Research on green innovation efficiency measurement and influencing factors in the three major coastal urban agglomerations in China

Abstract

Introduction: Behind China’s booming economy lies a series of environmental and resource consumption issues. After continuous research and exploration, scholars generally agree that green innovation is a crucial way to solve this problem. As the core regions of China’s economic development, studying the green innovation level of the three major urban agglomerations can help understand China’s progress in this area. It can provide beneficial experience and inspiration for other urban agglomerations and the formulation of relevant policies in the future.Methods: This paper selects the panel data of 40 cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomerations from 2010 to 2020 as the research object. The super-efficiency SBM (slack-based measure) model and Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index are used to measure the green innovation efficiency (GIE) and its dynamic evolution rules, and the Tobit regression model is constructed to analyze the influencing factors of GIE.Results: The PRD urban agglomeration has the highest GIE level, while the GIE level in BTH and YRD shifted around 2015. Technical efficiency and technological progress together lead to increased GIE, with technological progress having a higher impact than technical efficiency. The regression coefficients of urbanization level, industrial structure, and science and technology level are 0.0078, 0.0071, and 0.0616, respectively, significantly promoting GIE. The coefficients of economic development level, foreign direct investment, environmental regulations, and SO2 emissions are −0.2198, −0.1163, −0.005, and −0.011, respectively, significantly inhibiting GIE. The coefficient of vegetation cover of 0.0228 has no significant effect on GIE.Conclusions: The overall GIE of the three major urban agglomerations is relatively high. Still, there is spatial variability in GIE among different cities, accompanied by the phenomenon of two-level differentiation. The study suggests that improving GIE requires enhanced interventions at both the city level and the level of influencing factors. This study enriches the theoretical results on the meso-level of GIE and provides theoretical guidance and practical directions for promoting green innovation in urban agglomerations, achieving peaking carbon and carbon neutrality, and promoting green and high-quality development.