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China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is very significant project owing to its development in Pakistan and China. It is evident that this project is promoting sustainable development in both countries in many ways. The objective of this research paper is to study about the sustainability of CPEC in adopting the environment related initiatives. It has been argued that CPEC is a difference maker in terms of improving infrastructure, protecting environment and boosting of the trade between Beijing and Islamabad. That is why, both nations have adopted multi-dimensional initiatives to save the environment. However, there is need to improve this process. Still there are many environmental challenges to this significant project. Considering the development under this project both Pakistan and China aspire to engage in clean energy cooperation to ensure sustainable environment. Both countries need to formulate guidelines and protocols for a green investment project roadmap to address the challenges of sustainable environment which are still missing at the policy level. By employing qualitative methods based on research material from secondary sources, this research aims to study the initiatives taken by Pakistan to make CPEC an ecofriendly and environmentally sustainable project. This is evident that CPEC project experience moderate but short term environment challenges due major infrastructure reforms. Furthermore, these environmental challenges are stern and can create hindrance in economic development for Pakistan and China if certain environmental regulations could not be adopted. This paper recommends that both states needs to adopt concrete, composite, bilateral environmental cooperation for the sustainability of CPEC project for durable time frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving green innovation efficiency (GIE) is the key to achieve high-quality economic development in China, and the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important path choice to promote the GIE. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China, this paper explores the linear and nonlinear effects of FDI on GIE from both quantity and quality perspectives, and further analyzes the mediating role of environmental regulation level. The results show that: (1) From 2011 to 2020, the GIE of all provinces in China generally shows an upward trend. (2) The quantity and quality of FDI have a significant positive impact on the improvement of GIE in China's provinces, and this impact has regional heterogeneity. (3) The quantity and quality of FDI can promote the improvement of GIE in China through the level of environmental regulation (ER). (4) With the level of knowledge accumulation and GIE as the threshold variables, the quantity and quality of FDI have a single threshold effect on the GIE of China's provinces. The conclusions of this study provide some policy implications for local governments to make full use of FDI to perform green innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the ways to fight against global warming is by means of green technological progress. This paper explores the nonlinear relationship between R&D investment and green technological progress based on panel threshold regression model using panel data of 26 manufacturing sub-sectors in China from 2004 to 2017. The results show that the double-threshold model can better explain the nonlinear relationship between the two, and the R&D investment in the three ranges of low, medium, and high levels can significantly promote green technological progress in China's manufacturing industry. However, with the improvement of R&D investment level, the promotion effect of R&D investment on the progress of manufacturing green technology is decreasing, which explains the low R&D intensity of China's manufacturing industry to a certain extent. When the level of R&D investment reaches a certain level, its promoting effect on manufacturing industry's green technological progress will be greatly reduced, and the motivation of enterprises to invest in R&D based on self-interest will decrease, so that the scale of R&D investment will be lower than the optimal scale of society. R&D investment can also improve green technical efficiency change. In addition, environmental regulation can promote green technological progress in manufacturing industry. However, due to the implementation of output-oriented environmental regulation policies, China's environmental regulation can inhibit the improvement of green technical efficiency change. Based on the conclusion, this paper argues that China should implement differentiated R&D subsidy policies for manufacturing enterprises, especially to increase R&D subsidies for enterprises with a medium level of R&D investment, and formulate appropriate environmental regulatory policies, to promote green and low-carbon transformation of China's manufacturing sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality has attracted widespread attention as a key strategy for mitigating environmental degradation, but there is little research on whether the development of green finance can contribute to the process of carbon neutrality. This paper proposes a hypothesis based on the relationship between green finance and carbon–neutral performance and empirically tests it using a spatial Durbin model and combining it with a threshold panel model utilizing Chinese provincial sample data from 2011 to 2021. The study found that (1) green finance development would promote carbon–neutral performance; (2) there are notable spatial characteristics of green finance and carbon neutrality performance, with local green finance impacts both local and neighboring carbon–neutral performance; and (3) green finance impacts carbon–neutral performance at a single threshold and different levels of green finance development affect carbon–neutral performance differently. In the eastern, central, and western regions, the contribution of green finance to carbon–neutral performance gradually decreases. Thus, Chinese authorities should strengthen the green sustainable financing system, promote regional green finance, and enhance the carbon–neutral performance of green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the sample of all A-share listed companies in China's securities market except insurance and financial enterprises from 2009 to 2021 to construct a long panel data, and explores whether the environmental investment of enterprises will promote their long-term sustainable development in China's unique and superior institutional and cultural environment from the perspective of Marxist ecological civilization. On the basis of controlling measurement errors, omitted variables, and endogenous problems of mutual causality to ensure the robustness of the research results, and further distinguishing the heterogeneous effects of environmental investment and sustainable development of enterprises in different degrees of market-oriented environment, the empirical study shows that (1) there is a significant positive relationship between environmental investment and sustainable development of enterprises. That is to say, environmental investment can help enterprises obtain social capital, alleviate resource constraints, enhance their market performance, and thus help their sustainable development in the future; (2) environmental protection investment has a significant positive impact on the sustainable development of enterprises in the mature market environment, while in the relatively backward market environment, environmental protection investment has no significant role in promoting the sustainable development of enterprises. This paper enriches the literature on corporate environmental investment, makes a preliminary test of the implementation effect of sustainable development in China, and provides more detailed empirical evidence for the government to further guide the implementation and implementation of corporate environmental responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China announced a shift towards green infrastructure, green investment and green financing at the 2019 Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in response to criticisms of the negative environmental impact of some earlier BRI infrastructure projects. The objective of this paper is to explore whether there has been a shift in Malaysia towards the new green-aspired goals of the BRI in terms of green governance and projects. The key findings of this paper suggest that there is no discernible shift to green projects as nongreen investments are also accepted. Malaysia has requirements for green governance, but implementation can be an issue. Host economies, like Malaysia, must take ownership of green requirements for there to be a sustained shift towards green governance. Likewise, China’s investments have to comply with local laws, which can improve the environmental impact when local laws and regulations are