Environmental Regulation promotes Green Technological Diversification: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Zhaoyingzi Dong, Siqi Sun, Pierre-Alexandre Balland and Weiwen Zhang

No 2226, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Accelerating the development of green technologies is essential to achieve a green transition, but green technologies tend to be more radical and complex. It means that they require significant efforts to scale and we need to understand all possible levers of green technological change. In this paper, we investigate whether environmental regulation can provide opportunities for path-breakthrough and complex technology diversification during the green transition process. The analysis is based on patenting activities in Chinese cities from 2003 to 2016. Our results show that cities with tighter environmental regulations are more likely to branch into new green technology spaces. In addition, environmental regulations help cities enter less related and more complex green domains. This study provides significant policy implications for the green transition literature.

Keywords: Environmental regulation; Technology diversification; Green innovation; Relatedness; Complexity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-10, Revised 2022-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:2226

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