IJERPH, Vol. 19, Pages 11972: The Mixed Impact of Environmental Regulations and External Financing Constraints on Green Technological Innovation of Enterprise (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

Green technological innovation is an important force for high-quality economic development and high-level ecological environment protection. Environmental regulation and market financing are important factors affecting enterprise green technological innovation, while the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise green technological innovation is most likely to be nonlinear. Additionally, this impact may be moderated by market financing. Based on the data of 2278 manufacturing enterprises in China, this article intends to empirically test the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise green technological innovation. Green technological innovation is divided into green process innovation and green product innovation. Based on this, the analysis of the heterogeneous impact of environmental regulations on different types of green technology innovation is implemented. Moreover, the moderating effect of external financing constraints on the relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation is further discussed. It shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise green technological innovation. This conclusion will not change due to the types of green technological innovation, while the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise green product innovation is greater than that of green process innovation. In addition, external financing constraints will reduce the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise green technological innovation. The research conclusions have certain reference value for deepening the understanding of green technological innovation and optimizing the relationship between government and market.