judiciously implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a kind of enterprises most affected by green policies—heavily polluting enterprises, whether the government's relevant policies can achieve its policy goals and what impact will be exerted on such enterprises is a critical issue. Based on the data of listed heavily polluting enterprises in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper uses the difference in differences model to test the impact of green credit policies on the liquidity risk of heavily polluting enterprises. The results show that the green credit policies intensify the liquidity risk of heavily polluting enterprises. Moreover, the green credit policies increase the financial and stock liquidity risks of heavily polluting enterprises by reducing the long-term debt ratio and information transparency. Green innovation and equity balance weaken the positive impact of green credit policies on the liquidity risk of heavily polluting enterprises. Heavily polluting enterprises can reduce the impact of green credit policies on their liquidity risk by increasing investment in green innovation and improving ownership structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green transformation of industry and sustainable economic development both require considerable investment. In this regard, green finance that is compatible with economic development can help cope with the massive demand for capital. Taken China's Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as an example, this study is to measure the coordination degree between green finance and economic development. First, the concept, content and scope of green finance is defined based on the new financial regulation mechanism. Second, a green finance measurement index is built to calculate the green finance index for 30 Chinese provinces by the CFA test. Third, based on the economic structure index, an economic development index is built. Testing the rationality of green financial index and the economic development index, this paper finally measures the degree of coordination between green finance and economic development in the YRD. The results reveal that, first, green finance is a financial instrument that integrates financial industry development, environmental improvement, and economic growth. The measurement of the green financial development index includes the sum of regional green credit, green investment, green securities, and green insurance. Second, after years' development, the comprehensive score of YRD's coupling coordination degree exceeds 0.8 in 2020, which shows a high level of coordinated development between green finance and economic construction. However, there is a 2-year timing effect between the economic development and green finance index increase, which reveals that green finance development in the YRD requires further policy guidance and support. This study's findings can provide a theoretical reference and case support for the further development of green finance and related policies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2015 Paris Agreement has set out the climate change target of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, which poses a serious challenge to countries to reduce emissions. As the world's largest carbon emitter, promoting the realization of the "dual-carbon" goal is the key to realizing China's green transformation and high-quality development. Chinese asset managers play active roles in the capital market as an important channel of asset allocation. Currently, the vast majority of Chinese asset managers hold high percentages of high-carbon industries in their portfolios, and lack quantitative data of their carbon footprints embodied in equity investments, which faces huge carbon-related risks. Therefore, it's an urgent need to comprehensively and scientifically measure financed emissions of Chinese asset managers, which is of great significance for asset managers' carbon risk management and sustainable investment. This paper develops a detailed inventory of carbon emissions for equity portfolios managed by Chinese asset managers from 2010 to 2020, which stands as a pivotal reference for in-depth analysis of emission characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to empirically investigate the impact of the carbon intensity constraint policy (CICP) on green innovation. Design/methodology/approach: This study takes the implementation of the CICP as a quasi-natural experiment and uses a quasi–difference-in-difference method to investigate the impact of the CICP on firm green innovation from a microeconomic perspective. Findings: The CICP significantly limits the quality of firms' green innovation. Among the range of green patents, the CICP distorts only patents related to CO2 emissions. The inhibitory effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and heavily polluting firms. R&D investment and green investor are identified as the main mechanism. Practical implications: These findings provide evidence for the influence of the CICP on firm green innovation, which can guide policymakers in China and other emerging economies that prioritize carbon intensity constraint targets and the improvement of relevant auxiliary measures. Social implications: Governments and firms should have a comprehensive understanding of environmental policies and corporate behavior and need to mitigate the negative impact through a combination of measures. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by providing additional empirical evidence regarding the two opposing sides of the ongoing debate on the positive or negative effects of CICP. It also provides new evidence on the policy effect of the CICP on firm green innovation, together with its mechanisms and heterogeneous influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green investment is crucial to achieving the green transformation goal. Under increasingly strict environmental protection laws and regulations, whether it can induce the "Porter Hypothesis" effect and stimulate the green investment of enterprises is still controversial. This paper takes the China's new environmental protection law (NEPL) as a quasi-natural experiment, uses the green investment data of listed companies in China's heavy pollution industry, and applies the method of propensity score matching and difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) to verify whether the implementation of the law conforms to the "strong Porter Hypothesis." The results show that as a strict command-and-control environmental regulation tool, the implementation of NEPL has significantly promoted corporate's green investments in heavily polluting industries. The implementation of the NEPL guides to more standardized environmental disclosure regulation, stricter environmental enforcement, and severer financial constraints, and thus propel corporate's green investment. In addition, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of NEPL is more significant in those samples of enterprises located in the regions with higher industrial concentration degree or with higher level of government environmental governance, enterprises of small and medium type, and enterprises with better financial performance and higher degree of equity incentive. To achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, this paper provides evidence to test whether "Porter Hypothesis" is established in transition economies from the view of environmental investment and provides reference for how developing country can further enrich their environmental regulation system and optimize enterprise's environmental protection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics and mechanisms of cultural diversity that affect foreign direct investment (FDI) using the panel data on provinces in China from 1999 to 2019 and find that, in general, cultural diversity inhibits FDI absorption. However, this kind of adverse effect has a nonlinear threshold characteristic. That is, when the population density reaches a certain level or urbanization is controlled within a certain range, the increase in cultural diversity can weaken the inhibitory effect on FDI. Additionally, by exploring the mechanisms of cultural diversity affecting FDI, we further find that cultural diversity inhibits FDI mainly through the channels of inhibiting population density and urbanization. The conclusions of this paper not only enrich the theoretical research on FDI location from the perspective of cultural diversity but also shed light on how to better attract FDI to China and other countries, such as resolving cultural conflicts and constructing an inclusive investment environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rising global concern over environment and energy issues, there are many scholars incorporating them into total factor productivity (TFP) analytical framework. This paper aims to outline the dynamic change trend and convergence characteristics of green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 