The National Civilized City campaign and corporate green innovation: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Jiawei Liu (), Wei Xu and Zhongsheng Zhou
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Jiawei Liu: Nanjing Forestry University
Wei Xu: Sun Yat-Sen University
Zhongsheng Zhou: Soochow University

The Annals of Regional Science, 2025, vol. 74, issue 1, No 11, 44 pages

Abstract: Abstract Using manually collected data on national civilized cities in China and firm-level data on corporate green innovation, this study investigates the impact of urban governance competition on corporate green innovation behavior using the National Civilized City campaign in China since 2005 as a quasi-natural experiment. It finds that urban governance competition can trigger corporate green innovation through the National Civilized City campaign. The results are robust to control endogenous problems via the placebo test, propensity scores matching (PSM) design, and staggered difference-in-difference (DID) approach. In additional analyses, we find that the positive relationship is more pronounced in resource-intensive industries, state-owned enterprises, and enterprises with decentralized CEOs. Finally, we investigated the mechanisms of corporate green innovation promoted by the National Civilized City policy and find that the National Civilized City campaign could strengthen government environmental regulations, increase green subsidies, and enhance the administrative efficiency of the local government. By presenting China's experience in this domain, this study provides insights for stimulating corporate green innovation activities from the perspective of urban governance competition, which could also inform urban green governance initiatives in other developing countries.

JEL-codes: G38 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s00168-024-01333-7

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