Does Internet Infrastructure Construction Improve Corporate Green Innovation? Evidence from China

Abstract

Green technology innovation has become a breakthrough topic in the coordinated development of economic growth and environmental protection. Although the Internet is likely to become a key driver of transformative environmental change and innovation, studies on the impact of internet infrastructure on green innovation and analyses of the paths are still extremely scarce. Based on a sample of China’s listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this paper treats the Broadband China pilot strategy as a quasi-natural experiment and adopts the time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the effect and the transmission path of internet infrastructure construction on green innovation. The study finds that Broadband China significantly promotes green innovation, and the result remains consistent after a series of robustness tests. The transmission path test proves that internet infrastructure construction affects green innovation by improving the degree of informatization, human capital, and internet media reports and by reducing financing constraints. Furthermore, considering the heterogeneity effect, the Broadband China strategy has a greater stimulating effect on state-owned, large-scale, high-tech enterprises; enterprises in low-competition industries; enterprises in growth and mature stages; and enterprises registered in the central and eastern regions. This paper systematically analyzes the effects of internet infrastructure on the green innovation of enterprises based on economic informatics theory, providing new insights for improving internet infrastructure and green innovation in practice.