Green Technology Innovation Effect Of Environmental Regulation

Continued industrialization is the developing path in China that need to adhere for a long period in the future.However,in the past few decades5 industrialization process in China,extensive growth mode with the characteristics of high investment,high consumption of energy and high emissions has brought serious resource and environmental burden.Nowadays,China has become the world's major consumer of natural resources,and gradually enters into the phase of continuous ecological resources shortage and compound environmental pollution.Increasingly serious resources and environment problems are not only the development dilemma that China's continued industrialization must face,but also the severe common challenges of global sustainable development.Facing the dual mission of the times coordinating the development of continued industrialization and resources and environment,more and more scholars and policy makers have began to realize the importance of green technology.Existing research shows that green technological progress is highly dependent on "policy drivers".Porter hypothesis theory indicates that "well designed" environmental regulation contributes to increasing productivity and promoting technology innovation.But there still exists much argument in academia around "well designed" environmental regulation and directed technological progress:on the one hand,how to define,identify and evaluate the "well designed" environmental regulation;on the other hand,how does environmental regulation influences technology innovation towards green and how does environmental regulation respectively affects green technology innovation's input,output,efficiency and diffusion,etc.These controversies make the policy makers confused about how to scientifically formulate environmental policies.Therefore,to study the effect of environmental regulation on green technology innovation is beneficial for exploring and summarizing the developing mode coordinating continued industrialization and resources and environment,which have important practical significance for exploring sustainable development path in keeping with China's national conditions.This paper discusses the mechanism of action of environmental regulation on green technology innovation in the perspectives of capital investment,technological progress,innovation capability and diffusion based on combing related theories and literature about environmental regulation and green technology innovation.Theoretical models and empirical tests are conducted from the four perspectives.In the perspective of capital input,on the basis of systematical examination of the historical evolution and development status of environmental regulation as well as environmental management systems and mechanisms in China,this paper adds the regional environment strategic behavior into the analytical framework through constructing a theoretical model with the consideration of many provinces and respectively discusses the equilibrium conditions under decentralized and centralized environmental governance situations.The research finds that "action consistent"environmental regulation has reversal pressure on green technology innovation input.In the perspective of technological progress,this study defines "action consistent"environmental regulation on the basis of discussing regional environmental regulation policy behavior under the background of regional competition in China.Then an empirical research is conducted by selecting the ladder electricity price policy and energy efficiency label system from the consumption stage to respectively represent market-oriented and command-and-control environmental regulation policy tools.The study finds that both market-oriented and command-and-control type "action consistent environmental regulation" are directed to induce green technological progress.Namely,&"action consistent"environmental regulation has significant inductive effect on green technology.In the perspective innovation capability,this paper analyzes the relationship between environmental regulation and green technology innovation capability from two angles,mechanism of action and the panel model,on the basis of the calculation and analysis of green innovation capability of China's manufacturing industry.It further investigates the possible nonlinear relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation capability with a nonlinear threshold model.The research finds that:from the point of green technology innovation Global Malmquist-Luenberger(GML)index,the influencing direction of environmental regulation on green innovation capability changes from positive to negative as the regulation intensity changes from medium intensity to higher intensity;there exists an inverted N-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and green technological progress index;the technical efficiency of environmental regulation on green technology innovation is significantly positive only in the low intensity range;and through comparative analysis,the regulation intensity,staying in the medium range,has optimal promoting effect on green innovation capability.That is to say,environmental regulation has a threshold effect on green technology innovation capability.In the perspective of capability diffusion,this paper discusses the equilibrium effect of environmental regulation on provincial green technology innovation diffusion under the joint function of subsidies and environmental regulation by building a three-department model producing final products,intermediate products as well as conducting research and development.It also calculates the green innovation capability from 2003 to 2013 in China with the methods of Slack-Based Measure(SBM)directional distance function and GML index and analyzes spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics of provincial green innovation capability.On this basis,an empirical test concerning the conditional convergence of environmental regulation and provincial green innovation capability is conducted.The research finds that,nationally,strengthening environmental regulation helps to promote green technology innovation diffusion even though western regions are significantly different from eastern and central regions.That is to say,environmental regulation intensity has diffusion effect on green technology innovation capability.This research finds that the green technology innovation effect of environmental regulation can be divided into four levels:(1)the reversal pressure of capital input;(2)the inductive effect of technological progress;(3)the threshold effect of innovation capability;and(4)the diffusion effect of innovation capability.On the basis of summarizing the research conclusions,this paper points out the research shortage and further worthwhile research directions.