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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1465619

Impact of Public Environmental Concern on Green Technology Innovation: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta in China

Provisionally accepted
Shengmei Hu Shengmei Hu Hongbing Deng Hongbing Deng *HONGRUI JIAO HONGRUI JIAO Shuang Qin Shuang Qin
  • China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study explores the impacts of PEC on green technology innovation (GTI), which includes both independent green technology innovation (IGTI) and cooperative green technology innovation (CGTI). It also analyzes the threshold effects of green finance (GF) and information and communication technology (ICT) to unlock the growth potential of GTI. To achieve this, we employ a two-way fixed-effects model and a threshold-effects model, utilizing city panel data from the Yangtze River Delta region of China, covering the years 2011 to 2020. The results indicate that PEC has a positive effect on GTI, IGTI, and CGTI. However, its impact on CGTI is relatively weaker.These findings remain valid after several robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that PEC promotes IGTI in research organizations, yet it fails to do so in firms. PEC enhances CGTI within cities, but not between them. Additionally, PEC positively affects GTI only when GF and ICT surpass certain thresholds. The threshold effect of GF is limited to IGTI, whereas ICT's threshold effect is more stringent in CGTI. Based on these conclusions, we provide insights on leveraging public concerns to promote the growth of green innovation and how governments can create a favorable external environment for this.

    Keywords: Public environmental concern, independent green technology innovation, cooperative green technology innovation, green finance, Information and Communication Technology

    Received: 16 Jul 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hu, Deng, JIAO and Qin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hongbing Deng, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.