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In the context of China's strategic goal of carbon neutrality, the realization of green technology innovation to reduce the risk of manufacturing default will help promote the green transformation of firms and achieve high-quality economic development. The study explored the relationship between green technology innovation and default risk by taking the manufacturing industry of listed enterprises in China from 2001 to 2020 as research samples. The results showed that green technology innovation is negatively correlated with default risk. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis showed that the benefit effect of heavy-polluting enterprises, state-owned enterprises, and large-scale enterprises was more significant. The mechanism analysis showed that green technology innovation can reduce default risk through market position and capital structure. In addition, the study further distinguished that environmental protection tax was conducive to green technology innovation to reduce the occurrence of default risk. In theory, the study expanded the research paradigm between green technology innovation and default risk in theory, and provided new evidence and enlightenment for reducing the default risk of enterprises and supported the green and sustainable development of enterprises in practice., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As the global climate problem becomes increasingly serious, the green technology innovation to achieve "carbon peak and carbon neutral" has gradually become the global consensus of major countries, and how the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology affects green technology innovation (GTI) has received a great deal of attention in the field of economics. Therefore, based on China's inter-provincial panel data from 2006 to 2019, the system GMM, dynamic panel threshold model, and quantile regression model were constructed to examine various influences of AI development on GTI under different environmental regulation intensity, research and development (R&D) investment, and institutional environmental threshold conditions. The findings presented that AI development significantly contributes to GTI and GTFP, with an impact coefficient of 0.0122 and 0.0084, and this influence is mainly reflected in the western region of China and is more obvious in the 2006-2012 period. AI development mainly enhances green technological efficiency, and it has dampening effects on green technological progress during the period 2013-2019. Additionally, there are non-linear threshold effects in the relationship between the level of AI development and GTI when environmental regulatory intensity, R&D investment, and institutional environment are in different level intervals. AI development will boost GTI only when the intensity of environmental regulation and institutional environment is above a certain threshold value. However, the AI development represented by industrial robot applications still has no obvious effect on GTI even when the R&D investment exceeds a certain threshold. Furthermore, the growth effect of AI development on GTI indicates a decreasing nonlinear pattern as the GTI's quantile rises under the condition that R&D investment and institutional environment intensity cross the threshold, while this growth effect increases gradually with the rise of GTI's quantile when the environmental regulation is above the threshold., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper studies the impact of financial inclusion on energy consumption in China since the new millennium by using provincial data in China from 2000 to 2019. A financial inclusion index is first constructed, and the spatial-temporal evolution of China's financial inclusion and energy consumption are explored. Second, a spatial econometric model is applied to investing their relationship. Third, the mechanism on how financial inclusion may affect energy consumption is investigated through the mediation effect model. Results show that both financial inclusion and energy consumption show signs of polarization in China. Besides, most provinces saw a significant increase in their per capita energy consumption. Further, the relationship between financial inclusion and energy is U-shaped. Lastly, economic growth and technology upgrading mediate the impact of financial inclusion on energy consumption, with the direct effects (II) dominating the mediation effects. Some policy suggestions are also given., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Green technological innovation is an overarching approach to tackling environmental pollution, and mitigating the inequality in green technological innovation between regions can contribute to environmental equity. This study measures the inequality in green technological innovation via an index and examines the influence of digital finance on that inequality using data from 285 cities in China from 2011 to 2018. The results are as follows: (1) Digital financial development alleviates the inequality in green technological innovation, and the greater the inequality is, the stronger the effect of digital finance. The development of digital finance can help regions lagging behind in terms of green technology to catch up. (2) When the financial supervision and environmental restrictions within a region are strict, the development of digital finance is more effective at reducing the inequality in green technological innovation; a higher capacity for governance in the local government and a smaller digital divide strengthen the positive effects of digital finance. (3) The development of digital finance alleviates interregional inequality in green credit, reduces market segmentation, and increases spending on environmental protection, thus narrowing the gap in the capacity for green innovation between regions. These findings not only enrich the literature on digital finance and green technological innovation but also serve as a reference for governmental departments as they optimize their strategy for developing digital finance and coordinating green development across regions., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The study aims to analyze the impacts of capital misallocation and technological innovation on green development efficiency in China by using the panel data from 2000 to 2018. We employ the Super-SBM model to evaluate green development efficiency and use the system generalized method of moments (GMM) for empirical estimation. The results suggest that capital misallocation has a significant inhibitory effect on green development efficiency. Moreover, capital misallocation restrains technological innovation, which plays an important role in improving green development efficiency. Further research on the effect of regional heterogeneity indicates that the negative impact of capital misallocation on green development efficiency is more significant in the central and western regions, while the effect is not significant in the eastern region. Our findings provide useful policy implications for improving green development efficiency in China., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The double-wheel driven of manufacturing and producer services industrial co-agglomeration is of great significance for transforming the economic growth mode driven by a single industry, integrating and extending regional resources, and improving energy efficiency. Based on panel data from 2004 to 2019, this paper uses the spatial Dubin model to analyze the impact of industrial co-agglomeration on total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) and its regional heterogeneity. Moreover, the mediating model is employed to examine the mediating effect of green technological innovation in the industrial co-agglomeration affects TFEE. Last but not least, the threshold panel regression model is conducted to verify the nonlinear relationship between industrial co-agglomeration and TFEE. The results show that there is a U-shaped curve relationship between industrial co-agglomeration and TFEE. Moreover, there are obvious regional heterogeneities in the impact of industrial co-agglomeration on TFEE and its spatial spillover effect. Meanwhile, industrial co-agglomeration has a significant indirect impact on TFEE through green technological innovation. In addition, there is a single threshold effect on the impact of industrial co-agglomeration on TFEE, only when the industrial co-agglomeration degree crosses the threshold value of 0.6329, can it positively promote the improvement of TFEE., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Achieving global climate change mitigation targets requires low-carbon production in agriculture. In such an endeavor, a new classification of climate-adaptive technology is defined to affect agriculture towards the low-carbon direction, but such an impact has seldom been empirically tested in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the impact of climate-adaptive technological innovation on agricultural carbon efficiency, a proxy for low-carbon agriculture. We use a stochastic directional distance function framework and a cross-country dataset covering 38 OECD countries. Additionally, we test the heterogeneous impact, considering that regional economic development is a crucial condition for deploying advanced technologies. The findings show that climate-adaptive technological innovation can promote carbon efficiency in agriculture, and this aggregate effect hides significant heterogeneity at different levels of economic development. The higher the economic development level is, the better climate-adaptive technological innovation contributes to improving agricultural carbon efficiency. Then, related policy implications are set forth., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Whether high-speed rail (HSR) can promote the coordination between the economy and environment is a critical issue that needs to be investigated. We used balanced panel data of 281 prefecture-level or above cities in China from 2005 to 2017 to consider the opening of HSR as a quasi-natural experiment. We integrated the difference-in-differences (DID) model, the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model, and social network analysis (SNA) to empirically investigate the impact of HSR on urban environmental efficiency (UEE). The results showed that HSR significantly improved UEE by 4.6% annually during the study period, although the effect of HSR on UEE exhibited a time lag and varied dramatically in different cities. An analysis of the mechanism showed that the effect of technological innovation and the structural effect brought by the opening of HSR were the main contributors to the improved UEE. Further analysis showed that HSR service centrality also significantly improved UEE and HSR opening and HSR service centrality both had positive spatial spillover effects on the UEE of neighboring cities. Several policy implications are proposed accordingly to make full use of the advantages of HSR to improve UEE for China., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

