The impact of green innovation on export quality

ABSTRACT

It has been confirmed in many studies that the corporate green innovation has numerous benefits, such as the effects on resource allocation, business performance and corporate image, but it is less involved than the effect on export quality. This paper uses the data of Chinese listed manufacturing corporations over the period 2008–2015, and takes PSM-DID method to empirically test the quality effect of green innovation. The implementation of green innovation shows a positive effect on the export quality, which differs apparently by the degree of green innovation. The clean productivity and waste treatment efficiency play a vital importance in the influence path. These findings provide novel evidence for the follow-up research on green innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Green innovation
• quality effect
• propensity score matching method
• difference-in-differences estimation

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• F18
• D24
• F14

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

¹ $\alpha \in (0,1)$ ensures that the marginal production cost increases with the improvement of quality, which also bring about the improvement of corporate profits. If $\alpha >1$, the production cost is too high, it means that the profit will decrease with the improvement of quality, which is unreasonable.

² The improvement of waste treatment efficiency brought by green innovation can greatly reduce sewage charges and treatment costs, so $\lambda <0$.

³ $\beta -(1-\alpha )(\sigma -1)>0$ ensures the existence of optimal solution of product quality, otherwise, the product quality tends to infinity. $(-\lambda )>0$, and $(\sigma -1)>0$.