Abstract

Green innovation is an important topic of research worldwide currently due to the attention to climate change and environmental issues. To have an understanding of the green innovation evaluation, this study measured the green innovation efficiency by using a meta-frontier Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index. The study results indicated that the growth rate of green innovation efficiency found differs greatly based on the environmental issues. Taking the research capacity of research and development institutions as the threshold variable, a double threshold effect is found as an inverted N-shaped. The study explored that the educational level and maturity of the technology market have a significant positive correlation with regional green innovation efficiency. Unlike environmental regulation and degree of openness, an improvement in green innovation efficiency is found fully dependent on the technological progress and regional green innovation efficiency. This study will be useful for policymakers and researchers to enhance green innovation efficiency in China and the rest of the world with similar economic settings.

Graphic abstract