinces in Tibetan Areas under Double Control Action

Tibet is the province with the largest international rivers and water resource reserves in China. However, due to its special ecological environment, the utilization of water resources has become an inevitable problem. Considering the undesirable outputs in water resource utilization, the Super-efficiency Slack-based Measure (SE-SBM) model is used to measure water utilization efficiency of Tibet and the Tibetan areas (four provinces where Tibetan areas are located) from 2006 to 2016. The mixed and random panel Tobit model is used to investigate the driving factors of water efficiency and a horizontal comparison between provinces is made on this basis. The results show that the water utilization efficiency of Tibet and the Tibetan areas in four provinces shows a “U-shaped” trend. The water utilization efficiency of most provinces is greater than or close to 1 and the water utilization efficiency of each province shows a constant convergence trend. Environmental regulation and technological innovation have a significant positive effect on water utilization efficiency. Urbanization and foreign direct investment (FDI) have a significant negative effect on water utilization efficiency. Per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and water resource endowment have no significant effect on water utilization efficiency. It is necessary to select a new type of urbanization suitable for the Tibetan Plateau, eliminate the backward production capacity, high water consumption, or high emissions industries, and to strengthen the research and development of water-saving and emission-reduction technology innovation in Tibet.

Research on the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise technology innovation-an empirical analysis based on Chinese provincial panel data.

Under the pressure of environmental degradation and resource depletion, Chinese companies are confronted with the need for transformation and upgrading promoted by technological innovation. However, environmental regulation can help to promote technological innovation. Based on the panel data of China's 30 provincial levels during 2009-2016, firstly, this paper describes the connotation of environmental regulation and measurement intensity of the regulation. Then, the anti-driving effect of environmental regulation on enterprise technology innovation is analyzed. Finally, this paper analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of environmental regulation on enterprise technology innovation. The empirical results are as follows: (1) formal environmental regulation has effectively enhanced technological innovation of enterprises. However, informal environmental regulation generally can positively drive enterprise technology innovation. (2) The impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation of enterprises is spatially heterogeneous. On the one hand, the impact of formal environmental regulation on technological innovation has significant regional differences. The Eastern China generally supports the "Porter hypothesis," while the Middle of China and Western China have the opposite performance. On the other hand, there is a threshold effect between environmental regulation and technological innovation. When the economic development level of the first lagging period is used as the threshold variable, with the gradual improvement of the economic development level, the technological innovation of the enterprise has the effect of first suppressing and promoting, and then verifying the threshold characteristics of environmental regulation on technology innovation.

The Role of Environmental Regulation and Technological Innovation in the Employment of Manufacturing Enterprises: Evidence from China

With the increasingly severe emission reduction pressures, it is an inevitable choice for China to improve the intensity of environmental regulation. At the same time, the impact of technological innovation on enterprise employment may lead to some new changes under the environmental regulation constraints. However, existing studies have not included environmental regulation into the theoretical framework of technological innovation and enterprise employment, nor has the influencing mechanism of environmental regulation and technological innovation in the employment of manufacturing enterprises been explored. This paper uses the panel data of listed manufacturing companies in the A-share market of Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2017 to examine the impact of environmental regulation and technological innovation on the employment of manufacturing enterprises, and explore their influence mechanisms in a theoretical framework based the moderating effect model. The findings demonstrate the following: First, the technological innovation has a positive creative effect on enterprise employment. Second, the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise employment is significantly positive. Third, environmental regulation has a negative moderating effect on the impact of technological innovation on enterprise employment. Finally, the impacts of both environmental regulation and technological innovation on the employment of manufacturing enterprises are heterogeneous across enterprises due to differences in ownership structure, the degree of pollution, and technical density. Therefore, faced with the objective reality that environmental carrying capacity has reached or approached the upper limit, China needs to formulate a differentiated and diversified technological innovation system and environmental protection policy, improve the environmental innovation level of manufacturing enterprises, and form a green development model, which is of great significance for achieving high-quality development and stable employment.

Fish, finances, and feasibility: Concerns about tidal energy development in the United States

This article explores stakeholder views on tidal energy in the state of Washington. Through compiling and analyzing three qualitative datasets, we take a triangulated approach to better understand stakeholders’ positive and negative views, concerns, and needs regarding tidal energy and if and how these are represented through print and online news sources. We analyzed comments submitted during the permitting process for the Admiralty Inlet Pilot Tidal Project, comments included as part of a tidal energy mail survey sent to Washington residents, and media articles about tidal energy. We found four types of concern themes within negative views towards tidal energy: environmental, social, economic, and technical. Shared concerns between organized stakeholder groups and resident stakeholders about the project and tidal energy in general included concerns related to the harm to marine life, the loss of native fishing rights, expensiveness of development, increased electricity costs, and the engineering challenge of developing tidal energy. Concerns unique to stakeholder groups for the project included threats from scaling up, issues related to public safety and security, damage to cables, inability to stop the turbine, harm to terrestrial flora, and sediment disruption and contamination. Positive views were commonly associated with the need to address environmental issues, technological innovation and leadership, desire to have a diverse energy portfolio, and economic benefits.