互联网发展对城市绿色创新的影响机理——基于专利视角的分析

Influence mechanism of Internet development on urban green innovation: an analysis from the perspective of patents

互联网发展是否促进了城市绿色创新?以往研究针对互联网发展和城市创新之间开展了许多有益的探讨,但鲜有从绿色发展的角度来进行深入剖析。众所周知,互联网等新一代信息技术的不断发展和普及,既能够促进技术进步,也成为地区经济增长方式转换的关键。因此,文章从专利视角入手,在系统梳理互联网发展与城市绿色创新相互作用关系的基础上,基于中国2005—2019年285个地级市面板数据,采用双向固定效应模型和中介效应模型实证分析了互联网发展对中国城市绿色创新水平的影响及作用机制。研究结果表明:①互联网发展对城市绿色创新有显著促进作用,且相比较绿色实用新型专利,对绿色发明专利的促进作用更加明显,经过内生性讨论和更换变量等一系列稳健性检验来进行再次回归分析,结果依旧稳健;②进一步的机制检验发现,互联网发展主要通过降低交易成本、提高技术研发能力和加强外部监督水平这三个途径来推动地区绿色创新水平的提升;③异质性分析结果表明,不同地理位置和城市规模下,互联网发展对中西部地区和大型城市绿色创新水平的促进作用更加显著,而对东部地区和规模较小城市的促进作用一般。因此,在中国经济发展转型的新时期,一方面要推动互联网向社会经济各领域渗透,以各产业融合促进创新发展;另一方面也要提高互联网技术的自主创新能力,既要重视创新资源的投入,又要提高创新产出的质量,从而更好地挖掘地区绿色创新潜力,提高信息技术水平,以实现地区经济长远、可持续发展。

Does Internet development promote urban green innovation in cities?Previous studies have conducted many useful discussions on the relationship between Internet development and urban innovation,but few have provided insights from the perspective of green development.It is well known that the continuous development and popularity of the Internet and other new-generation information technologies can both promote technological progress and become the key to the transformation of regional economic growth.Starting from a patent perspective,this article empirically analyzed the impact of Internet development on the level of green innovation in Chinese cities and its mechanisms of action using a two-way fixed-effects model and a mediating-effects model based on panel data of 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2019,based on a systematic review of the impact mechanisms of Internet development and urban green innovation.The results showed that:①Internet development had a significant promotion effect on urban green innovation,and the promotion effect on green invention patents was more obvious compared with green utility model patents.The results remained robust after a series of robustness tests,such as endogeneity discussion and replacement variables,to conduct the regression analysis again.②Further mechanism tests found that Internet development mainly contributed to green innovation by reducing transaction costs and improving technology research and development.③The results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that,under different geographic locations and city sizes,the promotion effect of Internet development on the level of green innovation in central and western regions and large cities was more significant,while the promotion effect on eastern regions and smaller cities was average.Therefore,in the new era of China’s economic development transformation,we should not only encourage the application of the Internet to a variety of socio-economic fields and promote innovation development with the integration of various industries,but also improve the independent innovation capability of Internet technology and pay attention to both the exploitation of innovation resources and the quality of innovations,so as to better tap the regional green innovation potential and improve information technology to achieve long-term and sustainable development.