Does Heterogeneous Environmental Regulation Induce Regional Green Economic Growth? Evidence from China

Understanding the differences in the effects of heterogeneous environmental regulation (HER) can help governments select optimal environmental regulation (ER) to promote technological innovation (TI) and green economic growth (GEG). This paper chooses Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017 to investigate the intrinsic link between HER, TI, and GEG. The results show the following: (i) The effectiveness of different types of ER is different, and market incentive-based ER (MIER) is optimal; (ii) Public participation-based ER (PPER) has played a good role in promoting TI; (iii) The impact of executive order-based ER (EOER) on TI is insignificant; (iv) Only MIER-induced TI can contribute to GEG; (v) The effects of HER vary across different regions.