14 sub-sectors in China's service industry. This is of great significance to the coordinated development and green transformation of sub-sectors of China's service industry. This paper commences to gauge and decompose GTFP of China's service industry by cutting-edge epsilon-based measure (EBM) generalizing slacks-based measure (SBM) and radial measure as well as Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) productivity index, and to examine the existence of convergence hypothesis in China's service industry. The core conclusions are as follows: (1) the average annual growth rate of GTFP in China's service industry is 1.00%, and there exists heterogeneity for GTFP in different sub-sectors; (2) there are phenomena of σ-convergence, absolute β-convergence, and conditional β-convergence in GTFP of China's overall service industry, producer service industry, and consumer-oriented service industry. The main policy suggestions include: increasing investment in green technology innovation of the service industry, formulating more effective industrial development planning and energy policies, and optimizing energy structure and industry structure of the service industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving environmental equity is important for ensuring resource utilization efficiency and realizing sustainable development. Using panel data of 286 cities in China from 2011 to 2018, this paper analyzes whether financial support in the form of digital finance can mitigate environmental inequality. The findings indicate that (1) digital finance has a significant mitigating effect on environmental inequality. Digital finance development has a stronger industrial pollution emission reduction effect on high‐polluting regions than on low‐polluting regions and can reduce the environmental pollution gap between regions. The results of robustness tests such as an endogeneity test support this finding. (2) Digital finance development can have a stronger mitigating effect on environmental inequality in regions with a stronger local government governance capacity and environmental preferences. Digital finance can be a more significant inhibitor of environmental inequality in areas where industries transfer out due to their stronger needs for industrial transformation and finance. (3) Residential income and green technology innovation are important factors affecting industrial pollution emissions and reductions. Digital finance development can narrow the income gap between regions and promote the convergence of green technology innovation capacity, in turn alleviating environmental inequality. In the future, while continuing to promote the development of digital finance, it is necessary to improve the governance capacity of local governments, to increase the efficiency of resource utilization in places where industrial transfer is undertaken and to strengthen the role of financial support in industrial pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic changes in the business environment have created demands for additional information such as management discussions, governance information, and financial statement notes that go beyond the coverage of traditional financial reporting. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information can help gain stakeholder trust, reduce transaction costs, and improve investment efficiency. Taking Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as a sample, we run fixed effect regressions to test the effect of ESG performance on investment efficiency. ESG performance is measured with the ESG score from the Bloomberg database. The results show that (a) good ESG performance significantly improves investment efficiency, (b) auditing quality partially mediates the relationship between ESG performance and investment efficiency, and (c) the role of ESG performance is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises, undeveloped regions, and firms with low accounting information quality. This paper contributes to the literature on ESG performance and provides references for ESG practice and sustainable corporate development in emerging countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events and the implementation of the China's dual-carbon target, thermal power companies have been under pressure to construct green infrastructure and to actively pursue low-carbon transformation in response to stricter environmental regulations. This research thus selects 30 listed thermal power enterprises in China as study objects and assesses their green investment efficiency in the low-carbon transition process using three-stage DEA evaluation model with environmental regulation as an exogenous variable. Based on this, a benchmark regression model is used to corroborate the relationship between environmental regulation and green investment. Simultaneously, we carry out analysis to compare the correlation between thermal power firms' green investment efficiency and their focus on green investments. The results show in terms of total efficiency that environmental regulation significantly improves the total efficiency of 80% of thermal power enterprises compared to the absence of this exogenous variable. With the addition of environmental regulation, firms' total efficiency declines gradually in general from 2018 to 2022, with the mean value of efficiency falling by 0.068. In terms of stage-specific efficiency, the efficiency of the green investment stage of the majority of firms is between 0.3 and 0.6, which is much lower than that of the operational stage and the market performance stage. In terms of sub-indicator efficiency, both green investment efficiency and social donation efficiency among thermal power enterprises show obvious polarization, with 30% of them having an efficiency of 1 and 30% less than 0.1. In terms of green investment focus, thermal power unit renovation has a more obvious role in boosting the green investment efficiency of thermal power enterprises than do wind power and photovoltaic projects. Therefore, both governmental departments and thermal power enterprises need to take active measures in order to achieve green transformation from the perspective of green investment efficiency. Through the segmentation of important projects of green investment, this paper provides a reasonable investment direction reference for the sustainable transformation of China's thermal power industry. It also provides a rich and novel theoretical basis for the Chinese government to further improve the relevant environmental protection laws and regulations of thermal power industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, China is deepening its cooperation in oil and gas resources with countries along the Initiative. In order to better mitigate risks and enhance the safety of investments, it is of significant importance to research the oil and gas investment environment in these countries for China's overseas investment macro-layout. This paper proposes an indicator system including 27 indicators from 6 dimensions. On this basis, game theory models combined with global entropy method and analytic hierarchy process are applied to determine the combined weights, and the TOPSIS-GRA model is utilized to assess the risks of oil and gas investment in 76 countries along the Initiative from 2014 to 2021. Finally, the GM (1,1) model is employed to predict risk values for 2022 e2025. In conclusion, oil and gas resources and political factors have the greatest impact on investment environment risk, and 12 countries with greater investment potential are selected through cluster analysis in conjunction with the predicted results. The research findings may provide scientific decisionmaking recommendations for the Chinese government and oil enterprises to strengthen oil and gas investment cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of China's new infrastructure construction developing rapidly, this paper explores the sustainable new infrastructure green development pattern. We establish qualitative and quantitative indicators for green technology innovation (GTI) at both the societal macro level and enterprise micro level, capturing the multidimensional nature of China's green innovation dynamic. Additionally, we create an indicator system for China's new infrastructure investment intensity (NTI) across three areas: information infrastructure, integration infrastructure, and innovation infra-structure. Using provincial panel data from 2010 to 2020, we construct a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to examine the level of coordination between NTI and GTI. Our findings reveal that: the degree of coordination between NTI and GTI follows a U-shaped curve, with both subsystems remaining far from highly coordinated during rapid development; the coupling level of NTI and GTI in China is currently at a near dissonance level overall; the degree of coupling and coordination between NTI and GTI is mainly influenced by policies, and the coupling level is