Environmental Regulation, Green Innovation, and Industrial Green Development: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Spatial Durbin Model

Abstract

Environmental regulation and green innovation are two main fulcrums in the realization of green transition of industrial growth. However, few studies have done an empirical analysis of the impact of environmental regulation and green innovation on green development. Based on the theory of systematic interduality, regional industrial green development is regarded as a dynamic system composed of two subsystems: the state and the process subsystem. Using provincial industrial panel data from 2007-2015 and the spatial Durbin model under the unified analysis framework, this paper examines the role and mechanism of environmental regulation (divided into administrative environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and public participation environmental regulation) in the impact of green innovation (divided into green product innovation and green craft innovation) on industrial green development. The results indicate a sharp fluctuating trend in China's overall industrial green development performance, and that China's 30 provinces can be divided into four categories, based on the development levels of two subsystems of industrial green development. There is a clear positive spatial correlation between the industrial green development performance in different provinces. Considering the impact of environmental regulation on industrial green development performance, different types of environmental regulation have different regional influences. Considering the impact of green innovation on industrial green development performance, in the absence of environmental regulation constraints, green product innovation shows a certain promotional role, and green craft innovation has a significant inhibitory effect. However, under environmental regulation constraints, market-based environmental regulation through the encouragement of green craft innovation rather than green product innovation achieves a positive impact on industrial green development.

Environmental Regulation, Government R&D Funding and Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from China Provincial Data

“…There is mainly the completed investment in industrial pollution control or its proportion in GDP, industrial output value, the proportion of operating expenses of pollution control facilities in industrial output value, the proportion of industrial pollution control investment in industrial production value sewage charges and other indicators selected from the angle of regulation cost [42][43][44]. In addition, the measurement of pollutant emission intensity, wastewater discharge rate, GDP/energy consumption [45,46] selected from the perspective of regulation effect. Specific environmental regulatory intensity measurement indicators include: (1) the promulgation of environmental regulation policy [47]; (2) the ratio of pollution control investment to the total cost of the enterprise or the production value of the enterprise [48]; (3) number of inspections and supervision of enterprises by government regulatory bodies [49]; (4) collection of sewage charges by environmental regulation institutions [50]; (5) operating costs of pollution control facilities [51]; (6) total investment in industrial pollution control and the proportion of main operating costs and industrial added value of industrial enterprises above scale [52,53]; (7) pollution control cost per industrial output value [54][55][56]; (8) per capita income level [57]; (9) changes of pollutant emissions under environmental regulation [58]; and (10) ratio of pollutant emissions to regional industrial gross domestic product [59].…”

Diversified Agglomeration, Specialized Agglomeration, and Emission Reduction Effect—A Nonlinear Test Based on Chinese City Data

“…To some extent, this reflects the imperfection of the existing environmental regulation system in China. In fact, the intensity of environmental regulation is generally low and, despite repeated prohibitions, an increasing number of enterprises engage in "emission without a permit" or "emission beyond the limit allowed by the permit" in various regions across the country; therefore, environmental regulation did not effectively promote pollution emission reduction (Feng, 2018) [87]. The estimation coefficients of the economic development level were negative and were all significant at the level of 1%, suggesting that, with the development of the Chinese economy, the government had sufficient financial resources to conduct environmental pollution control.…”

Retraction Notice: Influence of Agglomeration of Manufacturing and the Producer Service Sector on Energy Efficiency

“…From the perspective of control variables, human capital, infrastructure, and technological innovation all facilitated an increase of energy efficiency [60], which is consistent with the theoretical expectation of this paper. Government intervention exerted a significantly negative influence on energy efficiency, indicating that government interference with economic activities may twist the dominant role of the market in resource allocation and make it impossible for the energy factor to exert its maximum utility [61][62]. The influence of the energy price on energy efficiency was not significant, which is inconsistent with the theoretical expectation.…”