A carbon market is a widely used policy tool worldwide. This study employs a difference-in-differences (DID) model to estimate the impact of a carbon trading policy on green technology innovation and applies a spatial DID (SDID) model to investigate its spatial spillover effects. The findings suggest that China's carbon market effectively promotes green technology innovation, as green invention patent applications for listed enterprises increase by 28.8% when implementing the carbon trading policy. Moreover, implementing a carbon trading policy promotes local green technology innovation and has spatial spillover effects on neighboring cities. Furthermore, heterogeneity test results show that the spatial spillover effects differ by geographical region, economic development levels, ownership type (state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises), and degree of government intervention. Therefore, we suggest enhancing enterprises' technological innovation by providing policy support and prioritizing the development of carbon markets in regions with high economic development levels., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Science and technological innovation play a crucial role in achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. They are also vital for improving the scale, structure, and allocation of input and output factors, as well as enhancing the marginal efficiency of production factors. This study investigates the impact of science and technological innovation on carbon productivity using data from 30 provinces (cities, and autonomous regions) in China spanning the period from 2004 to 2020. The findings are as follows: First, the spatial characteristics of carbon productivity in China have gradually evolved into "low in the northern regions and high in the southern regions." The spatial distribution of science and technological innovation in China shows a gradual decrease from the southeast to the northwest. Second, employing the fixed effect model, we find that science and technological innovation has a significant positive effect on carbon productivity, with regional variations in the magnitude of the effect. Furthermore, we identify industrial structure rationalization, industrial structure advancement, and industrial structure ecology as important mechanisms through which science and technological innovation influence carbon productivity. The mediation effects are measured at 3.37%, 8%, and 73.94%, respectively. These research findings provide valuable insights for enhancing technological innovation capabilities, realizing low-carbon development, and addressing the challenges posed by climate change., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The Yellow River Economic Belt (YREB) is a fundamental ecological protection barrier for China. Its carbon pollution issues are currently severe owing to the extensive energy consumption and unsatisfactory industrial constructions. In this context, this paper estimates carbon emission efficiency (CEE) based on the panel data from 56 cities in the YREB during the period 2006-2019 and analyzes its spatial distribution characteristics. Additionally, the spatial Durbin model (SDM) is utilized to examine the effect of technological innovation (TI) on CEE as a result of the moderating effects of government support (GS) and marketization (MA), respectively. The results indicated that (i) in the YREB, CEE exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation characteristics; (ii) TI negatively affected local CEE; (iii) the moderating effect of local GS on the relationship between TI and CEE in the local area was negative, but its spatial spillover effect was still not significant; (iv) the moderating effect of local MA on the relationship between TI and CEE in the local area was also negative, but positive in the surrounding areas. Based on the empirical analysis, a series of policy suggestions are proposed to improve the YREB's CEE., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Energy technology innovation is the necessary way and fundamental means to lead, promote, and support the revolution of energy production and consumption. While natural hazards, as an unavoidable external risk in the long-term development of human society, may affect the regional energy innovation level. In this study, we use the SDM bifixed model to investigate the direct, indirect, and aggregate effects of natural hazards on energy technology innovation for data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020. Results indicate that (1) Natural hazards not only have a significant negative impact on local energy technology innovation, but also inhibit energy technology innovation in neighboring regions, with significant spatial spillover effects. (2) Natural hazards have a more pronounced effect in western cities. (3) Natural hazards can enhance energy technology innovation through increasing environmental regulation and reducing FDI. Our study offers suggestions for strengthening post-natural disaster reconstruction and sub-regional resilience to disaster shocks, improving environmental regulation laws and regulations, and attracting more foreign direct investment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

With rapid economic growth in the twenty-first century, innovation has become an essential component of national development, and industry-university-research regional collaborative innovation is the key to implementing China's innovation plan. Using panel data from 30 provinces and cities in China (excluding Tibet Autonomous Region) from 2011 to 2018, this paper employs the two-stage dynamic DEA model to develop a rating index system of regional collaborative innovation performance, which is divided into knowledge innovation stage and technology innovation stage, and measures the collaborative innovation efficiency of 30 provinces in China. The environmental regulation score is then determined by using the entropy method. Finally, an experimental application of the panel Tobit model is conducted to investigate the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on regional collaborative innovation. The results reveal that the collaborative innovation efficiency values of the majority of provinces are between 0.5 and 0.7, leaving ample room for growth. When the efficiency value of collaborative innovation is broken down by region, the eastern, central, and western regions show a pattern of "rising in the east, stable in the center, and falling in the west." The findings of the Tobit regression reveal that the effect of environmental regulation on regional collaborative innovation performance follows a "U"-shaped distribution, confirming the "Porter Hypothesis." This study proposes remedies and proposals to enhance regional collaborative innovation performance from the perspective of environmental regulation., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In recent years, the value of green innovation in achieving high-quality development in China has been increasingly recognized. However, studies on different types of green innovation under various environmental regulations have not established a systematic framework; especially, those considering external financing constraints are lacking. This study subdivides both environmental regulation and green innovation. Specifically, environmental regulation is divided into command-and-control regulation, market-incentive regulation, and public-participation regulation. Green technology innovation is divided into cleaner production technology innovation and end-of-pipe technology innovation. Moreover, this study explores whether and how environmental regulation affects green technology innovation, and investigates the moderating effect of external financing constraints, by matching the data from China Environmental Yearbook and China Industrial Enterprise Database. The results show that both command-and-control regulation and market-incentive regulation have the U-shaped relationship with cleaner production technology innovation. Meanwhile, public-participation environmental regulation significantly and positively affects cleaner production technology innovation, whereas market-incentive regulation and public-participation regulation have the inverted U-shaped relationship with end-of-pipe technology innovation. In addition, the external financing constraints have a moderating effect on the relationship between environmental regulation and cleaner production technology innovation., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Factor market distortion is a