higher on the enterprise side than on the societal side; the two parameters (α-NTI and β-GTI) widely used in prior studies have less of an effect on the coordinated coupling system than other factors considered herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection tax is an important tool for directing environmentally friendly growth in heavily polluting enterprises, but existing research has yet to provide consistent conclusions on whether and how environmental protection tax can promote green innovation in heavily polluting industries. The paper uses a double difference model based on data from Chinese listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2012 to 2021 to empirically investigate whether environmental protection tax drives green innovation behavior of heavily polluting enterprises. The findings show that the environmental protection tax increases the degree of green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, primarily through the anti-driving effect, in which an increase in environmental management expenses forces firms to increase their R&D investment, which improves the degree of green technical innovation. Furthermore, the environmental protection tax has a strong promotion effect on heavy polluters' green innovation for state-owned enterprises and those in growing period or located in high marketization regions. However, this promotion effect is insignificant for non-state-owned enterprises and those in recession period, and environmental protection tax hinders green innovation of enterprises in mature period and those located in low marketization regions. Accordingly, it is suggested to improve preferential tax policies, increase investment in corporate green innovation and strengthen the supervision of environmental tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural ecological capital investment aims to achieve the coordinated and sustainable development of agricultural and rural ecology, economy, and society through a series of inputs to a specific range of agricultural ecological resources, ecological environment, and ecological service capacity. Based on the macro data of 31 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities) in China, this paper uses coupling coordination and linear regression models to study the impact of agricultural ecological capital investment on green circular economy development. At the same time, considering the differences between active and passive investment, their impacts on green circular economy development are discussed, respectively. The empirical conclusions are as follows. First, agricultural ecological capital investment plays a significant role in promoting the development of the green circular economy on the whole, but the roles of active investment and passive investment are different. Second, agricultural ecological capital investment positively impacts the development of the green circular economy by increasing green inventions and promoting green credit index. Third, the impacts mechanisms of active and passive investment have on green circular economy are different. Fourth, the impact of agricultural ecological capital investment on the green circular economy is regionally heterogeneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of environmental management systems is key to improving environmental pollution treatment and green technology innovation. Based on panel data on 30 provincial administrative regions in China for 2008 to 2016, this paper analyzes the impacts of environmental decentralization and environmental protection investment on green technology innovation. It is first found that environmental decentralization promotes green technology innovation after inhibition. Similar effects are found for environmental administrative decentralization, environmental monitoring decentralization, and environmental supervision decentralization. Second, in the long run, environmental decentralization in developed and low-emission regions is more conducive to green technology innovation. Third, environmental pollution treatment investment has a significant inhibiting effect on green technology innovation under high levels of environmental decentralization, and the inhibiting effects of industrial pollution source treatment investment and "three simultaneous" construction project investments are particularly obvious. This paper explores green technology innovation as the goal of environmental decentralization, which is the driving force behind pollution control. From the perspective of environmental protection investment, the paper further analyzes the impact of environmental decentralization on green technology innovation. The study has important reference value for determining reasonable levels of environmental decentralization among different levels of governance and in formulating differentiated strategies of environmental decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to test the impact of green finance on the low-carbon development level of China's manufacturing industry, this paper takes green finance as an explanatory variable, and chooses the level of fixed asset investment in the manufacturing industry, the intensity of environmental regulations, the proportion of environmental pollution control investment, and the proportion of R&D investment as four control variables. Empirical tests are carried out on the four dependent variables, including manufacturing industry's low-carbon development level, added value growth rate, industrial structure upgrading level, and environmental protection status. The test results show that green finance is positively correlated with the low-carbon development of the manufacturing industry and the growth rate of added value, and inversely correlated with industrial structure upgrading and environmental protection; green finance supports dependent variables in the following order: low-carbon development > environmental protection > economic growth > industrial structure. It can be seen that the main role of green finance is to promote low-carbon development and environmental protection, but it is not the best tool to promote the growth rate of manufacturing industry and upgrade the level of industrial structure. In addition, due to the spillover effect of green finance in the process of promoting the development of the manufacturing industry, it is necessary to increase green financial investment in a long-term and sustained manner to gradually promote the low-carbon and sustainable development of China's manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The greening of financial markets can effectively guide the flow of capital to green and environmental industries, prompt the upgrading and transformation of the green industry, and help China achieve its dual carbon goals. This paper adopts China's inter-provincial panel data from 2011 to 2020, measures the development level of the real economy in terms of innovation, coordination, green, openness, and sharing using principal component analysis, and selects core indicators such as green credit, green insurance, green investment, and financial market size. In addition, the fixed panel model and differences-in-differences model are used to carry out the research. The results show that: 1. China's high-quality green development shows an upward trend in general, the real economy tends to be green, and the development in the east, middle, and west is gradually balanced; 2. Green credit and green insurance have a significant inhibitory effect on the development of the real economy, and this inhibitory effect is more evident in the middle and western regions; green investment has a significant positive promotion effect on promoting the development of the real economy; 3. The promulgation and implementation of policies such as the Guidance on Building a Green Financial System can significantly promote the greening of the financial market to the real economy and promote sustainable development. It should continue to promote the greening of the financial market, improve the green financial service system, smooth the transformation path of green finance to the real economy, strengthen the green guidance of the government on the development of the virtual and real economy, promote the green synergistic development of the financial market in the east and west, and promote the high-quality green sustainable development of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government-led Chinese economic development system determines that local government competition is a significant factor affecting the economic low-carbon transition. Driving an economic development mode with green technology innovation as the core is the critical path to realizing an economic low-carbon transition. Consequently, it is of significant practical relevance to investigate the impact of local government competition and green technology innovation on the economic low-carbon transition under the government-led Chinese economic development system. This paper