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Green innovation efficiency across China’s 30 provinces: estimate, comparison, and convergence

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Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Considering government and market failure of environmental regulation to combat increasing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, green innovation can mitigate pollution through production processes and clean production. This paper aims to investigate endogenous green innovation efficiency and its convergence across China’s 30 provinces from 2004 to 2014. Due to factor endowment heterogeneity, it is important to explore the convergence of green innovation efficiency among China’s different regions, which can compare green innovation efficiency spatially and propose scientific policy implications for regions with relatively weaker green innovation efficiency. Green innovation efficiency is evaluated through epsilon-based measure (EBM) global Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) in order to overcome the demerits of radial model and slacks-based measure (SBM). Panel unit root test is implemented to explore the convergence of green innovation efficiency across different provinces of China, which addresses the invalid inference of conventional β convergence. The empirical analysis revealed that green innovation efficiency in the east is the highest among four regions of China. Unit root test of panel data revealed that the northeast had the highest convergence among China’s four regions. It is important to enhance green innovation capacity, and expand knowledge spillover of green innovation technology in order to mitigate GHG emissions.

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Acknowledgements

This work received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71911540483, 71603105, 71673230, 71803068, and 71303199), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu, China (No. SBK2016042936), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No.2017M610051, 2018T110054).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xingle Long

  2. School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Xingle Long & Kofi Agyenim Boateng

  3. China Center for Energy Economics Research, School of Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, Fujian, China

    Chuanwang Sun

  4. School of Finance and Economics, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Chao Wu & Bin Chen

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Long, X., Sun, C., Wu, C. et al. Green innovation efficiency across China’s 30 provinces: estimate, comparison, and convergence. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 25, 1243–1260 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-019-09903-3

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