critical factor that affects environmental pollution, and technological innovation is regarded as a new opportunity to alleviate environmental pollution. Based on panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2019, this study constructs an intermediary effect model to test the influence mechanism of factor market distortion on regional environmental pollution and the intermediary effect of technological innovation, exploring these effects based on spatial differentiation characteristics. This study shows that factor market distortion protects industries with backward production capacity, high resource consumption, serious pollution, and low production efficiency from elimination; hinders the transformation and upgrading of the regional industrial structure; and forms a lock in the sloppy growth mode, which directly affects the improvement of regional environmental quality. This study reveals the influence of factor market distortions on environmental pollution. This provides empirical evidence for giving play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and promoting green technology innovation., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Technological advancements and resources availability are the main components of green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE). This study measured GTFEE using the Meta-frontier and Non-radial Directional Distance Function (MNDDF) models and empirically evaluated the effect of technological innovation and resource endowment on GTFEE using dynamic panel and panel threshold models. The following are the primary findings: (1) Throughout the study sample period, the average change trend of China's GTFEE was generally in the shape of a "W," with regional variations. (2) Independent innovation can significantly improve GTFEE, whereas technology introduction has little effect on GTFEE advancement. Similarly, it confirmed the existence of the "Resource Curse." (3) While independent innovation has reduced the severity of the resource curse to a certain extent, the introduction of this technology has no positive effect on the resource curse problem. (4) Heterogeneity research indicates that only large cities' independent innovation has significantly increased GTFEE. There is a particular resource curse phenomenon regardless of the city size, but it is more prominent in small and medium-sized cities. (5) At various phases of economic development, a significant difference was noticed in the impact of independent innovation, technology introduction, and resource endowment on GTFEE., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Promoting sustainable economic development from the perspective of energy technology is crucial, given limited energy resources and severe environmental pollution. Based on the panel data of China's provinces from 2000 to 2017, we empirically explore the complex relation among energy technology innovation, regional economic growth, and total factor ecological efficiency. We innovatively introduce ecological footprint as one of the input indicators of total factor ecological efficiency measured using slack-based measure-data envelopment analysis, thereby comprehensively quantifying sustainable economic development. Moreover, we adopt spatial econometric and threshold regression models to empirically assess the relation between energy technology innovation and total factor ecological efficiency. We infer the following conclusions. First, both China's provincial ecological efficiency and energy technology innovation possess significant spatial positive correlation, manifesting a spatial geographical distribution agglomerated by similar characteristics. Second, the regional energy technology innovation has a remarkable spatial effect on ecological efficiency, displaying a U-shaped trend. Compared with the direct effect, the spatial spillover effect is more intense, along with a much stronger long-term influence. Third, under the regulation of regional economic growth, two inflection points exist in the effect of energy technology innovation on ecological efficiency. Energy technology innovation is not conducive to total factor ecological efficiency under low regional economic growth. No significant relation exists between the two core variables under medium regional economic growth. Furthermore, energy technology innovation positively influences total factor ecological efficiency only when regional economic growth reaches a certain peak., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

To accomplish China's sustainable growth, it is critical to identify the primary factors affecting environmental quality in the steel industry. In this positioning, foreign direct investment (FDI), energy intensity, and technological innovation have emerged as strong pillars of the steel industry. However, there are growing concerns of carbon emission from this industry which is still debatable. In this context, this study measures the effect of FDI, energy intensity, and technology innovation on environmental quality in the steel industry from 28 provinces of China. The study uses the provincial data for China over the period 2000-2018. In addition to examining unit root properties and cointegration, this study employed Augmented Mean Group regression for estimating long-run relationships among study variables. The findings reveal the negative effect of FDI and technology innovation on environmental quality. These findings indicate that FDI and technology innovation have shaped the energy intensity in the steel industry. The positive coefficient value of energy intensity shows that innovations for environmental conservation and energy usage are minimal and did not perform an integral part in lowering carbon emissions. These findings are important in formulating successful emission reduction policies after controlling the effects of urbanization and economic growth for the Chinese steel sector., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

To further clarify the relationship between environmental regulation and green technology innovation and discuss how environmental regulation affects green technology innovation through import trade, this paper analyzes the impacts of environmental regulation and import trade on green technology innovation and the transmission effect of import trade based on panel data for 30 provinces in China for 2008 to 2017. The results show that (1) environmental regulation first plays a role in promoting green technology innovation and then restrains it, and import trade can significantly promote green technology innovation; (2) under the constraints of stronger environmental regulations, import trade has a significantly positive effect on green technology innovation; and (3) environmental regulation can further enhance the technology spillover effects of import trade in regions with high absorptive capacity and regions with high levels of R&D investment. This paper analyzes the impact of environmental regulation on green technology innovation from the perspective of import trade and makes up for the deficiencies of existing research. It also lays a foundation for scholars to study the relationship between environmental regulation and green technology innovation in the midst of heterogeneous government regulation capabilities and industries in the future., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The high technology (high-tech) industry of China has gained a key strategic position in the Chinese economic goals. In this positioning, foreign direct investment (FDI) and technological innovation have emerged as strong pillars of the high-tech industry. However, there are growing concerns of carbon emission from this industry which is still debatable. In this context, this study measures the effect of FDI and technology innovation on carbon emissions in the high-tech industry from 28 provinces of China. The study uses the provincial data for China over the period 2000-2018. In addition to examining unit root properties, structural breaks, and cointegration, this study uses quantile regression for estimating long-run relationships among study variables. The findings reveal the negative impact of FDI on carbon emissions. Technology innovation positively impacts in the initial three quantiles, whereas negatively impacts in the next six quantiles. These results indicate that FDI and technology innovation have shaped the energy intensity in the high-tech industry, which causes fluctuation in carbon emissions over time. After controlling the effects of urbanization, energy intensity, and economic growth, this study recommends that policymakers should emphasize on the heterogeneous effects of FDI and technology-lead emissions at different quantiles during the process of CO 2 emission reduction., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The rapid industrialization and the lack of technological innovation over the past 40 years have caused serious environmental pollution and waste of resources. Therefore, it remains an urgent challenge to coordinate technological innovation, resource consumption, environmental quality, and high-quality industrial development in China. Using the data of Shaanxi Province from 2005 to 2019, in this paper, we adopt the 4-population grey Lotka-Volterra model (GLV) to study the competition and cooperation among technological innovation (TI), resource consumption (RE), environmental quality (EE), and industrial development quality (IQ). We also discuss the equilibrium point and stability of the GLV model and further verify its accuracy. We conduct an empirical study of the data of Shaanxi Province, and the results demonstrate that (1) TI is able to improve EE, increase IQ, and promote RE; (2) conserving resources has a positive effect on TI, EE, and IQ; (3) although EE could prevent TI and IQ, it can reduce RE; and (4) IQ can