Zhang Chao, Huang Lingyun, Long Hongyin
School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China.
School of Environment & Natrual Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 May;30(21):60590-60606. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-26531-2. Epub 2023 Apr 10.
Whether environmental regulations are conducive to improving green innovation in water pollution-intensive enterprises (WPIEs) is of guiding significance for China's protection of the water ecosystem environment and sustainable economic development. This study regards the implementation of the "Ten-point Water Plan" (TWP) policy in 2015 as a purely exogenous event for enterprises and employs a quasi-experimental method to fill this gap based on the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2019. The results reveal that TWP policy has significant negative effects on the green innovation of WPIEs, the main mechanism of which is increased compliance costs. In addition, a heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative effect is stronger for green innovation activities with higher costs and for WPIEs subject to stricter environmental regulations. This paper provides new evidence against the weak Porter hypothesis and implies that WPIEs are likely to purchase technologies and equipment to reduce wastewater emissions rather than green innovation, which means incentive-based measures should be taken to foster green innovation in the environmental policymaking process.
环境规制是否有利于提升水污染密集型企业（WPIEs）的绿色创新，对中国水生态环境保护和经济可持续发展具有指导意义。本研究将2015年《水污染防治行动计划》（“水十条”）政策的实施视为企业的一个纯粹外生事件，并基于2010年至2019年中国上市公司的面板数据，采用准实验方法来填补这一空白。结果表明，“水十条”政策对水污染密集型企业的绿色创新具有显著负面影响，其主要机制是合规成本增加。此外，异质性分析表明，对于成本较高的绿色创新活动以及环境规制较严格的水污染密集型企业，负面影响更强。本文为反驳波特假说提供了新证据，并表明水污染密集型企业可能会购买技术和设备以减少废水排放，而非进行绿色创新，这意味着在环境政策制定过程中应采取基于激励的措施来促进绿色创新。
