Social Trust and Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from Listed Firms in China

Yaru Yang, Desheng Liu, Luxiu Zhang and Yingkai Yin
Additional contact information
Yaru Yang: School of Management, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250353, China
Desheng Liu: School of Management, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan 250353, China
Luxiu Zhang: Business School, University of Jinan, Jinan 250002, China
Yingkai Yin: School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: Green Technology innovation intends to enable the advancement of technologies toward the goals of human health, natural resource sustainability and social equity. Green technology innovation has become an important driving force for the sustainable growth of the global economy. In this study, building upon the theories on informal institutions, we empirically investigate the effects of social trust on green technology innovation. Using a sample of companies listed in A-share markets in China from 2012 to 2017, we find that social trust has a significant positive impact on the performance of green technology innovation. We employ an instrumental variable approach through two-stage-least square estimator, and report consistent results. Further heterogeneity analysis finds that with higher levels of policy uncertainty and lower levels of intellectual property rights protection, the effect of social trust on firms’ green technology innovation is more significant. Further, the effect of social trust on firms’ green technology of non-SOEs innovation is larger than SOEs. In addition, the positive effect of social trust on green technology innovation in firms is an effective supplement for formal systems to promote green technology innovation in said firms, which provides a new theoretical reference for promoting firms’ green technology innovation and achieving high-quality development.

Keywords: social trust; green technology innovation; economic policy uncertainty; intellectual property rights protection; property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4828/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4828/ (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:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4828-:d:543291

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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