Research on the effects of command-and-control and market-oriented policy tools on China's energy conservation and emissions reduction innovation

The impact of environmental regulation on technology innovation is a hot spot in current research where a large number of empirical studies are based on Porter Hypothesis(PH). However, there are still controversies in academia about the establishment of "weak" and "narrow" versions of PH. Based on the panel data of application for patent of energy conservation and emission reduction(ECER) technology of Chinese city scale during 2008-2014, comprehensive energy price, pollutant emission, etc., mixed regression model and systematic generalized method of moments method were adopted, respectively,to study the impact of market-oriented and command-and-control policy tool on China's ECER technology innovation. The results show that the environmental regulation hindered the technological innovation in the immediate phase; however, it turned out to be positive in the first-lag phase. Hence, the establishment of "weak" PH is time-bounded. The command-and-control policy tool played a more positive role in promoting technological innovation in the first-lag phase than market-oriented policy tool. Therefore, "narrow" PH is not tenable. The reason is that the main participants of China's ECER technology innovation are state-owned companies and public institutions. Regionally speaking, the impact which command-and-control policy tool has on technological innovation at sight was nonsignificant in the eastern, the central, and the western regions of China whilst market-oriented policy tool had a negative effect. And market-oriented policy tool in the central region had strongest negative effect, which would diminish in the eastern region and become weakest in the western region. This was related to regional energy consumption level and the market economic vitality.

Impact of scientific and technological innovation policies on innovation efficiency of high-technology industrial parks-A dual analysis with linear regression and QCA

Scientific and technological innovation policies play a critical role in the innovative development of high-technology industrial parks.However,it remains unclear how scientific and technological innovation policies impact the innovation efficiency of hightechnology industrial parks and what the impact pathways are.An in-depth investigation of this topic can give an insight into the inherent relation between the scientific and technological innovation policies and technological innovation.By conducting a theoretical analysis,this study empirically analyzed the impact of scientific and technological innovation policies on the innovation efficiency of high-technology industrial parks.The main research methods applied in this study were linear regression and qualitative comparative analysis(QCA).The results showed that the policy targets drove innovation efficiency in a relatively minor way.Among all policy tools,the demand-based policy tools had the most significant influence on innovation efficiency.The supply-based and environment-based policy tools had notable positive impacts during the lag periods of policies.The policy mix pathways for scientific and technological innovation policies that impact innovation efficiency come in four forms,namely,the targets-directed,demand-driven,supplydominated environment optimization,and environment-dominated comprehensive pathways.Therefore,this study put forward proposals on classifying and refining the scientific and technological innovation policies and optimizing the policy mix-driven models.