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In the context of significant environmental changes, the urgency of adopting green innovation has become increasingly apparent as a central mechanism for adjusting industrial structures in China. This transition serves not only as a crucial way to address pressing environmental challenges, but also as a fundamental strategy to improve the ecological efficiency of urban areas. Existing research mainly keeps a close eye on the unidirectional relationship between variables such as technological innovation and environmental protection. There is less relevant literature that has researched the cointegration relationship among green innovation, industrial structure, and eco-efficiency of cities. The essential role of green innovation and industrial structure in reaching a higher eco-efficiency of city are discussed in this research and the relationship among these three variables are analyzed by the evidence from cities in China from 2011 to 2019. The fact that the variables are cointegrated in the long run is evidenced by the results for the full sample. The sub-sample results report that in the eastern region, green innovation, industrial structure upgrading, and industrial structure rationalization could improve urban eco-efficiency. However, in Midwest regions where economic development is relatively backward, green innovation's effect on urban eco-efficiency is not in a significant positive way. The results obtained in this paper have implications for different cities in China to formulate corresponding policies on green innovation, industrial structure, and urban eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines a panel of 121 economies worldwide over the period 1980–2020 for the impact of political competition on green innovation. We find that an increase in the intensity of political competition has a significantly negative impact on green innovation and that this impact remains significant in the long term, especially for non‐OECD countries and middle (low) income countries, whereas the sub‐indicators of political competition indicate that the level of institutionalization of political participation and the degree of government restrictions on political participation have different impacts on green innovation. The findings also reveal that lower political risk and higher levels of globalization positively moderate the negative impact of political competition on green innovation. The adverse effects of party competition are exacerbated when left‐wing parties are in power. This study offers new insight into sustainable development based on examining the relationship between political competition and green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the bidirectional cointegration relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and corporate green innovation with a panel of 770 Chinese listed firms during the 2011–2020. We find that there exists a long‐run bidirectional comovement between ESG performance and corporate green innovation output. ESG performance exerts a short‐run and long‐run causal link with green innovation output. The panel cointegration test and VECM estimation also support that ESG performance moves together with green innovation output for clean industries, while ESG performance only presents a long‐run relationship to green invention patents output for pollution industries. Our findings offer important value for policymakers and enterprises to propose an effective strategy to stimulate green innovation and improve ESG score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking China provincial-level data during 2003–2017 as the basic space-time unit, this research applies the Moran index and spatial econometric model to analyze the spatial pattern change trend and spillover effects of regional innovation output. The results show that, first, provincial innovation outputs mainly concentrate in the coastal economic belt and Yangtze economic zone. Second, there is a correlation in space for provincial innovation output, and the growth rate of provincial innovation output has a positive spillover effect. The rate of conditional β-convergence is 3.926%, and the half-life cycle of convergence is 17.665 years. Third, environmental regulations have pushed the development of regional innovation to some extent. Fourth and finally, regional innovation input and its spillover effects impact the level of regional innovation output. Innovation output, environment regulation, and R&D internal expenditure are the main paths for innovation's spillover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the long-run co-movement between venture capital and technological innovation for 28 provinces (including autonomous regions) in China, using the panel cointegration and panel-based error correction model over the 2001-2012 period. Our results confirm that venture capital and innovation have long-run cointegrated relationships as well as bidirectional causality for the whole country. Analysis of sub-samples again discovers similar results in both the eastern and central regions, but not in the western region. The policy implication shows that China's development of innovations should be based on more venture capital input and that the government should establish a long-run innovation policy to accelerate the development of venture capital. We also offer several constructive suggestions for governments in the western provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the effect of extreme weather events on green innovation by using unbalanced panel data covering 117 countries from 1971 to 2018 and documents strong evidence that extreme weather has a significantly negative impact on green innovation. We also find among the four extreme weather events such as droughts, extreme temperature, floods, and storms that floods have the most prominent adverse impact on green innovation. Furthermore, the significantly negative effect of extreme weather is manifested in countries with a high level of corruption and low level of trade openness, but not in the countries with a low level of corruption and a high level of trade openness. Lastly, we show that extreme weather events have an adverse impact on green innovation by decreasing economic growth level, hindering financial development, widening income inequality, damaging the accumulation of human capital, and increasing the political risk. • This research investigates the effect of extreme weather events on green innovation. • By using unbalanced panel data covering 117 countries from 1971 to 2018. • Documents strong evidence that extreme weather has a significantly negative impact on green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is essential for human beings to balance growth and climate change mitigation. The corruption-green innovation nexus has been studied by two existing studies, but the relative weak econometrical work and the lack of exploration in the context of inter-government cooperation on global climate change call for a revisited investigation. Our research robustly tests and confirms that corruption has a significantly negative effect on green innovation, which overturns the opposing conclusion of the previous global examination. Moreover, we find that the signing of international environmental agreements (IEAs) mitigates corruption's negative effect in the short term, whereas IEA's entry into force deteriorates this hindering impact in the long term. Such a divergence may originate from a change in the expectation of economic entities in the government's enforcement quality of environment policies issued for meeting IEA's emission target. Lastly, we provide several suggestions for dealing with climate change more effectively from the perspective of global governance. • We investigate the relationship between corruption and green innovation. • The data span covers 162 countries from 1970 to 2019. • Corruption has a significant negative impact on green innovation performance. • The signing of the IEA remits this negative effect in the short term, while it tends to deteriorate it in the long term. • This divergence originate from a change in the expectation of economic entities in the government's enforcement quality of environment polices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These topics could be divided into four streams, including environmental policy and innovation, environmental governance at the micro-level, macroeconomics outcomes of environmental policy, and water quality management. Chen, Wang, Sun, Chen, Zhang, and Ye employ trophic level index (TLI), water quality index (WQI), modified Nemerow pollution index (NPI), and the random forest (RF) model to evaluate water quality. This special issue is on environmental governance and innovation. [Extracted from the article]

