Influence from highways' development on green technological innovation: the case of Yangtze River economic belt in China.

Although the effect of highways on economic growth has been widely discussed, its role in green technological innovation has not yet attracted attention facing today's strong emphasis on the green economy. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence by investigating the effects of highways on regional green technological innovation in China. The paper elaborates theoretically on three mechanisms through which the development of highways may influence regional green technological innovation, namely the agglomeration effect, spatial spillover effect, and network effect. To advance the empirical analysis, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model accounting for spatial interdependencies among regions. Unlike previous literature, this paper uses "the strength of economic linkage" to indicate the development of highways in each city and discusses geographic distance and time-distance effect (spatio-temporal effect) resulting from highways. Using panel data of 105 prefecture-level cities in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2001 to 2013, we find that: (1) highway has a significant role in promoting regional green technological innovation; (2) significant spatial spillover effects resulting from highways exist and the magnitude of the influence varies with geographical and temporal distance effect. Our findings provide references for developing transportation infrastructure and green innovation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]