Factors affecting green innovation: An analysis of patent and regional heterogeneity

ABSTRACT: To achieve sustainable development, it is vitally important to identify the factors driving urban green innovation and evaluate the contributions of different factors. This study uses a Chinese patent full-text database from 2005 to 2016 to identify the number of green patents at the prefecture level and analyzes the main determinants that lead to differences in green innovation level in different regions and types, and their respective contributions by regression and decomposition. This study finds that first, China's green innovation level is characterized by unbalanced development among different regions — the coastal areas develop rapidly while the inland areas develop comparatively slowly. Green innovation output is polarized among different cities, and the trend is more severe in inland areas. Second, economic development acts as the leading factor influencing the overall green innovation output of China both in inland and coastal areas, factor input follows as the second influencing factor, while government behavior has a comparatively small impact on green innovation. Third, regarding green patents of different types in different regions, economic development still serves as the major factor of unbalanced output of all kinds of patents, and government behavior has a relatively obvious regional characteristic, whose impact on inland areas is more evident