Fangcheng Sun

The River Chief System (RCS) is an innovative environmental governance system with Chinese characteristics that is significant for green and sustainable development, and green technology innovation (GTI) is a key step to achieve this goal. However, existing studies have not proved the effect of RCS on GTI. Therefore, this paper takes the implementation of RCS as a quasi-natural experiment and the progressive spatial difference-in-differences model is used to empirically investigate the effect of water environment governance policies on GTI, based on the panel data of 108 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2004 to 2019. The results of this research show that: (1) GTI in the YREB shows a rapid growth trend, and the lower reaches are generally higher than the middle and upper reaches; (2) RCS can improve the local GTI by 19.43% and has a significant positive incentive effect on adjacent regions’ GTI, while the GTI itself can generate a positive spillover effect for adjacent regions; (3) Heterogeneity analyses indicate that RCS has a stronger facilitation in the spontaneous parallel diffusion form cities and middle and lower reaches, while having an inhibition in riverine cities. In terms of spatial effects, RCS has a stronger positive spillover effect in the adjacent untreated area and upper reaches, while having a negative spillover effect in the spontaneous parallel diffusion form cities; (4) Government governance, official incentive and social supervision can enhance the effect of RCS on GTI. This study provides useful empirical evidence for environmental governance and green sustainable development of the YREB.

As a significant ecological corridor from west to east across China, the Yangtze River Economical Belt (YREB) is in great need of green development and transformation. Rather than only focusing on the overall growth of green productivity, it is important to identify whether the technical change is biased towards economic performance or green performance in promoting green productivity. By employing the biased technical change theory and Malmquist index decomposition method, we analyze the green biased technical change in terms of industrial water resources in YREB at the output side and the input side respectively. We find that the green biased technical change varies during 2006–2015 at both the input side and output side in YREB. At the input side, water-saving biased technical change is generally dominant compared to water-using biased technical change during 2006–2015, presenting the substitution effects of non-water production factors. At the output side, the economy-growth biased technical change is the main force to promote green productivity, whereas the role of water-conservation biased technical change is insufficient. The green performance at the output side needs to be strengthened compared to the economic performance in YREB. A series of water-related environmental policies introduced in China since 2008 have promoted the green biased technical change both at the input side and the output side in YREB, but the policy effects at the output side is still inadequate compared to that at the input side. The technological innovation in sewage treatment and control need to catch up with the economic growth in YREB. Our research gives insights to enable a deeper understanding of the green biased technical change in YREB and will benefit more focused policy-making of green innovation.

This paper investigates the relationship between business strategy and cost stickiness under different ownership. Using the data from listed firms in China from 2002 to 2015, we find that first, firms with different strategies exhibit different cost behavior. The cost stickiness of choosing a differentiation strategy is higher than that of choosing a low-cost strategy. Second, management expectations will affect cost stickiness. Optimistic expectations will increase cost stickiness, while pessimistic expectations will reduce cost stickiness. Third, management expectations can adjust the relationship between business strategy and cost stickiness in terms of government-created advantages (GCAs). If management expectations tend to be optimistic, the cost stickiness is higher with a differentiation strategy than with a low-cost strategy. If management expectations tend to be pessimistic, then cost stickiness is higher with a low-cost strategy than with a differentiation strategy. Finally, the state-owned equity affects the extent of the effect of a differentiation strategy on cost stickiness. State-owned firms, which receive more GCAs than non-state-owned firms, have stronger cost stickiness than non-state-owned firms, even if both categories of firms use more differentiation strategy.

Few studies have addressed how customer concentration affects the decision of a firm’s research and development (R&D) strategies and then innovation outcome. Using a sample of China’s listed companies for the period from 2009 to 2017, this study investigates the relationship between customer concentration and enterprise sustainable innovations, as well as how such the relationship changes with economic policy uncertainty. The findings imply that there is a significant inverted-U-shaped relationship between customer concentration and enterprise sustainable innovations. Under a high level of economic policy uncertainty, the advantage of the customer relationship is maximized. In this context, raising customer concentration significantly promotes enterprise sustainable innovations. Customer concentration affects innovations differently as the equity properties, and locations of enterprises vary under different levels of economic policy uncertainty. Thus, the interval of customer concentration conducive to enterprise innovations differs. The results are robust to econometric techniques that control for endogeneity. Overall, our findings suggest that enterprises build and adjust the customer relationship and improve the driving mechanism for sustainable innovations.