Technological progress has widely been acknowledged as a key driver in the achievement of environmental sustainability, and a new concern has recently arisen for assessing the role of differences in regional innovation performances with respect to the pursuit of pollution targets. We investigate the impact of innovative activities on environmental efficiency at the regional level, adopting a spatial panel data approach to account for dependence between geographical observations and to get deeper insights into spatial knowledge spillovers arising from agglomeration economies. The spatial panel analysis covers 103 Italian provinces (equivalent to NUTS3 regions) on four major air pollutants (i.e., CO₂, CH₄, NMVOC, CO) over the 1995–2010 period. Our findings show that the state of local technology development, proxied by patents, has a positive impact on GDP emission efficiency and that its magnitude is higher for more localized pollutants as a result of larger spillover effects. Finally, to analyze the Italian North‐South dualism of emission levels of pollutants, we offer a spillover effect study to emphasize the remarkable difference among effects in the territory. This calls for closer attention to the local relevance of the pollution damage when environmental impact of innovation strategies is to be evaluated.

中文翻译：

---

技术创新对环境效率的影响建模：空间面板数据方法

技术进步已被公认为实现环境可持续性的关键驱动力，最近人们开始关注评估在追求污染目标方面区域创新绩效差异的作用。我们调查创新活动对区域级环境效率的影响，采用空间面板数据方法来说明地理观测之间的依赖关系，并更深入地了解由集聚经济引起的空间知识溢出。空间面板分析覆盖了意大利的103个省（相当于NUTS3地区），涉及四种主要的空气污染物（即CO ₂，CH ₄（NMVOC，CO）1995-2010年期间。我们的研究结果表明，由专利代理的本地技术发展状况对GDP排放效率具有积极影响，并且由于更大的溢出效应，对于更多本地化污染物而言，其程度更高。最后，为了分析意大利污染物排放水平的南北二元性，我们提供了溢出效应研究，以强调该地区效应之间的显着差异。在评估创新策略对环境的影响时，这需要更加关注污染损害的当地相关性。