effectively reduce RE and improve EE; however, it hinders TI. (5) The result of equilibrium analysis reveals that the evolution of the four factors will tend to reach a stable equilibrium point in the future, that is, realizing co-evolution., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper examines the impact of entrepreneurs' inventor identity and entrepreneur patent participation on enterprise performance using the panel data of 358 firms from the Science and Technology Innovation Board in China from 2014–2019. The methodology applied in this study is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. Inventor identity (a dummy variable) and patent participation (measured by Entrepreneur Degree Centrality and Entrepreneur Betweenness Centrality) are independent variables. The dependent variable enterprise performance is split into patent quantity, speed, and quality. The results show that an entrepreneur's inventor identity positively affects the patent quantity and quality but slows the patent speed. Entrepreneur Degree Centrality negatively affects the patent quantity and quality but increases the patent speed. Entrepreneur Betweenness Centrality positively affects the patent quantity and quality, and there is a U-shape association between Entrepreneur Betweenness Centrality and patent speed. The findings suggest that entrepreneurs who are inventors can actively improve the patent quantity and quality. Still, an entrepreneur's full participation in patent may negatively affect the patent quantity and quality. Entrepreneurs should participate in a patent in a direction-oriented or node-controlled way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent manufacturing enterprises play a crucial role in the modern industrial system and are key to high-quality economic development. However, most current research on intelligent manufacturing technology innovation focuses on single variables, lacking a comprehensive analysis from a linkage grouping perspective. This paper constructs an analytical framework for the technology innovation path of intelligent manufacturing enterprises from three dimensions: technology level, organization level, and environment level. Six antecedent variables are selected: R&D investment, digital transformation, human capital structure, profitability, government support, and competitive position. Using the fuzzy sets of qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methodology, the paper examines the technological innovation paths of intelligent manufacturing enterprises in China. The research indicates that no single antecedent variable is necessary for high technological innovation; instead, the innovation path results from the synergistic effect of multiple conditions. The study identifies three paths leading to high technological innovation in intelligent manufacturing:"Government and Human Resource driven types," "Environmental-Organizational linkage types,"and"Organizational Resilience dominant types." This analysis provides reference suggestions for enterprises to adopt suitable development strategies based on their competitive positions., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 Li, Zhao. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Government innovation subsidies play an important role as a policy to incentivize green transformation of enterprises, but whether government innovation subsidies can reduce the carbon intensity of industrial enterprises is still unclear, the exploration of the impact pathway needs to be further developed. This study takes government innovation subsidies as the entry point. It takes Chinese industrial listed companies as the research object from 2007 to 2021, explores the internal mechanism of government innovation subsidies on carbon intensity of industrial enterprises, analyzes the heterogeneity of the impact of government innovation subsidies on the carbon intensity of government innovation subsidies, and finally compares the differences arising from the governance effects of the policies of government innovation subsidies and government non-innovation subsidies. The results of the study show that: 1. Government innovation subsidies are beneficial for improving the energy utilization efficiency of enterprises and significantly reducing carbon intensity, unit government innovation subsidies can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of industrial enterprises by 11.069 tons per 10,000 yuan of output value; 2. Government innovation subsidies can effectively incentivize industrial enterprises to carry out green technological innovations, and improve the quantity and quality of green technological innovation; 3. Government innovation subsidies can reduce carbon intensity of industrial enterprises by incentivizing the green technological innovations of enterprises to "increase the quantity and improve the quality". In fact, carbon intensity of industrial enterprises could be significantly reduced by incentivizing green technological innovation. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the greater the pressure of environmental tax and the higher the degree of market competition, the stronger is the effect of government innovation subsidies in reducing carbon intensity. The inclusion of government non-innovation subsidies in the control study shows that government innovation subsidies with innovation orientation motivate industrial enterprises to reduce carbon emissions significantly more than those subsidies without innovation orientation. In conclusion, this study provides a practical reference for the promotion of green technological innovation in enterprises to "increase the quantity and improve the quality" and reduce carbon intensity, as well as a revelation for the adoption of differentiated policies for different enterprises., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Chunai Ma reports financial support was provided by Beijing Municipal Social Science Foundation. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

China is at a critical moment of transforming high-speed development to high-quality development, and it is significant to improve the efficiency of green technological innovation. In this paper, under the perspective of two-stage innovation value chain, we construct the evaluation index system of green technology innovation efficiency, adopt the super efficiency SBM model to measure the green technology innovation efficiency of China's high-tech industries, and based on the results obtained, we assume the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method (fs-QCA) based on the group theory to explore the complex causal mechanism and grouping paths of the interaction between enterprises, government and market that affects the green technology innovation efficiency Mechanism and group path. The study results show that (1) enterprise, government, and market are not necessary conditions to influence the efficiency of green technological innovation, and even if a particular party plays a central role, it needs the assistance of other parties. (2) The improvement of green technological innovation efficiency requires the interaction of enterprises, government, and market, and even if any party does not have the core conditions, it can still produce high green technological innovation efficiency. (3) The path of the "innovative compensation" effect is identified, which indicates that enterprises will generate a high level of green innovation efficiency under sufficient investment brought about by the enterprise scale effect and matched with a good level of economic development. (4) The market economy-led pathway suggests that when the market economy is highly developed, firms do not need environmental regulation and government support to generate efficient levels of green technological innovation., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

In numerous developing nations, challenges such as insufficient investment in innovation and limited capabilities for conversion impede the growth of the construction sector, thus affecting the overall economic well-being of these regions. This paper focuses on construction industry innovation (CII) and its correlation with region economic development (RED), providing valuable insights to overcome these challenges and promote sustainable economic advancement. This study references existing literature to devise an evaluation indicator system dedicated for CII and RED. It then proceeds with an empirical analysis of the integration and synergy between CII and the economic development across 31 Chinese provinces from 2012 to 2021. Furthermore, this paper employs ArcGIS and Geoda software to meticulously dissect the spatial distribution characteristics underlying this coordination. The main conclusions are succinctly summarized as follows: CII in China is intricately connected to RED, exhibiting a strong connection that diminishes from south to north. Nonetheless, the coordination level between these factors remains relatively low, with notable regional disparities, particularly from southeast to northwest. The primary obstacles to effective coordination are related to innovation input, output, and economic scale. Additionally, spatial correlation analysis demonstrates pronounced regional clustering, showing stability despite slight fluctuations over the study period. This research underscores the concept of coupling coordination between CII and RED, underpinned by scientific analytical methods. The outcomes provide a definitive guide for advancing the transformation and enhancement of the construction industry while promoting RED., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xiang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper empirically investigates the impact of digital finance on the breakthrough innovation of enterprises with a sample of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2022. It is found that digital finance can promote corporate breakthrough innovation, and presents certain structural heterogeneity characteristics. The mechanism test shows that digital finance has the dual attributes of a financing platform and a social platform, which can promote breakthrough innovation by alleviating corporate financing constraints and expanding corporate social networks. