Impact of Voluntary Environmental Regulation on Green Technological Innovation: Evidence From Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises

Abstract

Can voluntary environmental regulation play a major role in the transformation of traditional environmental regulation; undertake the task of improving the flexibility, autonomy, and effectiveness of environmental regulation; and promote green technology innovation of enterprises? This study uses the propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) model to analyze the net effect and heterogeneity of voluntary environmental regulation on green technology innovation, and further explores the impact mechanism of voluntary environmental regulation on green technology innovation from three perspectives: government subsidies, public support, and external enterprise cooperation. The results show that voluntary environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation regardless of time, industry, and regional factors. The implementation of voluntary environmental regulation promotes the green patent authorization of enterprises by 15.12–17.59%. In addition, voluntary environmental regulation also shows industry heterogeneity, scale heterogeneity, and ownership heterogeneity for green technology innovation, and it emphasizes the promotion effect on enterprises in mild pollution industries, large-scale enterprises, and private enterprises. Furthermore, the implementation of voluntary environmental regulation will have a positive impact on green technology innovation by curbing public support and expanding cooperation with external enterprises.

Research on the cultivation of green competitiveness among chinese heavily polluting enterprises under country/district environmental regulations

“…Command-based environmental regulation can compulsorily cultivate heavily polluting enterprises' green technology innovation capability (Nie et al, 2022). Improper disposal of the "three wastes" by enterprises will seriously damage the local environment (Rehman et al, 2022d).…”

The Heterogeneous Effects of Formal and Informal Environmental Regulation on Green Technology Innovation—An Empirical Study of 284 Cities in China

“…Shao et al [ 60 ] showed that environmental regulation has a positive effect on GTI in eastern China but not in the central and western regions. However, Nie et al [ 61 ] showed that voluntary environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation regardless of regional factors. Regional heterogeneity in the effect of environmental regulation on GTI was shown to be a common law, but there are differences in the conclusions due to a different research design.…”

Environmental regulations, GHRM and green innovation of manufacturing enterprises: evidence from China

“…For voluntary environmental regulation, enterprises can control pollution or conduct environmental protection activities through voluntary commitments, including signing agreements and disclosing environmental information (Li and Wang, 2015). The study of Nie et al (2020) shows that voluntary environmental regulation significantly positively affects green technology innovation regardless of time, industry, and regional factors (Nie et al, 2022). The study of Bu et al ( 2020) also provides evidence that the voluntary environmental certification of ISO14000 leads to more innovation input and output in sampled Chinese enterprises (Bu et al, 2020).…”