Institutional pressures as drivers of corporate green innovation: do provincial officials and CEOs matter?

Findings from prior studies regarding the relationship between national institutional pressures and corporate green innovation have been mixed. To address this gap, we consider the moderating effects of public agents (provincial officials) and private agents (corporate CEOs) to investigate corporate green innovation in response to institutional pressures. Using the method of difference-in-difference, we examine the data from 722 publicly listed Chinese firms between 2007 and 2019, a period associated with the implementation of China's Twelfth Five-Year Plan which increase the emphasis on social indicators for national development. Our results firstly show that institutional pressures caused by Twelfth Five-Year Plan significantly facilitate polluting-firms' green innovation relative to clean-firms, and the effect is stronger when public agents are more concerned about promotion to the central government or private agents have greater concerns for legitimacy, meanwhile not producing an a real "incentive effect" on corporate green innovation, but a "crowding-out effect" on existing innovation. Furthermore, results also suggest institutional pressures mainly induced polluting-firms' strategic innovation behaviors, and the incentive effects of institutional pressures on polluting-firms' green innovation are different in terms of firms' ownership and size. Our results generate important theoretical and practical implications.

Green through finance: The impact of monetary policy uncertainty on inclusive green growth.

For high-quality development, inclusive green growth (IGG) is a crucial strategic option. Given the deceleration in economic growth, monetary policy has several obligations, including stabilizing growth, changing structure, and mitigating risks. However, frequent revisions of monetary policy may diminish its regulatory efficacy due to resulting uncertainty. Accordingly, this study reveals the mechanism of the impact of monetary policy uncertainty (MPU) on IGG. Research suggests that MPU significantly inhibits IGG in the region, as demonstrated by robustness tests. Mechanism test reveal that MPU inhibits IGG by reducing green finance, ecological innovation, media attention, and employment levels. These four transmission mechanisms all show a masking effect. Additionally, further tests show that under different levels of green finance, ecological innovation, media attention, and employment, the impact of MPU on IGG is nonlinear. Heterogeneity analyses also indicate that the inhibition of MPU is weaker in cities with high scientific and technological progress and local fiscal expenditure. Finally, quantile regression demonstrates that the restraining effect of MPU diminishes before rising. This study contributes to the advancement of MPU research, provides a solid foundation for formulating, modifying, and executing monetary policy, and serves as a valuable resource for promoting IGG.

Impact of eco-city construction on firm innovation in the case of China.

More and more scholars have paid attention to the importance of coordinated development between ecological environmental protection and economy. Eco-city construction has been implemented in many countries in recent years; however, quantitative research on its economic impact has only started. This study establishes a theoretical model of the impact of eco-city construction on a firm's research and development (R&D) investment. The numerical simulation results show that eco-city construction promotes a firm's R&D investment and long-term earnings from two aspects: (1) macro policies increase a firm's exogenous uncertainty and (2) ecological capital enhances a firm's business conditions. The empirical study matches the microscopic data of 115 cities and 2612 listed firms in China from 2008 to 2017, and results show that eco-city construction has a significant positive impact on firm innovation input and output. Further research shows that this positive impact mainly comes from ecological environment and ecological economy, and there is regional heterogeneity. For the first time, this study affirms the positive role of eco-city construction from the perspective of firm innovation activities at the micro level. It provides strong evidence for the government to realise the sustainable development of firms by accelerating eco-city construction.