Search

Whether environmental regulation incentivizes green technology innovations is debated in the literature. The potential endogeneity of environmental regulation is the major empirical challenge for identifying the causal effect of environmental regulation on green technology innovations. To address this issue, we use the quasi-natural experiment of China's Total Emission Control Policy as exogenous shocks of environmental regulation. Specifically, we construct a new dataset of the city-level emission reduction mandates and employ the difference-in-difference-in-differences estimation to explore how stringency of environmental regulation affects green technology innovations. The empirical results show that environmental regulation promotes green innovations. Further mechanism analysis shows environmental regulation can attract "new entrants" to join the green technology market and launch more green innovations. This paper further explores the significance of environmental regulation in narrowing the gap between green and non-green technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental justice is a more sustainable constraint on polluting behavior than administrative instruments. Previous literature has explored the impact of various administrative instruments applied to environmental regulation on green innovation but has neglected the possible role of environmental justice. This paper examines the effect of environmental justice on green innovation using the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) approach by taking the establishment of the Chinese environmental court as a policy shock, thus filling the gap in previous studies. We conclude that: first, the establishment of environmental courts significantly contributes to the level of green innovation. This finding holds after a series of robustness tests. Second, environmental justice pushes polluters to engage in green innovation through the mechanism of pollution control. Third, the effect of environmental courts on green innovation is not significant in resource-based cities, which depend more on high-polluting industries for development. Fourth, a better legal environment can help improve the effectiveness of environmental justice in promoting green innovation. This paper not only supplements the existing literature on the factors influencing green innovation and explains the operational mechanisms and effects of environmental justice, but also provides theoretical support for promoting green innovation in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature has carried out fruitful research on the effects of environmental regulation policies. Due to differences in policies, regions, and data analysis methods, however, the previous studies have not reached a consensus on the effects of environmental regulation policies, especially on the effects of environmental regulation policies of developing countries from the perspective of environmental justice. This paper takes the establishment of the environmental court in China's intermediate people's court as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the multi-period difference-in-differences method to examine the effect of the establishment of the environmental court on environmental governance and economic performance, based on the panel data of 284 cities in China from 2003 to 2019. The results show that the establishment of the environmental court can significantly reduce the emission intensity of industrial SO 2 in the short term. This reduction effect is resulted from the joint emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court on local cities and adjacent cities. The mechanism analysis shows that the establishment of the environmental court has the dual effect of emission reduction without hindering economic growth. This effect is mainly achieved by improving energy efficiency, stimulating green technology innovation, increasing environmental investment, and improving the green finance level. Furthermore, the emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court shows differential effects under the constraints of regional rule-of-law level, environmental awareness, fiscal pressure, and level of innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, the establishment of the environmental court can facilitate the achievement of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. • Evaluated the impact of the improvement of judicial quality on environmental governance and economic performance. • The establishment of the environmental court would reduce the emission intensity of industrial SO 2. • The establishment of the environmental court would not compromise regional productivity. • There is heterogeneity in the policy effects of the establishment of the environmental court. • Effects are achieved via energy efficiency, green technology innovation, environmental investment, and green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses a poorly documented issue in the literature, namely the role of clusters in green transformation, including processes related to green, low-carbon, and circular economies. The purpose was to identify and understand the practices of clusters in this area. The adopted mixed research strategy consisted of both qualitative and quantitative research. Both research phases were conducted in a group of Polish Key National Clusters. Through qualitative research, the authors abductively identified practices that are vital for green transformation and categorized them into three thematic areas: Integration, Access to resources, and Education and awareness building. On this basis, the authors developed a method to measure the clusters' level of advancement in green practices, which was used in quantitative research. The results show that the surveyed clusters undertake a number of practices to promote green transformation. They are active in each of the distinguished areas and also engage in its most demanding forms. The study sheds new light on the concept of the clusters, showing how such organizations can be used as agents of change in favor of green transformation. • Research on clusters in relation to green transformation is at a very early stage. • Clusters can pursue various practices to promote green transformation. • Cluster green practices can be grouped as: Integration, Resources, and Education. • Advancement of Polish National Key Clusters in green transformation is rather high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although green growth has become the economic development strategy of many countries in the world, and studies have analyzed the influencing factors of green growth from multiple angles, there are few literatures devoted to the impact of fintech and green finance on green growth. From the perspective of fintech development, this paper tries to construct a comprehensive index to evaluate the green growth of regional economy based on the in-depth analysis of the influence mechanism of green finance on green growth. At the same time, China's provincial panel data from 2011 to 2018 are selected to test the impact of fintech innovation and green finance on green growth, and its mechanism. It turns out that fintech and green finance significantly promotes green economic growth. At the same time, the impact of fintech and green finance on green growth has obvious regional heterogeneity, that is, the impact in eastern China is significantly stronger than that in central and western China. Further research shows that fintech innovation mainly promotes green economic growth through green credit and green investment. Therefore, fintech innovation can promote green economic growth by improving the development level of green finance, which has great reference significance for most countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]