scholarly journals Environmental regulation, green innovation, and international competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises in China: From the perspective of heterogeneous regulatory tools

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0249169
Author(s):  
Yuanhong Hu ◽  
Sheng Sun ◽  
Yixin Dai

Based on combined data from the China Patent Database, China Industrial Enterprise Database, and China Customs Import and Export Database for the period 2004–2010, this study investigates the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on the export technological sophistication of manufacturing enterprises. Given deepening international market segmentation of production and the increasing proportion of intermediate trade, and compared with the traditional method based on exports, the export technological sophistication calculated here, based on value-added, is closer to the true level. Since there has been no in-depth comparative study on the relationship between heterogeneous environmental regulation and export technological sophistication, this study fills the gap. The results show that all three regulation types bear a U-shaped impact on export technological sophistication. Command-control regulation exhibits a restraining effect on mixed trade, eastern, and foreign-funded enterprises. Market-incentive regulation promotes processing and mixed trade enterprises as well as domestic and foreign-funded enterprises. Voluntary-participation regulation promotes all enterprises with different trade patterns and ownership. The mechanism analysis shows that command-control and market-participation environmental regulations affect export technological sophistication through the green invention and green utility innovation channels, while, additionally, market-incentive environmental regulation affects export technological sophistication through the green design innovation channel. Considering the environmental governance issues, the policy implications for enhancing the entire industrial chain and enterprises’ export competitiveness are clear. Due to the unclear functions and powers of competent departments and a rigid threshold, command-control regulation is not conducive to cleaner production technology and the promotion of enterprises’ export competitiveness; it should thus be discouraged. Although both market-incentive and voluntary-participation regulations have promoted cleaner production technology and enterprises’ competitiveness significantly, the environmental tax system requires continuous improvement. The government should continue to raise public involvement in environmental protection to enrich the channels and forms of environmental management.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
guo bing nan ◽  
tang li ◽  
jia ru ◽  
lin ji

Abstract This paper constructs a theoretical model to deduce the mechanism of environmental regulation on ecological welfare performance, selects the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 ~ 2019, uses the Super-SBM model to measure the ecological welfare performance of China, and the influence of heterogeneous environmental regulation on ecological welfare performance in China is empirically tested by spatial Durbin model. The results show: (1) there are regional differences in the ecological welfare performance of different provinces in China, which illustrates an unbalanced spatial distribution; (2) there is significant positive spatial correlation between market incentive, command -control and voluntary participation environmental regulation and ecological welfare performance; (3) The impact of different types of environmental regulations on the performance of ecological welfare in China is heterogeneous. Command-control and market incentive environmental regulations can improve the performance of ecological welfare, while voluntary participation environmental regulations have no significant impact on the performance of ecological welfare; (4) From the perspective of spatial spillover effect, command-control environmental regulation is not conducive to the ecological welfare performance of neighboring regions, while market incentive environmental regulation is conducive to the improvement of ecological welfare performance of adjacent areas. The spatial spillover effect of voluntary participation environmental regulation on ecological welfare performance in adjacent areas is not significant.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianyou Pan ◽  
Yang Cao ◽  
Xiongfeng Pan ◽  
Md. Kamal Uddin

PurposeEnvironmental regulation policy and cleaner production technology innovation are the key links to achieve sustainable economic development. This paper tests the impact of Two Control Zone (TCZ) environmental regulation policy on cleaner production technology innovation and explains the heterogeneity effect between them from the perspective of regional pollution intensity and R&D investment scale.Design/methodology/approachThis paper takes TCZ policy as an environmental regulation policy and collects the patent data related to coal desulfurization cleaner production technology innovation in prefecture-level cities from 1994 to 2002 in China. This paper also tests the relationship between TCZ environmental regulation policy and cleaner production technology innovation based on difference in difference (DID) model. Take regional R&D investment scale and pollution intensity as category variables and analyze the heterogeneity effect of TCZ environmental regulation policy on cleaner production technology innovation based on difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) model.FindingsTCZ environmental regulation policy effectively promotes China's cleaner production technology innovation, but it is more conducive to cleaner production technology innovation in heavy pollution areas. With the increasing of R&D investment scale, the positive effect of TCZ environmental regulation policy on cleaner production technology innovation is stronger.Research limitations/implicationsOn the basis of this study, the authors should further explore the regulatory factors of the relationship between TCZ environmental regulation policy and cleaner production technology innovation and further expand the research object, so as to make the research conclusions more practical and instructive.Originality/valueThis paper tests the impact of TCZ environmental regulation policy on cleaner production technology innovation based on the prefecture city level data and DID model, and it handles the endogenous problem caused by the missing variables and provides the accurate conclusions. Moreover, this paper examines the heterogeneity effect of TCZ environmental regulation policy on cleaner production innovation from regional R&D investment scale and pollution intensity two hands and expands the existing theoretical research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Pham ◽  
Nguyen ◽  
Ramiah ◽  
Mudalige ◽  
Moosa