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the role of digital finance in promoting breakthrough innovation is characterized by regional heterogeneity, with digital finance playing a greater role in promoting breakthrough innovation in provinces with a low level of development of the banking sector, provinces with a high level of development of the capital market sector, and the central region. In addition, the degree of firms' external financing dependence and the degree of product market competition can strengthen the positive effect of digital finance on firms' breakthrough innovation. This paper enriches the related research on the impact of digital finance on enterprise innovation, and provides theoretical basis and policy insights on how digital finance can better assist the innovation-driven development strategy., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Yanmin Shi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper examines the impact of the digital economy on sustainable development, using panel data from cities at the prefecture level and above in China from 2011 to 2019. The results indicate: (1) The digital economy is conducive to boosting growth, increasing employment, reducing energy consumption, and cutting emissions, thereby promoting sustainable development. These findings prove robust. (2) Mechanism test outcomes reveal that, from the perspective of technological innovation, the digital economy can promote sustainable development through increasing R&D input and enhancing innovation output. (3) An extended analysis of the risk of a digital "divide" demonstrates that "dividend" of the digital economy is primarily manifests in spurring economic growth, enhancing energy efficiency, and strengthening environmental protection in lagging regions, while the digital "divide" effect is manifested in the stronger employment stimulating effect of developed regions versus backward areas. The results of this study not only enrich the relevant research system, but also provide empirical evidence to support accelerating digital transformation, strengthening technological innovation governance, and advancing sustainable development., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 He et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The rapid evolution of the digital economy has significantly accelerated progress towards achieving green and sustainable processes, particularly in the field of green production. While existing research has delved into the effects of the digital economy on Green Innovation (GI) and the consequences of digital transformation on Corporate Value (CV), there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding the potential for synergistic enhancements in firms' GI&CV through the ongoing digital revolution. This study utilizes an evolutionary game model and employs system dynamics methods to simulate the dynamic evolution trajectory of the influence of the digital economy on the synergy between GI&CV. Subsequently, it empirically assesses the interconnected synergies between GI&CV using a dataset comprising information from Chinese listed firms spanning from 2011 to 2020, examining the impact of the digital economy on these synergies. Moreover, the study delves into the analysis of the transmission mechanism and conducts an extended investigation to further explore this phenomenon. The findings of this paper including: (1) The digital economy acts as a driving force behind the synergistic enhancement of firm GI&CV. Moreover, this effect is further augmented by governmental environmental regulation and green subsidy policies. (2) Drawing upon the information asymmetry theory and the resource-based theory, the regional marketization level and firms' digital transformation play intermediary roles. (3) The heterogeneity test indicate that firms situated in eastern regions and those classified as non-heavily polluted benefitted to a greater extent. This study sheds light on the incentive implications of digital economy for the synergistic upgrading of GI&CV, thereby extending the breadth of study on the consequences of digital economy. Moreover, it offers actionable suggestions for enterprises to leverage digital economy development towards achieving a synergistic improvement of GI&CV., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Song et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Currently, digital transformation is having various impacts on enterprises around the world, including the green innovation. However, the current literature on the relationship between digitalization and green innovation in enterprises is scarce. What is the relationship between them, and whether heterogeneous environmental regulation has mediating effects, are questions that are worth exploring. Using a sample of listed manufacturing enterprises in China, this paper empirically tests the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation. The results show that: (1) Digital transformation has a significant positive impact on green innovation, including green innovation output and green innovation capability. (2) Diverse environmental regulation may have mediating effects of digital transformation's influence on green innovation. (3) After a number of robustness tests, the conclusions are still valid. This paper can provide a reference for developing green development strategies for manufacturing enterprises., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The Baijiu industry is a significant contributor to both the food industry and the light industry. Its high tax characteristics effectively promote the sustainable development of the regional economy. First, the evaluation index system of scientific and technological innovation (STI) and high-quality development of Baijiu industry (HQDBI) were constructed. The entropy-improved CRITIC method was used to measure the weights. Second, the coordination relationship and evolution trend of STI and HQDBI were explored using the coupling coordination model and the Tapio decoupling model. Then, the transfer law and key influencing factors were further investigated using the Markov chain and grey correlation, respectively. The main contribution is the dynamic evolution of the coupling and decoupling relationships from the perspective of multiple Baijiu provinces, and deeply depicts the coordination relationship and evolutionary trends of STI and HQDBI. The results show that: the spatial distribution of the coupling coordination degree shows high values in the east-west and low values in the north-south characteristics. In 2021, a pattern of coordinated development in Baijiu provinces has emerged along the Yangtze River basin. The decoupling state is mainly strong decoupling, but it remains poor in Shanxi. The coordination process is unstable and difficult to achieve leapfrog development. Coordination, sustainability and innovation environment have a greater impact on the coordination of subsystems., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright: © 2024 Wu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Improving corporate green technology innovation is a key link in achieving green transformation and development. Compared with formal environmental regulations that force companies to carry out green innovation passively, ESG ratings under soft environmental regulations can better stimulate the internal motivation of companies. This study uses the ESG ratings of listed companies published for the first time by SynTao Green Finance as an exogenous impact. Taking China's A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2022 as a research sample, the multi-period differences-in-differences model was used to empirically test the impact of ESG rating soft supervision on corporate green technology innovation. The results show that the impact of ESG rating events as a soft market regulation has a significant positive impact on the improvement of corporate green technology innovation. This conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. Meanwhile, enterprise digital transformation plays a positive regulatory role. The heterogeneity test shows that the green technology innovation of state-owned enterprises is more affected by ESG ratings. Mechanism research has found that ESG rating events promote corporate green technology innovation by easing corporate financing constraints and reducing managerial myopia. Further research found that under the influence of the external environment, intensified market competition and increased attention from the capital market are also conducive to the improvement of corporate green technology innovation. This study strengthens the corporate ESG concept under the guidance of green development and provides empirical evidence for promoting corporate green transformation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Using matched data from China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) and Wind databases, this paper explores the impact of exports on the green technology innovation (GTI) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The mechanisms are analyzed through a two-way fixed effects model. First, exports contribute significantly to GTI of SMEs. Second, exports mainly contribute to GTI of SMEs by attracting government subsidies and increasing firms' environmental awareness. Third, from the perspective of heterogeneity, exports significantly positively impact GTI of SMEs