The impact of climate policy uncertainty on the green innovation of enterprises

doi:10.12006/j.issn.1673-1719.2024.107

Abstract

Abstract:

In order to cope with increasingly serious climate change, various countries are actively formulating climate policies to promote green transformation and sustainable development. Frequent changes in climate policies bring new risks to business operations. As a strategic resource for enterprises, green innovation is an important way to boost the green transformation of the economy, which is inevitably affected by climate policy uncertainty (CPU). Based on the data of Chinese listed enterprises from 2010 to 2022, this paper investigates the impact of climate policy uncertainty on corporate green innovation and its mechanism through Tobit modeling. The results show that CPU has a significant inhibitory effect on enterprises’ green innovation, which is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises, non-energy enterprises and enterprises with high analyst attention. Rising CPU weakens enterprises’ willingness to innovate by increasing financing constraints and lowering risk-taking levels, with the indirect effect of risk-taking levels manifesting itself as a “masking effect”. The moderating mechanism test finds that enterprises’ digital transformation can significantly counteract the negative impacts of CPU on green innovation, and in particular helps to improve the ability of enterprises’ substantive green innovation to cope with climate policy changes. This paper not only deepens previous research but also provides richer empirical evidence for understanding the impact of CPU in developing countries. The findings are conducive to inspiring the formulation and adjustment of CPU and provide practical evidence for companies engaged in green innovation to mitigate climate-related risks.

Key words: Climate policy uncertainty (CPU), Financing constraints, Risk-taking level, Digital transformation, Green innovation

ZHANG Na, SUN Yan-Yu, ZHAO Xiao-Jun, CHANG Si-Chun, WU Li-Yan. The impact of climate policy uncertainty on the green innovation of enterprises[J]. Climate Change Research, 2024, 20(5): 636-650.

Figures/Tables 10

Table 1 Definition of key variables

Table 2 Descriptive statistics

Table 3 Benchmark regression test results of variables

Table 4 Robustness test results

Table 5 Endogeneity test results

Table 6 Regression analysis results of mediating mechanism test

Table 7 Regression analysis results of regulatory mechanism test

Table 8 Heterogeneous based on ownership

Table 9 Heterogeneous based on energy enterprises

Table 10 Heterogeneous based on analyst attention

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