How Does Environmental Regulation Affect the Green Growth of China’s Citrus Industry? The Mediating Role of Technological Innovation

Hepei Zhang and Zhangbao Zhong ()
Additional contact information
Hepei Zhang: College of Economics & Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Zhangbao Zhong: Research Center for Rural Social Construction and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-19

Abstract: Exploring suitable types and intensities of environmental regulations to promote technological innovation and guide industrial green growth is an essential goal for China. This paper uses the SBM super-efficiency model with the GML index to measure the level of green growth in China’s citrus industry from 2008 to 2019, and examines the impact generated by heterogeneous environmental regulations and the mediating effect of technological innovation using a panel Tobit model. The study found that: (1) From 2008 to 2019, the green growth level of the citrus industry has gradually improved, with an average annual growth rate of 2.7%, and the contribution of technical efficiency is more significant than technological progress. (2) The green growth of the citrus industry is closely related to the intensity and type of environmental regulation. The impact of market-incentive environmental regulation has an inverted U-shape, the impact of guidance-based environmental regulation is U-shaped, and the command-and-control environmental regulation has no significant effect. (3) The mediating effect suggests that guidance-based environmental regulation promotes green growth in the citrus industry by stimulating technological innovation. In contrast, market-incentive environmental regulation inhibits technological innovation and thus discourages green growth in the citrus industry. According to the study results, the government should strive to ensure the effective implementation of environmental laws and regulations, optimize the channels and amounts of investment in environmental governance, strengthen environmental protection-related media campaigns, and guide the citrus industry to break through technological bottlenecks to promote green growth.

Keywords: environmental regulation; citrus; green growth; technological innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13234/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13234/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13234-:d:942115

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().