Innovation, global competitiveness, and green total factor productivity: evidence from the Belt and Road Initiative region?

In the context of intensifying global competition, the Belt and Road Initiative is increasingly becoming an important choice for countries to achieve green development. Therefore, this study selected 116 countries worldwide as samples to empirically test the green development situation of Belt and Road Initiative countries from 2013 to 2020. Additionally, a simultaneous equation model was used to study the impact and mechanism of innovation capability on green total factor productivity (GTFP) in Belt and Road Initiative countries. The results show that he average annual growth in green total factor productivity was 2.9% between 2013 and 2020 in Belt and Road Initiative countries. Innovation is an effective means of promoting the improvement of GTFP, mainly relying on the single-track drive of green technical progress. Furthermore, global competitiveness has a significant moderating effect on this result, with market size, financial market, and labor market efficiency being the main regulating factors for efficiency enhancers, while infrastructure and macro-economic environment are the main regulating factors for basic requirements. In addition, developing countries rely more on innovation types that involve technology imports to promote the improvement of GTFP. Finally, in the analysis of regional heterogeneity, we found that the results of the four continents were more consistent with the regression results of the total sample, but the mechanisms of action between regions were different.