This research robustly investigates and verifies the impact of science-technology intermediary (STI) on regional innovation for panel data covering 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019. Overall, we find that STI's effects on regional innovation are positive, no matter in the static or dynamic model, reflecting that more innovation-related entities may be motivated to plug into a STI-centered network due to increasingly positive externality, which in turn strengthens STI's innovation-enhancing effect over time. Giving consideration to both development and transaction costs in innovation activities, this study explores three mechanisms of the STI-innovation nexus. (1) STI reduces transaction cost, which then stimulates collaborations of innovation. (2) STI facilitates specialization in innovation-related resources' optimal redistribution, improving regional capacity to successfully convert existing elements into innovation outputs. (3) STI strengthens the capacity to absorb the knowledge spillover from neighboring provinces and foreign countries. All arguments herein are supported for the case of China. • We investigate the relationship between Science-Technology Intermediary and innovation. • The data span covers 31 provinces in China from 2001 to 2019. • Both STI's static and dynamic effects on regional innovation are positive. • Three channels, transaction cost, reallocation, and spillover, that mediate the STI-innovation relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents cross-country evidence on whether and how legal origins affect technical innovation. Using panel data on 120 countries between 1996 and 2019 and the Least Square Dummy Variable (LSDV) approach, we find that common law countries generally perform better in both technology innovation inputs and outputs than their civil law counterparts. Interestingly, we further present that French civil law countries exhibit the worst innovative performance, whereas German and Scandinavian civil law countries might even exceed common law countries in technical innovation. At least, there is no solid evidence to show that common law countries outperform German and Scandinavian civil law countries in technical innovation. Our findings further show that legal origins affect technical innovation via the political channel and the adaptation channel, and that legal origins' actual role in technical innovation correlates with their impacts on financial development and private property protection. Our study offers new insight into legal origins' economic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data of 102 countries from 1990 to 2018, this research investigates the varying effect of renewable energy policies on renewable energy green innovation along with the distribution of green innovation. The panel quantile model with additive fixed effect is adopted in this paper, and the research conclusions are as follows. (1) Green innovation positively correlates with national renewable energy policy. (2) Renewable policy is more effective in countries with stronger green innovation capacity. (3) In five different areas of renewable energy, renewable policy is unable to promote green innovation in the lowest innovative countries. (4) Renewable policy exerts the smallest influence on green innovation of geothermal energy compared to other renewable energies. In sum, this paper provides an empirical reference for governments to launch renewable energy policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the effect of environmental policy stringency on green innovation in renewable energy technology and whether the green innovation response differs with varying degrees of environmental policy. Based on panel data of 33 countries over the period 1990–2015, we show that a stringent environmental policy does encourage green innovation in renewable energy technology, and this impact is more pronounced in OECD countries and high-income countries. More specifically, a stringent non-market-based environmental policy induces more patents in renewable energy generation. The findings also show that a stringent environmental policy yields green innovation for geothermal energy, hydro energy, and marine energy, but not for wind energy and solar energy. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that innovation capacity and environmental pressure enhance the impact of environmental policy stringency on green innovation in the renewable energy field. Finally, the paper presents that clean energy investment plays the role of a mechanism through which environmental policy stringency spurs green innovation in the renewable energy field, offering insights into the influence of environmental policy stringency on green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper investigates the effect of globalization on innovation by Chinese firms. • Using a combined dataset of 596,809 Chinese manufacturing firms. • We find that overall provincial globalization is associated with better innovation performance for Chinese firms. • China government should continue to attract foreign investors to enhance innovation. This paper investigates the effect of globalization on innovation by using a combined dataset of 596809 Chinese manufacturing firms with 1,993,154 observations and provincial globalization indices from 1998 to 2009. The empirical findings suggest that overall provincial globalization is associated with better innovation performance for Chinese firms. More specifically, economic, social, and political globalization, present positive impacts on technological innovation. Interestingly, through subsample analysis the findings indicate that globalization expresses a distinct relationship with firms' innovation performance. In particular, economic globalization correlates to greater technological innovation in private-owned enterprise, a lower one in stated-owned enterprises, and an insignificant one in foreign-owned enterprises. Moreover, a subsample analysis for different industries exhibits similar results as in the full sample except for the resources-intensive industry in which economic globalization is associated with lower innovation. Our findings indicate that China should continue to enhance connections in the economic, social, and political dimensions with other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, nations are increasingly focusing on green innovation in their environmental protection efforts as part of sustainable development, and digital finance is playing a vital role in enhancing green innovation. Employing annual data from 220 prefecture-level cities between 2011 and 2019, we empirically analyze the connections among environmental performance, digital finance, and green innovation via the Karavias panel unit root test with structural breaks, the Gregory-Hansen structural break cointegration test and pooled mean group (PMG) estimation. The following four points are the key conclusions: (1) The results support cointegration links between these variables when structural breaks are considered. (2) The PMG estimation outcomes indicate that green innovation and digital finance may have a favorable long-term effect on environmental performance. (3) For better environmental performance and more green innovation, the level of digitalization of digital finance is crucial. (4) The potential of digital finance and green innovation to improve environmental performance has not been fully realized in the western region of China. • The relationship among environmental performance, green innovation, and digital finance is investigated. • The entropy method is used to evaluate the environmental performance. • Green innovation benefits environmental performance in the long run. • Digital finance improves environmental performance through providing financial support to green innovation. • There is cointegration relationship among the three variables after considering structural breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]