This study examines the impact of environmental regulation on the Singapore stock market using the event study methodology. Several asset pricing models are used to estimate sectoral abnormal returns. Additionally, we estimate the change in systematic risk after the introduction of the carbon tax and related regulation. We conduct various robustness tests, including the Corrado non-parametric ranking test, the Chesney non-parametric conditional distribution approach, a representation of market integration, and Fama–French five-factor model. We find evidence showing that the environmental regulations tend to achieve their desired effects in Singapore in which several big polluters (including industrial metals and mining, forestry and papers, and electrical equipment and services) were negatively affected by the announcements of environmental regulations and carbon tax. In addition, our results indicate that the electricity sector, one of the biggest polluters, was negatively affected by the announcement of environmental regulations and carbon tax. We also find that environmental regulations seem to boost the performance of environmentally-friendly sectors whereby we find the alternative energy industry (focusing on new renewable energy technologies) experienced a sizeable positive reaction following the announcements of these regulations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 528-536
Author(s):  
Ruishi Si ◽  
Meizhi Wang ◽  
Qian Lu ◽  
Shuxia Zhang

Carcass waste recycling exerts an important influence on preventing epidemic diseases, improving the ecological environment, and promoting sustainable development of the livestock industry although it has rarely aroused widespread attention throughout the world. Based on the data of 470 households engaged in breeding pigs in Hebei, Henan, and Hubei, China, and considering dead pigs as an example, this study employed the Double Hurdle model to assess impact of risk perception on household dead pig recycling behaviour and further tested the moderating effects of environmental regulation on the impact of risk perception on household dead pig recycling behaviour. The results show that: (1) Risk perception has a positive and significant influence on household dead pig recycling behaviour; however, this influence is mainly caused by households’ production and public health safety risk perceptions. Food and ecological safety risk perceptions have no significant influence on household dead pig recycling behaviour. (2) Environmental regulation has enhanced moderating effects on the impact of risk perception on household dead pig recycling behaviour, but the moderating effects mainly arose from imperative, guiding, and voluntary regulations. A moderating effect of incentive regulation is not obvious. (3) The moderating effects of environmental regulations present strong heterogeneity when different breeding scales and recycling technical attributes are considered. Finally, some policy implications, such as improving households’ risk perception level, enhancing environmental regulation intensity, and classifying to formulate measures, are proposed.


Author(s):  
Qingyang Wu

Abstract:This paper uses the balanced panel data from 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China for a total of 17 years from 2000 to 2016 as a research sample, and establishes an empirical model to examine the impact of environmental regulations and technological innovation on the quality of economic growth. Then this paper test technological innovation as a threshold variable, in which play a regulatory role. Taking the provincial balanced panel data as a research sample, a fixed effect model, a system GMM model, and a panel threshold model were established for empirical testing and the robustness test. Based on the empirical results, this article draws the following conclusions: from a national perspective, environmental regulations and technological innovation can significantly promote the quality of economic growth; from a regional perspective, there are regional differences in impact effects. Under the constraints of environmental regulations, the promotion effect of technological innovation on the quality of economic growth will be reduced; the impact of environmental regulation on the quality of economic growth will have a "threshold effect", and environmental regulation can significantly promote the quality of economic growth only after crossing the threshold and the threshold of technological innovation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hui Li ◽  
Chuandang Zhao ◽  
Xiaoying Tang ◽  
Jiawei Cheng ◽  
Guanyang Lu ◽  
...  