systematically explores the nexus between green technology innovation and economic low-carbon transition in terms of local government competition perspective using the system generalized method of moments, panel threshold model, and geographically weighted regression on the basis of a dataset of 30 provincial administrative areas in China from a period of 2006–2019. The results indicate that green technology innovation significantly promotes the economic low-carbon transition. Local government competition not only significantly dampens the economic low-carbon transition but also considerably inhibits the positive effect of green technology innovation on the economic low-carbon transition. A significant N-shaped association is evident between green technology innovation and the economic low-carbon transition when green technology innovation is applied as a threshold, while such association is insignificant when local government competition is used as a threshold. Compared with high-competition intensity areas, green technology innovation promotes economic low-carbon transition weaker in low- competition intensity areas, while local government competition inhibits economic low-carbon transition stronger. However, local government competition significantly inhibits the positive effect of green technology innovation on the economic low-carbon transition in low-competition intensity areas, while insignificant in high-competition intensity areas. The geographically weighted regression technique as a whole also verified the above results. Therefore, policymakers should not only increase research and development investment in green technologies, but also develop a regionally linked low-carbon emission reduction system to avoid ineffective competition among governments to facilitate the earlier fulfillment of the "dual carbon" goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the main engine of the global economy, China has been attracting increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) since the 1980s. The frequent occurrence of pollution incidents by multinational companies and the continuous deterioration of the environment have prompted China to attach importance to environmental regulations and attempt to avoid the potential pollution heaven effect of FDI on green development. To assess the effectiveness of these environmental regulations, this paper investigates the moderating effect of environmental regulation, in particular, the heterogeneous environmental regulatory tools, on the relationship between FDI and green economic efficiency. In addition, the spatial performance of these moderating effects is examined through the spatial Durbin model (SDM), using China's provincial panel data from 2004 to 2018. The results show that environmental regulation has an overall positive moderating effect, exacerbating the pollution heaven effect of FDI on green economic efficiency. In the meantime, the moderating effects of heterogeneous environmental regulations are obviously different; i.e., command-and-control and public-participation-based environmental regulations have positive moderating effects, while market-based environmental regulation has a negative moderating effect. In addition, in terms of spatial performance, the market-based environmental regulation has a positive spillover effect, thereby promoting green economic efficiency in surrounding regions, which is contrary to command-and-control and public-participation-based environmental regulations. Based on the above findings, this paper makes some recommendations for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: After almost 10 years, people wonder if green finance has been able to attain its objectives in terms of controlling climate change. Persistent global warming and climate deregulation manifested by melting glaciers, droughts and floods, are all of these determinants that have called into question the efficiency of green finance. Design/methodology/approach: Green finance is a way to support climate action through investments. It has proven that this is a viable financial instrument and that it can be used by governments and private companies to plan for the future of our planet. Findings: Based on an analysis of articles published in top international journals from 2016 to 2022, about the relationship between green technology and financial services in China, this paper aims to present an overview of green finance, its importance for the planet, its objectives and its instruments. Research limitations/implications: This study's contribution is to shed light on the aspects that may have limited its effectiveness, such as the absence of incentives, the absence of climate costs and above all the absence of finance green standards. Originality/value: The results have shown that there is still a significant gap in green finance before inclusive green growth can be achieved. Inclusive green growth. All stakeholders need to increase the level of investment in green finance. The green investment financing gap is the result of inconsistencies in sustainability and policies. Therefore, governments must intervene to impose appropriate policies and regulations to compel the financial sector to engage in sustainable development. All of these factors make the concept of green finance just an illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the People's Bank of China (PBC) together with multiple departments issued the Guidance on Building a Green Financial System (the Guidance), which marked a great breakthrough in China's green finance policy. Aiming to clarify the actual impact and underlying mechanisms of green finance policy on Chinese listed companies' ESG disclosure quality, this study employs the difference-in-differences (DID) model and examines the impact of the Guidance on ESG disclosure practices of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) during the period 2006 to 2022. This study reveals a positive correlation between the Guidance and listed companies' ESG disclosure. Upon further examination, it becomes evident that the Guidance has a more noticeable positive impact on the quality of ESG disclosure among listed companies that operate in industries with high levels of pollution, state-owned enterprises, and regions that exhibit greater levels of economic development. This paper provides essential insights to policymakers, facilitating a deeper understanding and more thorough assessment of the economic implications of green finance policies. Additionally, it acts as a strategic resource for listed companies, guiding the enhancement of corporate ESG disclosures and the implementation of ESG strategies influenced by green finance policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment in China, the environmental protection tax reform, to examine the effect of environmental regulation on corporate green investment. Based on Chinese listed company data and the multi-period DID method, we find the enhancement of environmental regulation harms corporate green investment in a short time, and green investments in the treatment group were reduced by 19.57 million (RMB) on average. Further exploring and examining the potential mechanisms of the above effect, we find the above effect is caused by the suppression effect of financing constraints and the crowding-out effect of research and development (R&D) expenditures. We also analyze the heterogeneity of enterprise ownership, enterprise size, and enterprise location, and find that non-state-owned enterprises, small-sized enterprises, and enterprises in the eastern region will experience a greater reduction in green investment when environmental regulation is enhanced. Based on the above findings, we put forward corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of emerging economies receive significant parts of their overseas finance and investment from Chinese state‐owned or state‐linked institutions. While academic research has focused on how Chinese policy and state‐owned banks approach sustainable development issues, Chinese sovereign‐backed overseas development funds are a critical yet overlooked component. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by providing the first comprehensive overview of such funds regarding their scope, activities and capitalization, as well as by assessing the funds' policy approach to sustainability. Qualitative and quantitative data are collected from databases, funds' websites, newspaper articles and public statements in both Chinese and English to identify common features between funds and to analyse their sustainability policies in comparison with global best practices. The paper specifically analyses the funds' sustainability approaches rather than impact due to a lack of comprehensive data on the funds' investments. First, the paper finds that given their number, announced capital size of US$213 billion, geographic scope and sectorial focus, including on high‐emissions projects such as mining, energy and heavy industry, the funds are influential players in global development finance. Second, regarding the funds' approaches to sustainability, the paper finds that the funds lack transparency about their policies and practices, which is a key component of sustainable fund management practices. Third, based on an in‐depth analysis of available information, we identify a lack of sustainability in the funds' mandates, an absence of safeguards, limited project pipeline disclosure and no sustainability performance assessment. Lastly, the paper provides four policy recommendations on how to improve the funds' sustainability approaches based on the unique way they are governed by different parts of the Chinese state apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of global response to climate crisis and environmental pollution, environmental regulation plays an increasingly important role in green technology innovation. This paper uses data from 280 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019 to empirically answer the question whether environmental regulation can improve the level of urban green technology innovation. It is found that environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation. Under the heterogeneity of economic geographical region and resource-based city, environmental regulation has positive promoting effect on urban green technology innovation. Heterogeneity results also show that environmental regulation significantly promotes green technology innovation in central and resource-based cities, but does not significantly promote green technology innovation in eastern and western cities and non-resource-based cities. Further research shows that environmental regulation can promote the level of green technology innovation through the two transmission mechanisms of government technology input and foreign direct investment. For the Chinese local government which is implementing the policy of green economic transformation, the formulation of scientific regional environmental policy is beneficial to improve the level of green technology innovation, increase government technology input and optimize the foreign investment environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic emerging industries are key areas to transform the traditional industrial model of high pollution, high energy consumption, and high emissions. This paper focuses on the measurement of financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries. On the one hand, in order to overcome the interference of external environment and statistical error existing in the traditional single data envelope model, the SSBM-BOOT five-stage model is proposed. On the other hand, Malmquist index method and Luenberger productivity method are combined to evaluate dynamic efficiency, which select Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei listed companies' data. The results show that (1) external environmental factors play a significant role in financing efficiency. The empirical results of the SSBM-BOOT five-stage model show that environmental factors "raise" the efficiency value of the whole Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. (2) Based on the revised data and the overall and decomposition results of SBM-ML index, it can be seen that the regional industry is still in the stage of scale expansion, and the financing efficiency depends on technological innovation that needs to be improved. Finally, the paper puts forward the concrete strategies of creating industrial development environment, promoting technological innovation, and establishing green investment and financing mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to effectively address or eliminate the impact of CO2 emissions, it is crucial to conduct a CO2 emissions evolution analysis using a green investment model. Ecological innovation helps to limit carbon dioxide emissions, which is crucial to resource distribution and effectively summarizes the regularity and innovation of the process of limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Under the condition of fully grasping the principles of low-carbon city development and related policy protection, find a suitable low-carbon city development model. This paper analyzes the impact of ecological innovation and green investment on carbon dioxide emission limitations by building a data analysis model. The results of the case analysis show that the impact of the green investment scale on Chinese carbon dioxide emission restrictions is an inverted U-shaped relationship. The scale of green investment, economic competition, and marketization of capital allocation has a negative impact on Chinese carbon dioxide emissions, while green investment and ecological innovation have a positive effect on the green and low-carbon development of the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the entropy method to estimate China's green financial development from four aspects, namely, green credit, green securities, green insurance, and green investment, based on the provincial-level panel data from 2008 to 2019. The spatial Durbin model (SDM) is adopted to estimate the spatial effect of green finance on carbon emissions. We then compare the heterogeneous effect in the South and North of China. The results show that China's green financial development can significantly reduce carbon emissions, and regional heterogeneities are obvious. In the South of China, this effect from local and adjacent regions is not significant, while on the whole, green finance can significantly reduce carbon emissions; but for Northern China, this effect is not significant; nationally, the development of green finance and carbon emissions in adjacent areas showed an inverted U-shaped relationship. China's green financial development and carbon emissions also showed an inverted U-shaped relationship. These results suggest that the effect of green finance development on carbon emissions exhibits substantial regional heterogeneity in China. Our paper provides some concrete empirical evidence for policymakers to formulate green financial policies to achieve the double carbon goal in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of the impact of central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) on corporate environmental, social, and governance（ESG) performance is important for reforming the operation mechanism of CEPI to improve its effectiveness and fundamentally enhance corporate ESG to achieve sustainable development. This paper empirically examines the mechanism of the impact of CEPI on corporate ESG performance using a multi‐period difference‐in‐differences (DID) model with a research sample of 674 listed firms in China from 2013 to 2018. The results show that CEPI can significantly improve corporate ESG performance, and the strengthening of regulation by local governments is a potential channel. The important internal governance mechanisms of foreign and institutional investor shareholding, as well as the external governance mechanisms of analyst following and media coverage, can effectively strengthen the improvement effects. Further analysis also reveals that there are differences in the effectiveness of different inspection approaches, with "look‐back" inspection outperforming routine inspection. Heterogeneity at the firm and regional levels is also a critical factor in causing differences in the effectiveness of ESG performance improvements. This work not only enriches the research on the micro‐effects of CEPI on firms but also provides a reference for firms to improve their ESG performance and use ESG for investment and business decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate overseas investment is a pivotal element of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As an all-round opening-up strategy, the BRI has brought new ideas to international cooperation, and Chinese enterprises should seize this opportunity to promote global sustainable development. Adopting the data of Chinese listed enterprises from 2011-2020, this paper investigates the impact of the BRI on corporate overseas investment (COI) and its mechanisms via exploiting the difference-in-differences model (DID). Results show that the BRI has significantly facilitated the COI along the routes. We observe that the findings still hold after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis verifies that tax incentives and credit environment improvement are the main channels by which BRI enhances COI. Heterogeneity results reveal that this initiative is more prominent for small and medium-sized enterprises and enterprises in dominant industries. The extensive analysis suggests that from a sustainable development perspective, the BRI facilitates more overseas investment of enterprises in polluting or high energy-consuming industries; the COI is more affected by BRI in regions with more stringent environmental regulations. This study provides empirical evidence for BRI construction and regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To develop the economy on the