行业异质性、环境规制与工业技术创新

Industrial heterogeneity,environmental regulation and technological innovation in the industrial sector

技术创新是协调环境规制与工业行业的产业绩效这对矛盾体的有效途径,学术界对环境规制与工业技术创新之间关系的观点存在分歧,需要在理论和经验上进一步证实。本文建立了环境规制与工业技术创新关系的理论模型,并采用2003-2012年间我国35个工业行业的面板数据,考虑异质性行业的环境治理动机差异,实证检验了环境规制对工业技术创新的影响。研究表明:环境规制对工业技术创新的影响趋势呈现"U"型曲线特征,即弱环境规制不利于工业技术创新,而当环境规制强度达到"U"型曲线拐点以后,环境规制会促进工业行业的技术创新。污染密集行业比清洁行业的"U"型拐点出现更晚,污染密集行业的技术创新对环境规制的反应更慢,目前两类行业的环境规制强度都处在曲线拐点的左侧。因此,我国应提高环境规制强度达到一个合理的区间,同时对于不同类型的工业行业采取差异化的环境规制政策,从而有效推动我国工业技术创新能力的提升。

Technological Innovation is an effective path to coordinate environmental regulation and industrial performance in the industrial sector. The divergence exists on the relationship between environmental regulation and technological innovation, which needs to be further testified in the theoretical and empirical aspect. This paper constructs a mathematical model of environmental regulation and technological regulation in the industrial sector based on different motivation of heterogeneous sectors, and tests empirically the effect of environmental regulation on technological innovation using the panel data of 35 industrial sectors from 2003 until 2012. The findings are that it is a ＂U - shaped＂ relationship between environmental regulation and technological inno- vation. That is to say, the weaker environmental regulation intensity will hinder technological innovation, and after the intensity reaches to the inflection point of the ＂U - shaped＂ relationship, the environmental regulation will promote technological innova- tion. The inflection point of the ＂U -shaped＂ relationship in the pollution sector comes later than that of the clean sector, and technological innovation of the pollution sector responses slowly to environmental regulation. Now environmental regulation of the two sectors is staying on the left of inflection point. Therefore, the government should increase the intensity of environmental reg- ulation appropriately, establish different environmental regulation policies towards different industrial sectors, and then promote technological innovation in the industrial sector effectively.