Environmental regulation policies are being continuously enriched today. To effectively improve green innovation efficiency through environmental regulations, it is urgent to better understand the impact of different environmental regulations on green innovation efficiency (GIE). However, due to the defects of previous methods for measuring GIE, existing studies may have deviations when analysing the effect of environmental regulations on GIE. To fill this gap, using Shaanxi, China, as a case study, the present study proposes a network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model based on neutral cross-efficiency evaluation to accurately measure the GIE of Shaanxi during the period of 2001–2017. On this basis, this study further analysed the impact of different types of environmental regulations on GIE from three aspects: causality, evolutionary relationships, and effect paths. The results indicate that (1) the GIE of Shaanxi Province showed a “fluctuation-slow growth-steady growth” trend during 2001–2017, and after 2014, the problem of an uncoordinated relationship between technology research and design (R&D) and technology transformation began to appear; (2) there was a linear evolutionary relationship between command-and-control environmental regulation and GIE and a “U”-shaped evolutionary relationship between market-based/voluntary environmental regulation and GIE; and (3) command-and-control environmental regulation and voluntary environmental regulation affected GIE mainly at the technology R&D stage, while market-based environmental regulation ran through the entire process of green innovation activities. This study improves the evaluation methods and theoretical systems of GIE and provides the scientific basis for government decision-makers to formulate environmental regulation policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyang Wang ◽  
Baizhou Li

AbstractThe high-quality development of the manufacturing industry is an important strategic task for Chinese economic development. The rapid development of the manufacturing industry is also accompanied by problems such as overcapacity and environmental pollution. This paper analyzes the impact of capacity utilization on the high-quality development of manufacturing and establishes a nonlinear threshold regression model on this basis, and studies and analyzes environmental regulations as a threshold variable under the influence of capacity utilization rate on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. The research results show that: capacity utilization, profitability, foreign direct investment, and government participation all have a significant positive impact on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry; environmental regulations have a significant negative impact on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. And in the model of the effect of capacity utilization on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, environmental regulation has a single threshold effect. With the increase in the intensity of environmental regulation, the coefficient and significance of the effect of capacity utilization on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry have changed. Finally, this article puts forward corresponding policies and suggestions based on the results of data analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Shuangliang Yao ◽  
Xiang Su

This paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the green economic efficiency considering undesired output and analyzes the spatial distribution difference of green economic efficiency; secondly, the nonlinear panel threshold model is used to empirically study the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulations and green economic efficiency, and further analyzed the threshold effect of environmental regulations on the efficiency of green economy and concluded as follows. (1) The green economy efficiency index in the eastern region is mostly more significant than 1, and the green economy efficiency in most provinces in the eastern region has improved. These provinces have higher regional production levels and less environmental pollution. The green economy efficiency of the central region is second only to the eastern region. The green economy efficiency of provinces in the western region except Chongqing is less than 1, indicating that these provinces have insufficient regional production, severe environmental pollution, or extensive resource depletion. (2) The impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency of the green economy presents an inverted “U” shape, with a threshold of 0.5128 for environmental regulations. The impact of the industrial structure on the efficiency of the green economy changes from inhibition to promotion after crossing the threshold of the intensity of environmental regulation, and the degree of opening to the outside world has a complementary effect on the efficiency of the green economy. The impact of urbanization on the efficiency of the green economy changes from promotion to suppression after surpassing the threshold of the intensity of environmental regulations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Liu ◽  
Zepeng Zhang

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Lili Feng ◽  
Lin Wang ◽  
Wenjun Zhou

Many developing countries including China are implementing increasingly stringent environmental regulations to achieve sustainable development. However, we have limited understanding about whether environmental regulations promote enterprise innovation. To address this research gap, this study empirically analyzes the impact of environmental regulations which is represented by the China Environmental Protection Law (2015) on enterprise innovation and it explores the moderating effects of official communication on environmental regulations and corporate innovation. The Super-Slacks-Based Measure (Super-SBM) model and Multiple Nonlinear Regression model are used to analyze 34,074 samples in China’s A-share market during the 2015–2017 period. Our results show that, in general, a higher intensity of environmental regulations is more beneficial to incentivize enterprises to implement innovation. Meanwhile, there is an inverted U-type relationship between official communication and innovation of enterprises. Furthermore, at present, the average level of official communication in China is too high, which will weaken the role of environmental regulation in promoting enterprise innovation. Overall, this study can help us better understand the politics behind enterprise innovation in countries.


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