especially in medium- and low-technology industries and in eastern China. The impact of exports on GTI is also examined by replacing core variables, modifying the sample for robustness testing, and utilizing both urban river density and distance from the center of the city to the nearest port as instrumental variables for endogeneity test. With the continuous development of international import and export trade, enterprises increase GTI research and development by attracting government subsidies, improving the quality of disclosed information, and increasing environmental awareness., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The relationship between environmental regulation and innovation has long been a key issue of scholarly interest. The Porter hypothesis posits that environmental regulations can effectively promote innovation. However, with the rapid development of the Internet, the relationship between environmental regulation and innovation has changed. Through a theoretical analysis, this paper finds that the development of the Internet can not only directly promote innovation but also inhibit innovation through environmental regulations. This paper uses Chinese city-level data from 2014 to 2016 to empirically test the relationship among the Internet, environmental regulation, and innovation. The study finds that (1) the increase in the Internet level and in the intensity of environmental regulations promotes innovation, and the results remain stable after the replacement of the Internet level metrics, (2) the increase in the Internet level inhibits the positive effect of environmental regulations on innovation, but its inhibitory effect is lower than the promotion effect of the Internet on innovation, and (3) the Internet and environmental regulations have a significant promotion effect on the application and acquisition of three types of patents, including invention patents, utility model patents and design patents, with the application and acquisition of utility model patents having the greatest promotion effect, and (4) the analysis of heterogeneity shows that environmental regulation has a greater effect on innovation in eastern and provincial capital cities, and the Internet has a greater effect on innovation in western and nonprovincial capital cities. Finally, this article puts forward policy recommendations based on three aspects: strengthening Internet construction, implementing environmental regulations and policies based on local conditions, and increasing support for R&D and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution and urban innovation are two important issues that have accompanied China's economic growth in the past decade. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of central heating in northern China in winter, this paper uses regression discontinuity design (RDD) to isolate the causal relationship between air pollution and urban innovation in China by matching urban data with multiple micro databases. Further, the possible influencing mechanism is discussed from the perspective of human capital. The results show that—air pollution significantly inhibits urban innovation—specifically, a 1% increase in air pollution significantly reduces urban innovation by 1.463%; compared with non-invention patents, air pollution has a more obvious inhibitory effect on invention patents with higher innovation capacity requirements and technology content. In terms of the impact mechanism, air pollution may undermine urban innovation by impairing healthy human capital and increasing the emigration of high-level human capital from cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green bonds, a new green financial instrument, encourage enterprises to achieve high-quality development through green technology innovation. However, a lack of research is currently being conducted into the effect of green bond issuance in China. Can green bonds effectively empower enterprises to green innovation? What is the underlying mechanism? In the context of carbon-neutral strategies, it is significant to answer these questions scientifically. This paper uses a quasi-natural experiment of the launch of the green bond market in China in 2016 to conduct empirical studies based on the panel data of 1 558 non-financial Chinese-listed enterprises from 2015 to 2020 with the multi-period difference-in-difference model. The results show that ① issuing green bonds can significantly empower enterprises' green technology innovation. The empowering effect is mainly for green utility patents rather than green invention patents. This result remains after dynamic heterogeneity analysis, placebo test, and other tests. In addition, the effect has a lag. ② Heterogeneity tests show that this empowerment effect varies across enterprises with different property rights, industries, and regions. ③ In terms of the mechanism of action, green bonds can enhance enterprises' ability to innovate green technology by increasing the proportion of long-term loans and improving their debt structure. This paper broadens the relevant literature on the economic consequences of green bonds and the influencing factors of enterprises' green technology innovation and provides policy suggestions for further improving the analysis of green bonds., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The introduction of an environmental protection tax enables a smooth shift from the sewerage charge system to the environmental protection tax scheme. This, in turn, promotes a more sustainable development of enterprise growth, emphasizing eco-friendliness. This is of immense importance in advancing environmentally aware practices and sustainability. Based on data collected from A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2014 to 2021, this paper investigates the influence of environmental protection taxes on the advancement of green technology and the underlying mechanisms. Taking the execution of the Environmental Protection Tax Law in 2018 as a quasi-natural experiment, a double-difference model is employed to examine the causal relationship between environmental protection taxes and the adoption of green technology by companies. The findings indicate that the introduction of an environmental tax could markedly enhance the extent of green technological innovation within corporations. The evidence arising from the testing mechanism implies that such a tax can encourage firms to boost their investments in research and development, upgrade their innovative human capital, and mitigate financing limitations. The study found that there is heterogeneity in the promotion effect of the environmental protection tax on the green technological innovation of businesses in different regions and provinces with varying tax burdens and types of equity capital. Further research shows that the environmental protection tax has a greater impact on the promotion of utility model patent applications for green technology innovation. This paper presents empirical evidence to support further enhancement of the environmental protection tax system. It recommends designing the environmental protection tax policy with consideration for enterprises and local conditions and bolstering the system's capacity for guiding and stimulating enterprises' green development., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper investigates the complex causal relationships between various types of environmental regulatory instruments (ERI) and agri-firms' technological innovation employing fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The study finds a well-designed set of ERI can promote technological innovation in agribusiness; control-command ERI cannot promote technological innovation in agribusiness solely, market-incentivized ERI is indispensable in promoting firms' innovation performance, implicit ERI plays an important role in promoting firms' innovation and voluntary ERI does not play a significant role in promoting firms' technological innovation. The government should coordinate among various types of ERI and improve the design of ERI to achieve a win-win situation for both economic and environmental performance in the agriculture sector., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Xia et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Introduction: In March 2016, the Chinese government officially launched a nationwide consistency evaluation of the quality and efficacy of generic drugs., Methods: This paper conducted an empirical study using the Difference-in-Differences method to explore the effect of this policy on the innovation quality of China's pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and further analyzed the underlying mechanism of action., Results: The results of the study show that the generic consistency evaluation policy has a significant promotion effect on the innovation quality of China's pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, and the promotion effect is the largest for non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises in the central region; in addition, the intensity of R&D capital investment and R&D personnel investment which play a mediating role., Discussion: Therefore, we should fully recognize the positive effect of generic drug consistency evaluation policy on improving the innovation quality of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and pay attention to the necessity of regional coordination and unification in policy implementation and the formulation of supporting policy tools. This study provides empirical evidence for the implementation effect of the generic drug consistency evaluation policy, which can provide an essential reference for the further improvement of the procedure and the R&D decision-making of pharmaceutical enterprises., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Liu, Huang and Mao.)

