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Convergence or divergence? The effects of economic openness on low-carbon innovation in Chinese manufacturing industry

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Abstract

Low-carbon innovation can address both economic and environmental concerns; patterns of low-carbon innovation convergence can determine the effectiveness of mitigating the adverse consequences of climate change. Considering that economic openness has a huge impact on the development of innovation capability, this paper uses a conditional β convergence model to examine the convergence of low-carbon innovation in Chinese manufacturing industry and its relationship with economic openness. We incorporate the spatial spillover effect into the convergence function by constructing spatial error model, spatial lag model, and spatial Durbin model. Based on a panel data set of 30 Chinese provinces over the period 2004–2016, the results show that low-carbon innovation in Chinese manufacturing industry has a strong feature of conditional β convergence. The convergence rate of low-carbon innovation is slightly slowed down by economic openness, and the main reason is that the spillover effect is weak and the convergence rate is slow in lower open areas, so the convergence rate of the whole country is slowed down by that of the lower open areas. Although the economic openness in adjacent areas can contribute to the development of local innovation ability, but generally speaking, economic openness in local areas takes a stronger effect in promoting the convergence of low-carbon innovation than that in adjacent areas. The findings have important policy implications as they suggest the need for a more equal degree of economic openness among Chinese provinces to speed up the convergence of low-carbon innovation.

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Notes

  1. For simplicity and readability, sometimes we just write “the low-carbon innovation” instead of “the low-carbon innovation in Chinese manufacturing industry.”

  2. Actually, we have collected the data from 2003 to 2017; however, to calculate the growth rate of low-carbon innovation and to introduce the lag terms of economic openness, R&D investment, and environmental regulation into the econometric model, the sample period is from 2004 to 2016

  3. For example, the correlation coefficient is high between the degree of economic openness and its one-year lag, as is the case for R&D investment and environmental regulation.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from incoPat database; “China Statistical Yearbook on Science and Technology”; the website of China National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Commerce of China, and China National Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of environmental protection of China; and China Stock Market & Accounting Research Database.

Funding

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71964019), Applied Basic Research Foundation of Yunnan Province (CN) (202001AT070095), Science Research Foundation of Yunnan Education Bureau (CN) (2019Y0042).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Management and Economics, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan, 650093, People’s Republic of China

    Chaojun Yang, Liju Liu, Zhaoran Wang & Lishan Liu

Authors
  1. Chaojun Yang
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  2. Liju Liu
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  3. Zhaoran Wang
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Contributions

Chaojun Yang: Supervision, Conceptualization, Methodology, Review, Funding acquisition. Liju Liu: Writing, original draft; Software; Formal analysis. Zhaoran Wang: Resources, Supervision, Validation. Lishan Liu: Writing, review and editing; Writing, major revision; Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis.

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Correspondence to Lishan Liu.

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Yang, ., Liu, L., Wang, Z. et al. Convergence or divergence? The effects of economic openness on low-carbon innovation in Chinese manufacturing industry. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 14889–14902 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16819-6

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