The sustainable growth path of emerging economies has transformed from the traditional extensive model to high-quality development. Due to the impulse force of low-carbon regulation, the measurement of input–output efficiency changed into green total factor productivity (GTFP) which considers environmental factors. Past research on GTFP focused on enterprise investments to promote green innovation for their resource allocation efficiency, but green investments are often limited from marketization that is interactively influenced by low-carbon regulation. Therefore, handing green investment to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions for green economics recovery is a big challenge. Then these hypotheses are tested by the main study of 170 cities in China. Results suggested that GTFP has an inverted S-shaped curve with three inflection points and four development stages under the influence of low-carbon regulation. It means that improving green productivity is costly toward making green investments without the driving of green innovation. However, the inflection point of the growth curve—when enterprise investment activities ignore the interaction between low-carbon regulation and green investment policy—will come slowly to a period of high-quality development. Moderating results suggested that the green productivity would be weakened and the inflection point would be delayed by the low-carbon marketization index if the low-carbon regulation intensity was neglected. Therefore, this research advanced an effectively co-ordinate growth curve to search for the inflection point of green economics recovery.

The question of whether appropriate decentralization can solve Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) misplacement caused by Entrepreneurial Characteristics (EC) is an interesting ethical puzzle. Because corporate behavior depends on the decision-making choices of executives whose personality characteristics affect the choice tendency, power distribution undoubtedly becomes a big boost for most businesses to work out the adverse externality problems. Based on Upper Echelons Theory, this study developed a comparative impact model linking the effects of entrepreneurial intrinsic nature and experience characteristics on CSR performance. We tested the effective mechanism with the mediator role of the Corporate Power Distribution Index (CPDI) through a sample of listed Chinese companies from 2009 to 2017. The results provide that EC, such as female Gender, Degree, and Salary, have positive effects on CSR; CPDI plays a mediator role in the relationship between EC and CSR; and is moderated by Age, Academy, and Shares. The conclusion shows that EC can improve CSR performance to optimize CPDI to reduce corporate misplacement behavior.

Does carbon mitigation depend on the force of government or the autonomy of enterprises? We should first distinguish the roles of green fiscal policy and corporate green investmentto test whether they can independently guide enterprises to reduce carbon emissions. Because a clear relationship will help resolve the embarrassment caused by their different goals. Then we use theoretical and empirical methods to analyze green fiscal policies and corporate green investment mechanisms, which have nonlinear impacts on carbon mitigation in mathematics. Furthermore, we have empirically verrified then in three effective paths: the promotion of green fiscal policies on green investment, the mediator of green investment in the influence of green fiscal policies on carbon mitigation and enterprises performance, and the difference in firm heterogeneity on green investment. The results show that green fiscal policies support enterprises in realizing carbon mitigation by pressure, stimulating green investment, and achieving Innovation Compensation. Carbon mitigation depends on the trigger of green fiscal policies and the catalysis of green investment. That means the green fiscal policy is an effective instrument for the government to stimulate green innovation only when they are vital in reducing carbon emissions. Finally, we can summarize the evolutionary process of carbon mitigate from mandatory green fiscal policies to independent green investment, which is helpful for green governance and low-carbon development of enterprises.

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With the implementation of the carbon-neutral goal, an evolutionary game of carbon decision behavior was derived from the difference between government carbon mitigation and enterprises’ performance growth. This paper constructed a double-performance (DP) objective function of environmental performance and corporate performance. Four carbon decision factors, namely, carbon emission rights, carbon tax, green innovation, and green subsidy, were added separately into the DP model to search for the equilibrium point using the Stackelberg game. The research shows the following: (ⅰ) the price effect of carbon emission rights can restrain excess carbon emission of enterprises to a certain extent; (ⅱ) the reverse effect of a carbon tax can force enterprises to achieve the carbon mitigation goal through green innovation; (ⅲ) the reinforcement effect of green innovation can strengthen the promotion of environmental performance but accelerate the decline of corporate performance; and (ⅳ) the incentive effect of green subsidy can make corporate performance reach the inflection point ahead of time and realize DP synergistic growth. The evolutionary game between the government and enterprises results in the fluctuation change that causes DP to rise first, then decrease, and finally increase. Also, DP can be developed in a synergistic way under collaborative governance for its consistency of carbon decision behavior.