How the COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts Green Inventions: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic affects the green inventions of firms, universities, and firm–university collaborations (FUCs) differently. Our identification used provincial-level monthly data from China. Results from the difference-in-differences (DID) model showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the output of three types of green invention patents. After the parallel-trend test, placebo test, and triple-difference estimation, our conclusion has good robustness. However, the COVID-19 pandemic also influences the role of other policies, such as the SO2-emissions-trading pilot policy for universities’ green inventions. There has been a slight change in the effect of dual carbon targets on green inventions since the start of the pandemic. The positive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been weaker for provinces where the pandemic has been more severe than in other provinces. The results of this study are compared with the results and empirical evidence of other related studies and the theoretical logic of COVID-19 crisis-promoted green inventions are discussed.