A research on the influence mechanism of environmental regulation on technological innovation in China′s heavily-polluting industries

WANG Chao; LI Zhen-Zhen; JIANG Ping

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Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2) : 88-99.

A research on the influence mechanism of environmental regulation on technological innovation in China′s heavily-polluting industries

Wang Chao¹, Li Zhenzhen², Jiang Ping¹

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Abstract

Since the reform and opening up for 40 years, the industrial industry has played an important role in solving domestic employment, improving people′s living standards, and promoting rapid economic development. However, rapid economic growth has led to an overall increase in global consumption of fossil energy and a continuous rise in carbon dioxide emissions, leading to a rapid deterioration of people′s living environment and urban air quality, which has put great pressure on ecological balance and economic development. On May 28, 2018, The 19th Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out that "Chinese economy should shift from a factor-driven and investment-scale-driven development to an innovation-driven development model."

Environmental regulation policy is an effective means to solve environmental pollution problems and improve environmental performance and economic transformation in China′s heavily-polluting industries. However, how environmental regulation policies affect the technological innovation of China′s heavily-polluting industries, and whether there are dynamic differences in the impact of environmental regulation policies on the industrial sectors are still to be further studied.

The development of traditional industrial industries is facing unprecedented challenges. It has become an urgent practical problem for government managers and scholars to formulate effective institutional policies, promote technological innovation in industrial industries. In order to promote environmental regulations to achieve the goals of Chinese listed companies in fulfilling environmental protection responsibilities and green innovation performance improvement. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China issued a notice on the issuance of the "List of Listed Companies′ Environmental Inspection Industry Classified Management Directory" in June 2008, launched the list of heavily-polluting industries that detailed the environmental inspection of listed companies. This environmental regulation measure is a detailed measure for Chinese industrial enterprises to fulfill their environmental protection responsibility and respond to the upgrading of industrial structure and the improvement of green development performance.

Under the background of the new economic normal, scientific evaluation of the effect of environmental regulation policy implementation, as well as the study of the marginal effect and dynamic mechanism of environmental regulation on technological innovation will help promote the transformation of the economic development model of China′s heavy pollution industries, promote high quality development of industry economy and increase the level of green technology innovation. These measures have important practical significance and policy value for promoting enterprises to practice social environmental protection responsibilities.

Therefore, based on the panel data of 38 industrial sectors in China from 2004 to 2015, this paper divides the industrial industries into processing groups and control groups, and uses continuous DID and systematic GMM methods to estimate the role of environmental regulation policies in the technological innovation of China′s heavily polluting industries and assess the dynamic impact of environmental regulation policies on the industrial sectors. The results are follows: Firstly, the implementation of environmental regulation policies can not significantly promote the technological innovation of heavily-polluting industries, but the increase in R&D investment and the capital-driven economic development model can significantly promote the improvement of green technology innovation in heavily-polluting industries. Secondly, although foreign direct investment has restrictions on industry market access and investment ratio, foreign direct investment has promoted the improvement of green technology innovation in China′s industrial sectors to a certain extent. Thirdly, the implementation of environmental regulation policies has a significant lag effect on the green technology innovation of the industrial sectors. However, the proportion of consumption structure of traditional fossil energy has obvious hindrance to technological innovation in the industrial sectors. The research results of this article show that relevant departments should steadily and orderly promote the reform of energy consumption structure in heavily-polluted industries. This is an important measure to improve the efficiency of energy consumption, accelerate the upgrading of industrial structures and promote technological innovation in traditional polluting industry.

Key words

environmental regulation policy / technological innovation / heavily-polluting industries / market access / continuous DID

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Wang Chao, Li Zhenzhen, Jiang Ping. A research on the influence mechanism of environmental regulation on technological innovation in China′s heavily-polluting industries[J]. Science Research Management. 2021, 42(2): 88-99

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