premise of protecting the environment and apply modern emerging technologies such as big data to rural work, China put forward the rural revitalization strategy. The focus of rural revitalization is to promote green technologies, such as big data and artificial intelligence, turn rich green resources into green capital, and let these technologies drive people to develop green lifestyles, build beautiful China and realize the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. To measure the level of rural green development in Hunan Province, this paper selects 14 indicators from four aspects: green economy, green investment, green utilization and green security. The entropy method is used to give weight to each index of the evaluation system of rural green development level in Hunan Province, and comprehensive evaluation and classification measurement are carried out. The research in this paper enriches the empirical data of rural green development, and also provides ideas for China and other countries to use emerging technologies to develop green economy, which has important reference significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, concurrent attention to economic development and ecological issues is becoming an important trend. In this paper, we measure the eco-efficiency of 285 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019 using a non-radial directional distance function and the data envelopment analysis method, based on which we analyze the club convergence of cities' eco-efficiency using the logt test; we estimate the impact of open public data platforms on eco-efficiency and its convergence using a multi-period difference in difference model and panel-ordered logit model, respectively. We find that, first, open public data platforms improve cities' eco-efficiency by about 6.5%, and the impact mechanisms include scale efficiency, technical efficiency, and total factor productivity, or, at the micro level, increasing the economic agglomeration degree, boosting the amount of foreign investment used, and increasing green innovation level. Second, there are three convergence clubs of eco-efficiency in China's cities, whose average eco-efficiency trends are above, close to, and below average, respectively. Third, public data platforms significantly increase the probability of cities belonging to the convergence clubs of high and medium eco-efficiency (Clubs 1 and 2) and decrease the probability of belonging to the low one (Club 3). However, the mechanisms only include technical efficiency and total factor productivity, or the amount of foreign investment used and the green innovation level at the micro level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing millennium documents the most adverse consequences of global warming which in contrast to pre-industrial era are more devastating. Thus, these prevailing consequences raise numerous concerns regarding the well-being of future and current generation. Scholars, in this regard, are putting efforts punctiliously towards methods that could halt the surging emissions. This paper also attempts to contributes to existing literature by reporting the empirical evidences regarding the role of energy transition technologies, renewable energy production (REP), trade openness, green investment, and carbon taxes in carbon neutrality in Chinse economy covering the time span of 1980–2020. By employing Dynamic Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (DARDL) model to check the association, findings exposed that electricity production from water sources, electricity production from solar sources, REP, trade openness, green investment, and carbon taxes are negatively correlated with CO2 emissions. Study offers policymakers a help in formulating policies related to achieve carbon neutrality using renewable sources of energy production, carbon taxes, and green investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to use Porter's hypothesis (PH), which tests whether corporates' green investment has an impact on their economic performance (EP). The study argues that corporates' environmental strategy should allow for a "win-win" situation concerning regulatory compliance. Design/methodology/approach: The quantitative methodology used PH to test empirically the economic consequences of corporates' green investment in China. Findings: This study indicates that there is a U-shaped relationship between green/environmental investment (EI) and EP. When EI is less, corporates' EP follows a downward sloping curve until the scale of EI increases and exceeds the "threshold." From this turning point, EP follows an upward-sloping curve as EI increase. This relationship is more significant in high-polluting companies and state-owned companies. Research limitations/implications: The empirical results extend the research field of EI and EP for listed companies in China and cover 1,324 observations over the period 2008–2017. Practical implications: First, the authors expand the research on green/EI and EP using firm-level data. Second, the study empirically tests the economic consequences of corporates' green investment. Third, this study finds a non-linear relationship between green investment and EP due to the heterogeneity of industry attributes and property rights. These findings provide better explanations for the different research conclusions regarding the economic consequences of green investment. Originality/value: Compared to global research, China's research on EI has mainly focused on the macro and industry levels. There is still a lack of micro-level research. The paper addresses this research gap as the authors use firm-level EI data to capture companies' green investment efforts in environmentally sustainable development and its subsequent impact on EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation and green are the directions to promote the circular economy and environmental sustainability at the corporate level. This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation (pollution charge) on green technology innovation and the mediating role of corporate environmental responsibility. Our results indicate that: (1) Environmental regulations stimulate manufacturing enterprises' environmental responsibility and green technology innovation. It is worth noting that corporate environmental responsibility strengthens the relationship between environmental regulation and green technology innovation. (2) Further investigation reveals that R&D expenditure and environmental investment have greatly strengthened the positive effect of environmental regulation on green technology innovation. (3) With more detailed disclosure about enterprises' environment-related information, the more outstanding stimulation effects of environmental regulation. Discussions on the features of enterprise location have revealed that, if the goal of environmental protection is set too high or if the fiscal decentralization is too strong, implementation of environmental regulation would not achieve desirable results. Accordingly, we need to optimize the collection of environmental taxes, strengthen the enterprises' environmental responsibility, and increase investment in R&D and environment protection. Meanwhile, the execution of environmental regulation should also take into account the institutional environment and governance features of the enterprise locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally accepted that China is a significant cause of global warming and other climate change consequences. This paper applies panel cointegration tests and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) techniques to investigate the interactions among energy policy, technological innovation, economic development, trade openness, and sustainable development using panel data from China from 1990 to 2020. Results explain that renewable energy policy and technology innovation are negatively associated with sustainable development. However, research shows that energy use significantly increases both short-term and long-term environmental damage. The findings show that economic growth has a lasting impact on the environment by distorting it. The findings recommend that politicians and government officials hold the key to attaining a green and clean environment by focusing on developing the proper energy policy mix, urban planning, and pollution prevention without compromising economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifying how the green investment alleviates carbon emissions paves the way for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutralization at a faster pace. In order to propose an effective evaluation model and analyze the interaction between green investment and total carbon emissions, we first and foremost collected data from 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2019. Secondly, we introduced long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network model, with the amount of government investment in pollution control and