Environmental regulation, economic policy uncertainty, and green technology innovation

Environmental Regulation, Economic Policy Uncertainty, and Green Technology Innovation

10.21203/rs.3.rs-164186/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xiaoqing Li ◽

Zongyi Hu ◽

Qing Zhang

Keyword(s):

Economic Policy ◽

Environmental Regulation ◽

Technology Innovation ◽

Negative Influence ◽

Green Technology ◽

Policy Uncertainty ◽

Economic Policies ◽

Green Innovation ◽

Economic Policy Uncertainty ◽

The Impact

Abstract Green technology innovation is imperative to sustainable and environmentally sound economic development and is currently facing increasingly serious environmental threats. However, existing research has overlooked the uncertainties in economic policies. Based on the logical relationship between environmental regulation, economic policy uncertainty, and green technology innovation, this study empirically analyzed the quantitative relationship among these three variables using the fixed-effect panel method and provincial panel data from 2000 to 2017 for 30 administrative regions of China. The results show that environmental regulation is positively correlated with green innovation, whereas economic policy uncertainty has a negative influence on green innovation, thereby regulating the relationship between the remaining two factors. Moreover, considerable regional heterogeneity exists in these causal influences, i.e., environmental regulation promotes green innovation in the eastern and middle regions but not significantly in the west. The uncertainty actively moderates the impact of environmental regulation on green innovation in all regions with an adjustment coefficient of approximately 0.8; however, it inhibits green innovation in different degrees, especially in the eastern and middle regions. Based on empirical results, we conclude that strict and appropriate environmental regulations are necessary and effective in China to encourage green technology innovation, especially in regions with uncertain economic policies.

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How Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect CO2 Emissions? A Regional Analysis in China

10.21203/rs.3.rs-385163/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yan Liu ◽

Zepeng Zhang

Keyword(s):

Economic Policy ◽

Panel Data ◽

Environmental Regulation ◽

Regional Analysis ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Kuznets Curve ◽

Policy Uncertainty ◽

Economic Policy Uncertainty ◽

Explanatory Variables ◽

The Impact

Abstract More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has created massive economic policy uncertainty (EPU). EPU and its economic fallout have been a hot topic of study, however, the impact of EPU on CO2 emissions has been seldom addressed to date. This paper investigates the direct impact of the EPU on CO2 emissions and indirect effect via the environmental regulation at the national and regional levels using the panel data model and provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017 in China. The empirical results show that the central region is the most special one, which all explanatory variables except energy consumption are all non-significant even at the 10% level. For other samples, there is a significant positive correlation between EPU and CO2 emissions, whether in the national or regional level. Additionally, environmental regulation alone can achieve the purpose of curtailing carbon emissions. However, when the EPU is taken into consideration, environmental regulation exerts a significantly positive effect on CO2 emissions, leading to unintended increase in emissions. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis was confirmed in the national and eastern samples, while CO2 emissions increase monotonically as economic level grows for western datasets. Based on the overall findings, some policy implications were put forward.

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Economic Policy Uncertainty, Environmental Regulation, and Green Innovation—An Empirical Study Based on Chinese High-Tech Enterprises

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18189503 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (18) ◽

pp. 9503

Author(s):

Yue Zhu ◽

Ziyuan Sun ◽

Shiyu Zhang ◽

Xiaolin Wang

Keyword(s):

Economic Policy ◽

Environmental Regulation ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Environmental Regulations ◽

High Tech ◽

Policy Uncertainty ◽

Green Innovation ◽

Economic Policy Uncertainty ◽

Innovation Output ◽

The Impact

As the continuous changes in environmental regulations have a non-negligible impact on the innovation activities of micro subjects, and economic policy uncertainty has become one of the important influencing factors to be considered in the development of enterprises. Therefore, based on the panel data of Chinese high-tech enterprises from 2012–2017, this paper explores the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on firms’ green innovation from the perspective of economic policy uncertainty as a moderating variable. The empirical results show that, first, market-incentivized environmental regulation instruments have an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation output, while voluntary environmental regulation produces a significant positive impact. Second, the U-shaped relationship between market-based environmental regulation and innovation output becomes more pronounced when economic policy uncertainty is high. However, it plays a negative moderating role in regulating the relationship between voluntary-based environmental regulation and innovation output. This paper not only illustrates the process of technological innovation by revealing the intrinsic mechanism of environmental regulation on firm innovation, but also provides insights for government in environmental governance from the perspective of economic policy uncertainty as well.

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