The Impact of Low-Carbon Location Policy on Corporate Green Innovation: A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on National Low-Carbon Industrial

Industrial parks, as spaces with the most concentrated urban carbon emissions, are the most important entry point and focal point for promoting regional low-carbon construction. Therefore, exploring the policy effect of low-carbon industrial parks has theoretical value and practical significance. This paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method and leverages the quasi-natural scenario of national low-carbon industrial parks to analyze the impact of low-carbon location policy on corporate green innovation basing on the data of listed companies in China from 2010 to 2021. The results show that low-carbon location policy significantly improves the level of corporate green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy effect is mainly seen in technology-intensive companies and those with high public environmental attention. Mechanism analysis suggests that alleviating financing constraints and increasing government green subsidies are important pathways through which low-carbon location policy significantly enhances corporate green innovation. The findings expand the research on the microeconomic consequences of low-carbon location policy and enrich the related research on factors influencing corporate green innovation. They can provide some reference for promoting corporate green innovation and the construction of low-carbon industrial parks.