environmental infrastructure construction as the model input variables. We also select the total amount of carbon emissions as the model output variables to obtain a neural network model with multiple inputs and a single output, which can effectively analyze the potential relationship between green investment data and the total amount of carbon emissions data. Then, the OLS model is introduced to test the relationship obtained by LSTM neural network model and analyze its robustness. As a result, the experiment indicates that the LSTM network conceived by us has reliable robustness and fitting performance, with green investment positively affecting total carbon emissions. Meanwhile, we give corresponding policy recommendations according to the model results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a core driver for the high-tech enterprises, green technology innovation is crucial, even with high financial risk. Against this background, this paper empirically examines the impact of risk-taking on green technology innovation of high-tech enterprises, taking Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020 as the research sample and considering the moderating effect of financial mismatch. Findings show the following: First, the effect of risk-taking on green technology innovation of high-tech enterprises is insignificant in most cases, and the inhibitory effect of financial mismatch is partly supported. Second, financial mismatch only counter-regulates the inhibitory effect of systematic risk-taking on the number of invention patents granted in the eastern sample. Third, the effect of risk-taking on green technology innovation is significantly heterogeneous in terms of property rights and regional heterogeneity, regardless of considering the moderating effect of financial mismatch or not. Finally, the policy implementations point out that the government should create a favorable investment environment, financial institutions should adjust the way of capital allocation, while high-tech enterprises should broaden the financing channels to enhance their risk-taking ability, and promote green technological innovation to achieve high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy-polluting enterprises' investment in environmental protection will have a "crowding out effect" on their other inputs, affecting enterprise performance. However, if the environmental protection investment of enterprises improves their green technology innovation ability, resulting in the "innovation compensation effect," which can offset the "crowding out effect" of environmental protection inputs, it may have a positive impact on enterprise performance. This can offset the "crowding out effect" of environmental investment and may promote the performance of enterprises. At the same time, equity concentration plays the role of "tunneling effect" and "monitoring and incentive effect" in the process of environmental protection investment affecting the performance of heavy-polluting enterprises. The paper selects the data of A-share listed heavy-polluting enterprises in China from 2010 to 2019 and analyzes the impacts of environmental protection investment and green technology innovation on the performance of heavy-polluting enterprises by using a multidimensional panel fixed-effects model. The results show that environmental protection investment will improve the performance of heavy-polluting enterprises by improving their green technology innovation ability; green technology innovation plays a partly intermediary role in the process of environmental protection investment affecting the performance of enterprises, and the magnitude of this intermediary role is regulated by the concentration of corporate equity. Based on the results of the empirical study, it is recommended that heavy-polluting enterprises should accelerate the pace of green technology research and development and results transformation, optimize the proportion of equity allocation, and achieve the dual goals of fulfilling environmental responsibilities and enhancing corporate performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2020, this paper explores the relationship between two-way FDI and green technology innovation and examines the moderating role of digital finance in the impact of two-way FDI on green technology innovation. The results show that (1) two-way FDI can significantly enhance the level of green technology innovation. (2) Digital finance plays a moderating effect in the process of two-way FDI to enhance the level of green technology innovation. The conclusion is still robust by replacing the dependent variable, eliminating special samples and shrinking the tail. (3) The results of sub-dimensional analysis show that the three sub-dimensions indicators of the digital finance also have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between two-way FDI and green technology innovation. (4) The results of sub-regional regression show that the moderating effect in the central and western regions is greater than that in the eastern region. The results of the study can provide reference for governments to formulate policies about digital finance, which is conducive to achieve high-quality opening-up and realize green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper clarifies the association between the Sino-U.S. bilateral relation (BR) and Bitcoin price (BCP) by applying the bootstrap full- and sub-sample Granger causality tests. It reveals that BR has positive and negative effects on BCP. The negative impact points out that Bitcoin is viewed as a tool to avoid uncertainties caused by the deterioration of BR, also proving that the strained relation between China and the U.S. can stimulate the Bitcoin market. However, this opinion is not held under a positive impact, the main explanation is that the burst of bubble weakens its ability to hedge risks. The above conclusion is not consistent with the theoretical model, underlining that the Bitcoin market is boosted by the deterioration of BR. Conversely, there is a negative influence from BCP to BR, meaning that the relationship between China and the U.S. can be reflected by the Bitcoin market. Under the complex and volatile international situation, investors can benefit from this investigation to compensate for the losses and keep their wealth. Also, it helps the related authorities to create a stable investment environment and promote friendly bilateral relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China developed towards an innovation-driven economy, both domestic and international connectivity have come to play a central role in regional development. Furthermore, earlier research has shown that the structure of inter-provincial S&T networks has developed substantially. However, differentiated analyses on the effects of S&T connectivity on regional development have remained rare and robust inferences on the exact role of particular aspects consequently difficult. Based on co-publication and co-patent data this paper analyses the role of S&T connectivity as a determinant of provincial-level innovation-driven development in China. Unambiguously, it confirms the essential role of S&T connectivity proposed by earlier literature. At the same time, it finds that this role only develops in full after initial investments in the local environment and never exceeds that of S&T inputs. Furthermore, it finds that international technological collaboration has become more, not less important drivers of development for regions as China's innovative capacities increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rampant corruption exists in China's energy-intensive industries. However, we know little about the nexus of corruption and enterprise green innovation in China's energy-intensive industries. This paper discusses the impact of anti-corruption on enterprises' green innovation and its effect margin. Analyzing the panel data of Chinese listed enterprises in energy-intensive industries from 2009 to 2017, we find that anti-corruption played a positive role in stimulating enterprises' green innovation investments in energy-intensive industries. Then we adopt the instrumental variable approach and difference-in-differences model to alleviate the endogeneity problem. Moreover, we find that research and development investments from state-owned, high-tech enterprises and enterprises in the regions with more government intervention or weaker intellectual property protection were more prominent after the anti-corruption campaign. Finally, political connection played an intermediary role in this process, in which only the government-official political connection worked. Our results highlight the roles of enterprises' attributes and environmental characteristics as important factors in the relationship between anti-corruption and green innovation investments. Policymakers should enhance the control of corruption to boost green innovation in energy-intensive industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]