Environmental Governance Goals of Local Governments and Technological Innovation of Enterprises under Green Performance Assessment

Xingshuai Wang; Ehsan Elahi; Zainab Khalid; Mohammad Ilyas Abro

doi:10.3390/ijerph20031996

Environmental Governance Goals of Local Governments and Technological Innovation of Enterprises under Green Performance Assessment

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 21;20(3):1996. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20031996.

Authors

Xingshuai Wang¹, Ehsan Elahi¹, Zainab Khalid², Mohammad Ilyas Abro³

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China.
² School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
³ Department of Basic Sciences and Humanities, Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi 74800, Sindh, Pakistan.

Abstract

The current study empirically estimates the impact of local government environmental governance on enterprise technological innovation from the perspective of a green political performance assessment of local governments with Chinese characteristics. Fourteen years of data (from 2006 to 2019) on pollutant emissions, and the patents of A-share listed companies were collected from 230 cities in China. A fixed effect model and tool variable method were applied to empirically analyze the objectives of the study. The results show that the environmental governance formulated by the local government has regional differences, which are shown as lower governance indicators for underdeveloped areas and higher governance indicators for developed areas. Environmental governance has a greater promotion effect on technological innovation in enterprises in developed regions, as well as in large and private enterprises. Moreover, mechanism analysis showed that the local governments preferred the path of financial subsidies to promote the level of technological innovation in enterprises. This study provides a foundation for attaining the "win-win" scenario of local government environmental stewardship and high-quality green economic growth.

Keywords: emission reduction targets; environmental governance; green economic development; local governments; technological innovation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Environmental Policy*
Goals
Inventions
Local Government

Grants and funding

We are grateful for the financial support from the “Social Science Planning Research Project of Zibo City” (No. 22ZBSKB016); “General Project of Shandong Key R&D Plan (Soft Science)” (No. 2022RKY07015) and the Taishan Young Scholar Program (No. tsqn202103070), the Taishan Scholar Foundation of Shandong Province of China.