Environmental regulations and green innovation: The role of trade and technology transfer
通过理论模型和1990-2019年OECD与金砖国家面板数据，发现环境规制与绿色创新呈倒U型关系，且技术转让在任何规制水平下都能促进绿色创新，但不同类型规制对发达国家和发展中国家效果不同。
This paper presents a theoretical model that predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between green innovation and environmental regulation under free trade. Our theory also determines the conditions under which international technology transfers increase green innovation. The predictions are tested empirically by estimating a fixed effects Poisson model with data for a panel of OECD and BRICS countries over the period 1990 to 2019. The predicted inverted U-shaped relationship is confirmed by the empirical results when using the Environmental Policy Stringency Index (EPS) and its components as proxies for environmental regulations. The empirical results also show that technology transfers increase green innovation at any given level of environmental regulation. Moreover, we allow for heterogeneous effects for OECD and non-OECD countries and find that while implementing stricter environmental regulations in non-OECD countries increases green innovation, the reverse is likely to hold for most OECD countries. When distinguishing by type of regulation, our findings show that market-based regulations are more effective in non-OECD countries for fostering green innovation, while non-market-based regulations are more effective in OECD countries. The main policy implication is that the type of environmental policies through which countries aim at achieving zero-net emissions have different implications depending on their stage of development in the presence of international trade.