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| The Nonlinear Effect of Green Technological Innovation on Green Transformation |
| Yu Xianrong |
| (School of Applied Economics, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 102488, China) |
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Abstract It is well-acknowledged in China that it is crucial to achieve high-quality development by accelerating the green transformation of the development mode and promoting the green and low-carbon economic development. With the environmental carrying capacity approaching the limit and the marginal contribution of traditional production factors such as capital and labor to economic growth gradually decreasing, it is of great significance to carry out green technological innovation activities to promote green development. However, due to the positive externality of technology spillovers, enterprises bear most of the green technological innovation costs without the corresponding benefits, resulting in insufficient incentives for enterprises, and government administrative means are thus expected. The environmental regulation is considered to be an important means to promote green technological innovation. The "Porter Hypothesis" points out that strict but appropriate environmental regulation will put pressure on enterprises to reduce emissions and carry out green technological innovation. It can be seen that environmental regulation, green technological innovation and green transformation are closely related.#br#Previous studies have conducted in-depth research on the relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation based on the Porter hypothesis, but there are few studies on green technological innovation and green transformation. In theory, green technological innovation can be divided into green process innovation and green product innovation. However, in the case of limited resources, the increase of green technological innovation investment will have a crowding-out effect on other productive investments, and may have a negative impact on economic growth, which will lead to the complexity of the relationship between green technological innovation and green transformation. In addition, environmental regulation is comprehensive, including environmental protection laws focusing on pre-guidance, pollution charges focusing on post-punishment, and pollution investment focusing on terminal governance. Different environmental regulation have different mechanisms, and the effects of promoting green technological innovation are also different, which makes it necessary to analyze the impact of green technological innovation on green transformation from the perspective of environmental regulation. #br#Therefore, this paper studies the nonlinear effect of green technological innovation on green transformation, and explores the role and mechanism of environmental regulation. Firstly, the non-radial SBM directional distance function method with unexpected output is used to measure the provincial-level green total factor productivity from 2005 to 2020 and it is taken as a measure of green transformation. Secondly, the panel regression model is introduced to study the nonlinear impact of green technology innovation on green transformation. Finally, the threshold regression model is employed to test the impact mechanism of green technology innovation on green transformation under different environmental regulation intensities by taking command-oriented and investment-oriented environmental regulation as threshold variables. #br#The results show that there is an U-shaped relationship between green technological innovation and green transformation. The conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests with the prominence during 2012-2020 and in the eastern and central regions. A small total amount of green technological innovation cannot drive enterprises to transform and upgrade. Only when the number of green technological innovation exceeds a certain amount, can green technological innovation promote the green transformation of the economy by reducing environmental pollution, improving resource utilization and increasing the added value of products and so on. Moreover, different types of environmental regulation have different mechanisms for green technological innovation. Investment environmental regulation focusing on terminal governance has the cost effect, crowding out the investment funds for green technological innovation, and it is not conducive to the green transformation of the economy. However, when the command environmental regulation exceeds a certain threshold, it can play the innovation compensation effect, keeping the competitiveness of enterprises engaged in green technological innovation strengthened, and the new green technology is also continuously popularized, which is conducive to promoting the green transformation of the whole economy. #br#The conclusions provide reference for how to design different types of environmental regulation, promote green technological innovation and green economic transformation, such as increasing the intensity of command-based environmental regulation properly, reducing terminal government-based environmental regulation and strengthening market-based incentive environmental regulation.#br#
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Received: 08 November 2022
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