The impact of intellectual property rights protection on green innovation: A quasi-natural experiment based on the pilot policy of the Chinese intellectual property court

In the context of high-quality economic development in China, it is important to promote green innovation development by protecting intellectual property rights (IPR). Taking the pilot policy of the intellectual property courts in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for example in a quasi-natural experiment, this article examines the effect of IPR protection on the development of corporate green innovation and its mechanisms by using a difference-in-differences model and a mediating effect model based on Chinese enterprise data from 2011 to 2019. The study found that first, IPR protection promotes enterprise green technological innovation; second, IPR protection affects green innovation through enterprise financing constraints and R&D investment; that is, increasing enterprise R&D investment and alleviating enterprise financing constraints are two important channels through which IPR protection promotes enterprise green technological innovation.

Heterogeneity and spillover effects of carbon emission trading on green innovation

The massive emission of greenhouse gases poses a serious threat to the ecological environment. In this context, the relevant effects of the carbon emission trading (CET) market, which promotes greenhouse gas emission reduction by market means, have been widely investigated. Taking the China's CET pilot as a research target, the heterogeneity and spillover effects of CET on green innovation are explored by using the sample data of 279 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2019. The results are as follows. First, on the whole, CET significantly promotes strategic green innovation, but it has no significant effect on substantive green innovation. Second, the green innovation effect of CET varies with the level of green innovation, and the heterogeneous effects of green innovation are also reflected in different degrees of marketization, fiscal decentralization and government environmental concern. Third, CET has a positive spillover effect on green innovation, and the spillover effect is more significant than the direct effect, accounting for 74.8% of the total effect. Finally, some corresponding policy suggestions are put forward according to the above research conclusions.