Local government competition, development zones and urban green innovation: an empirical study of Chinese cities

ABSTRACT

Improving the level of green innovation is indispensable for sustainable urban development. This article uses China’s city-level data from 2000 to 2018 as a sample to test the impact and mechanism of local government competition on urban green innovation. We find that local government competition on environment has an evidently positive impact on green innovation, and there is a significant spatial spillover effect. Further channel inspection results show that local government competition affects green innovation through the establishment of development zones. Our research will help improve the level of urban green innovation and provide a theoretical reference for local governments’ policy-making. Besides, our results show that the mechanism of building development zones through which local environmental competition affects green innovation is more effective in eastern China.

KEYWORDS:

• Local government competition
• development zones
• green innovation
• Chinese urban development

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C23
• C51
• O13
• O18

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We use ARCGIS software to draw China’s urban green innovation patents and China’s urban high-tech zone spatial distribution maps. The data come from the China Patent Office (https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/) and the official website of the Chinese government (http:// www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-03/03/content_5270330.htm)