The digital finance created by technological empowerment has a significant impact on the inventive behavior of micro-enterprises. This paper uses a correlation analysis that combines the fixed effect model (FE) and the panel threshold model (PTM) to evaluate the impact of digital financing on the quantity and quality of innovation in green technology. In addition, its process is dissected in this work with respect to resource limitations and financial expenditures. The empirical evidence demonstrates that the use of digital financing considerably increases both the rate and quality of innovation in environmentally friendly technologies. Further, the effect of user engagement on green innovation is dynamically overlaid and accumulates over time, as opposed to the coverage of digital finance and digital services. In terms of ownership, growth cycle, and company size, digital finance may assist remedy the misallocation of financial resources and further drive inclusive green innovation. Based on the examination of underlying mechanisms, it is clear that digital finance may play a significant role in fostering innovation in environmentally friendly technologies by easing financial limitations and decreasing associated costs. Depending on the context, "quantitative change before qualitative change" describes the dynamic development process of green innovation fueled by digital finance. This paper proposes that the combination of technological innovation and digital financial services should focus on establishing an inclusive digital financial service system, fostering diverse financial forms, and enhancing the market environment for digital financial services., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Summary: The interconnectedness of the ancient European, Eurasian and Chinese worlds is not doubted, but just what was exchanged and how the transmission of ideas took place is a question very much under investigation. This paper examines peculiarities of equid harnessing and draught across this vast area as a case in point to consider such issues as diffusion and independent invention, especially in relation to the emergence of single draught vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of information technology (IT) capability on firm growth in the context of open technological innovation. The paper utilized a logical deductive approach to develop hypotheses and analytical frameworks, and collected empirical data from 256 Chinese new ventures. Regression analysis and structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses and analyze the data. The results showed that IT capability, including flexibility and integration of information technology, significantly influenced firm growth, and open technological innovation partially mediated the relationship between IT flexibility and firm growth, and significantly mediated the relationship between IT integration and firm growth. The paper's limitations include the cross-sectional design, limited sample size, and potential unobserved variables such as organizational learning that could affect the relationship between IT capability and firm growth. The research is the first to investigate the effects of IT capability on firm growth based on the mediation of open technological innovation in China, contributing to the literature on IT capability and providing insights for managerial practice in the sharing economy era., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Yao, Li. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

With the continuous promotion of China's innovation-driven development strategy, the role of technological innovation on economic development has become increasingly important. In this context, the support of R&D capital investment for technological innovation also becomes non-negligible. This leads to the question of whether the allocation of R&D capital is reasonable and whether there is room for further improvement. This paper is based on inter-provincial panel data from 2009 to 2020, which are classified based on China's National Bureau of Statistics for R&D funding sources in high-tech industries and incorporated into an overall discussion framework. Using STATA16 statistical software, the R&D innovation output of high-tech industries is inves-tigated by building a PVAR model with the perspective of funding sources of R&D input intensity. The study results show that (1) the increase in the intensity of enterprises' own capital investment has a positive impact on innovation output because it can generate a financial "reservoir" effect to support technological innovation. (2) the increase in the intensity of government capital invest-ment has a positive impact on innovation output because it can alleviate the loss of income of en-terprises due to "R&D spillover" and will send a positive signal to the market. (3) the foreign in-vestment intensity has a positive impact on the innovation output of enterprises due to the com-bined effect of "spillover effect" and "crowding out effect". (4) the increase of other capital in-vestment intensity also has a neutral effect on the increase of innovation output under the current financial market environment. Finally, based on the above findings, corresponding policy impli-cations are drawn. This study will help to improve the understanding of R&D capital allocation imbalance and R&D input and output issues in developing countries and provide a reference for policy makers., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Jin, Li. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

To achieve the carbon peaking and neutrality targets in China, carbon price and technological innovation will play increasingly important roles in recent future. It is widely-known that carbon price and technological innovation can contribute significantly to emission reduction, respectively; but it is still unclear whether the cooperation effects of carbon price and technological innovation would be positive or negative. In this paper, we assume that there are 3 types of emission reduction measures in China's industrial enterprises, which are improvement of energy efficiency, adjustment of energy structure, and substitution of pollution inputs and non-pollution inputs; then we introduce carbon price and technological innovation respectively and simultaneously, and establish 12 scenarios based on the Data Envelopment Analysis models combined with material balance principal (DEA-MBP), and estimate the additional emission reductions and additional production costs of China's industrial enterprises when carbon price and technological innovation exist respectively or simultaneously. The counterfactually estimating results show that there would be significant regional and sectorial heterogeneities in carbon emission reduction characteristics for China's industrial enterprises. If low-carbon technologies in some sectors have the ability to reduce carbon emissions at the expense of high additional production cost, carbon pricing policies would encourage enterprises to adopt new mitigation technologies and increase additional emission reduction by more than 20%, especially technologies focusing on the adjustment of energy structure and the substitution of pollution inputs by non-pollution inputs. However, in some sectors which have already been covered by carbon pricing policies, the additional carbon pricing policy may not have a significant effect on emission reduction, and the emission reduction would decrease by 10%., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Ke Wang reports financial support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China. Ke Wang reports financial support was provided by Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation. Ke Wang reports financial support was provided by Joint Development Program of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education. Ke Wang reports financial support was provided by National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The paper uses spatial panel data on the number of patents in the field of sports in each province from 2017-2022 to explore the spatial and temporal evolution process of the innovation capacity of China's sports industry and analyze its development trend based on theories related to economic geography, using exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and Spatial-temporal correlation analysis research methods. The study shows that: 1. there is a large spatial regional disparity in the innovation capacity of China's sports industry, showing an obvious pattern of strength in the east and weakness in the west. 2. there is an obvious phenomenon of spatial agglomeration in the innovation capacity of China's sports industry and the agglomeration phenomenon in space is gradually increasing. 