Stringency of environmental regulation and eco-innovation: Evidence from the eleventh Five-Year Plan and green patents

Effie Kesidou and Lichao Wu

Economics Letters, 2020, vol. 190, issue C

Abstract: Using the variation in pollution reduction targets across provinces and time variations (before and after the eleventh Five-Year Plan), we examine the impact of stricter environmental regulation upon the production of green patents by firms in China. We find that Chinese manufacturing firms, located in provinces with stricter pollution targets, produced a higher volume and intensity of green patents. Our results suggest that stricter environmental regulatory frameworks in emerging economies are not only combating pollution, but also shifting the innovation activities of manufacturing firms towards building a stock of knowledge in environmental protection. This process, undoubtedly, has the potential to generate disruptive eco-innovations.

Keywords: Environmental regulation; Eco-innovation; Green patents; Difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O32 Q53 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520300823
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:190:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520300823

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109090

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().