Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Provincial Green Technological Innovation

Since the reform and opening up,China's economy has embarked on a leap-forward development pace,but the rapid economic growth during this period is often at the expense of high energy consumption and huge environmental pollution.In recent years,the frequent occurrence of environmental pollution incidents such as water pollution,air pollution,and soil pollution has triggered profound reflections from all walks of life.The purpose of economic development is to let people live a happier life,and whether economic development in exchange for the destruction of human living environment is worthwhile.In order to solve various environmental problems brought about by the pursuit of rapid economic development,the Chinese government has successively issued corresponding environmental regulation policies and strictly supervised implementation.In the late 1970 s,China's first comprehensive environmental protection law,the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China(Trial),officially began China's exploration of environmental protection.The introduction of the "two-control zone" policy and the strict restrictions on main pollutant emissions in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" mean that China's environmental regulation policies are becoming more stringent and mature.In recent years,China has been steadfast in environmental protection.The green development concept put forward in the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee fully emphasizes that innovation should reduce the pollutant emissions during the production process,which profoundly reflects China's determination to protect the environment while pursuing economic development.After years of strict supervision,the environmental regulation policies have made a positive contribution to pollution prevention and environmental protection.However,in the theoretical sense,the implementation of strict environmental regulation policies will definitely lead to an increase in the cost of enterprises,thus occupying the R&D investment of enterprises.So whether the environmental regulation policy will promote the development of green technological innovation or inhibit green technological innovation is worthfurther exploration.Based on the above considerations,this paper takes the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" officially promulgated in 2006 as the entry point of this paper.The "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy,which for the first time strictly controls the total emissions of main pollutant and directly links the completion effect with the performance of local officials,is tougher than ever.Facts have proved that under the strict constraints,the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has obvious environmental effects,and the target of emission reduction has been exceeded within the period required by the policy.The "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has significant effects,but it is not known whether there will be any impact on regional green technological innovation.This paper will select the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2010 as the research basis,and use the "obligatory pollution control" policy as a quasi-natural experiment,and use the DID method to assess the impact of environmental regulation on provincial green technological innovation.Considering that the implementation of the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy is more than one year,the impact on green technological innovation is not necessarily effective in the current period.Therefore,the dynamic effect test is also introduced to study the impact of the environmental regulation policy on regional green technological innovation over time.At the same time,in view of the special national conditions,such as unbalanced regional development in our country,this paper will also divide the overall research sample into the eastern,central and western regions,and then conduct regional heterogeneity testing on the impact of the environmental regulation policy,and study the specific impact of the environmental regulation policy on green technological innovation in the eastern,central and western regions.The specific impact of green technological innovation in the three regions has made the research conclusions more targeted.After the above theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper finds that the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has a significant positive impact on regional green technological innovation.The specific performance is as follows: The "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has significantly promoted regional green product innovation,and the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has also significantly promoted regional green process innovation.From the perspective of dynamic effects,thepromotion effect of "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy on green product innovation will gradually increase with the implementation time,and the promotion effect of "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy on green process innovation is fluctuant over time.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy has the most significant effect on the green product innovation and green process innovation in the eastern region,and the promotion effect is the strongest.The promotion of green product innovation and green process innovation in the central region is weaker than that in the eastern region.However,the impacts on green product innovation and green process innovation in the western region are inhibited and not significant.Research shows that well-designed environmental regulations can not only achieve their environmental goals,but also promote the green technological innovation by promoting the reduction of environmental pollution,so that environment and green technological innovation can form a "win-win" situation.Finally,based on the research conclusions,this paper gives corresponding policy recommendations: increasing the intensity of environmental regulation and formulating strict environmental regulation policies;the implementation of environmental regulation policies should consider the long-term interests of the region and coordinate the contradiction between long-term interests and short-term benefits;adopting different environmental regulation policies according to local conditions for actual pollution and economic development in different regions;strict implementation of environmental regulation policies and real-time supervision.Compared with previous research,this paper may have the following innovations:Firstly,this paper takes the "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy as the research object,so as to avoid the deviation caused by the difference of environmental regulation intensity measurement and make the measurement of the effect of environmental regulation policy more accurate.Secondly,this paper examines the dynamic effect test while verifying the impact of "obligatory pollution control" environmental regulation policy on regional green technological innovation,not only can observe the average effect of environmental regulation policy on regional green technological innovation,but also observe the effect change of environmental regulation policy in each year during the implementation of the policy,so as to provide some references for the formulation and implementation of short-term and long-term environmental regulation policies.Finally,the paper also examines the regional heterogeneity test in the eastern,central and western regions,and studies theimpact of environmental regulation policy on green technological innovation in different development levels,making the results of environmental regulation policy effects more targeted and instructive.Through the research in this paper,we hope to further recognize the specific relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation and provide some references for the government to improve the quality of environmental regulation policies.