Abstract
Green technology innovation is imperative to sustainable and environmentally sound economic development and is currently facing increasingly serious environmental threats. However, existing research has overlooked the uncertainties in economic policies. Based on the logical relationship between environmental regulation, economic policy uncertainty, and green technology innovation, this study empirically analyzed the quantitative relationship among these three variables using the fixed-effect panel method and provincial panel data from 2000 to 2017 for 30 administrative regions of China. The results show that environmental regulation is positively correlated with green innovation, whereas economic policy uncertainty has a negative influence on green innovation, thereby regulating the relationship between the remaining two factors. Moreover, considerable regional heterogeneity exists in these causal influences, i.e., environmental regulation promotes green innovation in the eastern and middle regions but not significantly in the west. The uncertainty actively moderates the impact of environmental regulation on green innovation in all regions with an adjustment coefficient of approximately 0.8; however, it inhibits green innovation in different degrees, especially in the eastern and middle regions. Based on empirical results, we conclude that strict and appropriate environmental regulations are necessary and effective in China to encourage green technology innovation, especially in regions with uncertain economic policies.
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Data availability
The data are available from the China National Statistical Yearbook and Economy Prediction System database.
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The regression analyses in this study used STATA software and its common regression codes.
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We would like to express our gratitude to Mr. Yi Li for his pertinent suggestions.
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Material preparation and data collection and analysis were performed by XL, ZH, and QZ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by XL and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.
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Li, X., Hu, Z. & Zhang, Q. Environmental regulation, economic policy uncertainty, and green technology innovation. Clean Techn Environ Policy 23, 2975–2988 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-021-02219-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-021-02219-4