环境规制与企业创新:基于对千家企业节能行动的分析

Environmental regulation and enterprises’ innovation:Based on the analysis of China’s top-1000 energy-saving program

环境规制对企业创新的影响在理论界一直存在争议。尤其是命令-控制类型的政策,其强制性可以同时成为企业技术创新的鞭策和掣肘。以千家企业节能行动为背景,并结合利用工业企业数据库近年来的更新数据,将倾向得分匹配与双重差分法相结合,研究命令-控制类型的环境政策对中国工业企业创新能力的影响。结果表明:千家企业节能行动对规制企业的创新能力具有显著的正向影响,这显示出千家企业将环境规制的压力转化为创新的动力,兼顾了节能减排和技术发展的双重可持续性。

The influence of environmental regulation on enterprises’ innovation has been controversial for a long time.In particular,command-control policy can be both a spur and an impediment to technological innovation.Based on the top-1000 energy-saving program and using the database of industrial enterprises,this paper combines propensity score matching with difference-in-difference method to study the influence of command-and-control environmental policies on the innovation ability of Chinese industrial enterprises.The results show that the top-1000 energy-saving program has a significant positive impact on the innovation ability of regulated enterprises,which implies that the enterprises have transformed the pressure of environmental regulation into the driving force of innovation.This study proves that the well-designed environmental regulations could help realize the dual sustainability of firms’ energy conservation and technological development.