3. there is a spatial spillover effect in the innovation capacity of China's sports industry, and the inward spillover continues to strengthen mainly into Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangsu provinces, while the outward spillover mainly goes to Guangdong, Hubei, Hebei, Hunan, Sichuan. Sports industry innovation capacity development put forward three suggestions: to promote the development of sports industry in the northwest region; to play the advantages of regional characteristics of sports industry; to accelerate the integration of neighboring regions to build the process. in order to help the high-quality development of sports industry., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Environmental pollution has become a global issue attracting ever-increasing attention. Green technology innovation (GTI) is considered an effective strategy in countering this problem and helping achieve sustainability goals. However, the market failure suggests that intervention from the government is necessary to promote the effectiveness of technological innovation and hence, its positive social impacts on emissions reduction. This study investigates how the environmental regulation (ER) influences the relationship between green innovation and CO 2 emissions reduction in China. Employing data from 30 provinces from the period 2003 to 2019, the Panel Fixed-effect model, the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM), the System Generalised Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) and the Difference-In-Difference (DID) models are applied to take issues relating to endogeneity and spatial impact into consideration. The results indicate that environmental regulations positively moderate the impact of green knowledge innovation (GKI) on CO 2 emissions reduction but have a much weaker moderation effect when green process innovation (GPI) is considered. Among different types of regulatory instruments, investment-based regulation (IER) is the most effective in promoting the relationship between green innovation and emissions reduction, followed by command-and-control-based regulation (CER). Expenditure-based regulation (EER) is less effective and can encourage short-termism and opportunistic behaviour among firms, who can accept the paying of fines as a cheaper cost over the short-term than investment in green innovation. Moreover, the spatial spillover effect of green technological innovation on carbon emissions in neighbouring regions is confirmed, in particular when IER and CER are implemented. Lastly, the heterogeneity issue is further examined by considering differences in the economic development and the industrial structure across different regions, and the conclusions reached remain robust. This study identifies that the market-based regulatory instrument, IER, works best in promoting green innovation and emissions reduction among Chinese firms. It also encourages GKI which may assist firms in achieving long-term sustained growth. The study recommends further development of the green finance system to maximise the positive impact of this policy instrument., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

As an emerging form of agriculture, urban facility agriculture is an important supplement to traditional agriculture and one of the ways to alleviate the urban food crisis, but it may generate a high carbon footprint. A comprehensive assessment of urban facility agriculture is a necessity for promoting its low-carbon development. In this study, the carbon footprint of urban facility agriculture under four different technological innovation models was simulated by life cycle assessment and a system dynamics model for a carbon footprint accounting without considering economic risk. Case 1, as the basic case, is Household farm facility agriculture. Case 2 is the introduction of vertical hydroponic technology based on Case 1, Case 3 is the introduction of distributed hybrid renewable energy micro-grid technology based on Case 2, and Case 4 is the introduction of automatic composting technology based on Case 3. These four cases demonstrate the gradual optimization of the food-energy-water-waste nexus in urban facility agriculture. This study further uses the system dynamics model for carbon reduction potential considering economic risk to simulate the diffusion (promotion) scale and carbon reduction potential of different technological innovations. Research results show that with the superposition of technologies, the carbon footprint per unit land area is gradually reduced, and the carbon footprint of Case 4 is the lowest at 4.78e+06 kg CO 2 eq. However, the gradual superposition of technologies will further limit the diffusion scale of technological innovation, thereby reducing the carbon reduction potential of technological innovation. In Chongming District, Shanghai, under theoretical circumstances, the carbon reduction potential of Case 4 is the highest at 1.6e+09 kg CO 2 eq, but the actual carbon reduction potential is only 1.8e+07 kg CO 2 eq due to excessive economic risks. By contrast, the actual carbon reduction potential of Case 2 is the highest with 9.6e+08 kg CO 2 eq. To fully achieve the carbon reduction potential of technology innovation, it is necessary to promote the scale diffusion of Urban facility agricultural technology innovation by raising the sales price of agricultural products and the grid connection price of renewable electricity., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Technology-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving force behind China's economic and technological development. However, these enterprises often face challenges in financing their research and development (R&D) activities due to limited financing opportunities. Previous research has primarily focused on the resource attributes of government innovation subsidies, which serve as a crucial funding source for these SMEs. This paper aims to explore the impact of government innovation subsidies on firms from a novel perspective, considering the signaling characteristics of these subsidies. The theoretical foundation of this study lies in the asymmetric information theory and the signaling mechanism through which government subsidies send signals about enterprises. The study uses enterprise data from 2012 to 2019 to investigate the effect of government subsidies on the R&D investment of enterprises listed on the SMEs Board in Chinese stock market. The results reveal a significantly positive effect of government subsidies on the R&D investment of SME Board-listed enterprises and verify the mediating role of financing constraints in this effect. The extent to which government subsidies influence the R&D investment of SME Board-listed enterprises is associated with the enterprises' ownership characteristics, debt ratios, and times interest earned ratios. This study contributes to the literature on the SMEs Board market and may provide the Chinese government insights into developing industry policies that maximize the effectiveness of government subsidies., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Sun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The development of the digital economy in China facilitates the transformation of old and new growth drivers. It can greatly promote the upgrading of technological innovation capacity, realize economies of scale and scope, and constantly promote the generation of new industries and new forms of business with the deep integration of digital economy and traditional industries, thereby promoting the high-quality development of China's economy. This paper uses inter-provincial panel data from 2013 to 2020 and a dynamic spatial Durbin model to quantify the impact of the digital economy on regional technological innovation capability (RTIC). The results show that: (1) the digital economy has positive spatial spillover effect and can boost the province's and neighboring provinces' regional technological innovation capability; (2) regional technological innovation capability has obvious spatial and temporal aggregation effects; (3) the impact of the digital economy on RTIC is mainly short-term effects, and there is regional heterogeneity, with the western region experiencing the highest effects and the eastern region experiencing less. Therefore, it is urgent to accelerate the development speed of the digital economy, grasp the law of dynamic economic development, identify the regional heterogeneity of the digital economy development, and deepen inter-regional digital technology cooperation to comprehensively drive the improvement of regional technological innovation capability., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Tian et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The transition from traditional logistics to green and low-carbon logistics is crucial and inevitable due to the pressure of climate change and sustainable development in China. Meanwhile, technological innovation is perceived as an important factor affecting the development of the logistics industry. To explore the impacts of technological innovation and other factors and to propose proper policies based on the results, this study utilizes a generalized estimating equations (GEE) regression model to analyze panel data of 30 provinces during 2001-2019. Firstly, the entropy weight method is applied to calculate the green logistics development level based on an index system considering green factors. Secondly, a GEE model which considers the correlation among different observations is used to investigate the impacts of crucial factors on the green logistics development level. Moreover, regional heterogeneity is also analyzed in this paper by comparing the regression results of the Eastern region, Central region, and Western region. Based on the above analysis, several conclusions are drawn: (1) In terms of the average green logistics development levels, the Eastern region ranks 1st, the Central region ranks 2nd, and the Western region ranks 3rd. (2) GEE regression model is proved effective in our sample. (3) For the full sample, technological innovation, trade openness, and logistics infrastructure positively affect the green logistics development level; while, government regulation and energy intensity negatively influence the green logistics development level. (4) Regional heterogeneity is confirmed in our sample. Related policy recommendations are proposed based on our regional regression results. Take the Eastern region as an example, the local governments in the Eastern region should upgrade the manufacturing industry, reduce government financial investment in the transportation sector, and enhance environmental control expenditure in the transportation sector., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)