School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Oct 27;19(21):13974. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192113974.
Can environmental regulation promote green innovation and the productivity of cities? The "Compliance Cost" (CC) perspective and the "Porter Hypothesis" (PH) offer contrasting views, whereas the existing empirical results are inconclusive. This paper aims to highlight the roles of multifaceted government interventions, including government-to-firm subsidies, tax levies on firms, and environmental infrastructure provisions, in moderating environmental regulation for realizing PH. Based on the fixed-effects models for Chinese prefecture cities from 2005-2013, we found that environmental regulation positively impacted green innovation but negatively affected productivity. The results of moderating effects suggest that environmental regulation can better promote green innovation if it is compounded with more government-to-firm subsidies, lower firm tax burdens, and increased environmental infrastructure provisions. We further decomposed the impacts of these interventions across seven fields of green innovation and found that subsidy and tax burden relief were especially effective in facilitating more GI in the sector of transportation and alternative energy production. This paper amplifies the theoretical framework of PH by accentuating the analytical lens of multifaceted government interventions but also provides insights into how local governments can effectively design "carrot-and-stick" policies to realize PH at the city level.
环境规制能否促进城市绿色创新和生产力？“合规成本”（CC）视角和“波特假说”（PH）提供了相互矛盾的观点，而现有实证结果尚无定论。本文旨在强调多方面政府干预的作用，包括政府对企业的补贴、对企业的税收以及环境基础设施的提供，以调节环境规制以实现 PH。基于 2005-2013 年中国地级市的固定效应模型，我们发现环境规制对绿色创新具有正向影响，但对生产力具有负向影响。调节效应的结果表明，如果环境规制与更多的政府对企业的补贴、更低的企业税负以及增加环境基础设施的提供相结合，那么环境规制可以更好地促进绿色创新。我们进一步对这七种绿色创新领域的干预措施的影响进行了分解，发现补贴和税负减免对促进交通和替代能源生产等领域的绿色创新特别有效。本文通过强调多方面政府干预的分析视角，拓展了 PH 的理论框架，但也为地方政府如何有效地设计“胡萝卜加大棒”政策以在城市层面实现 PH 提供了思路。
