Sipan Li

The concept of green development has gradually penetrated into the enterprise. Green mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have gradually become a means for heavily polluting enterprises to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction and embark on the path of green transformation. Heavily polluting enterprises have acquired clean technology and resources through green M&A, and whether they will promote their green innovations after green M&A has not yet been explored. Based on the data of M&As of China’s heavy polluting enterprises from 2010 to 2018, this study empirically tests whether the M&As of heavy polluting enterprises can promote green innovation. The results show that M&As by heavily polluting enterprises can promote green innovation, and this impact is promoted with the support of government subsidies. In addition, older or higher paid CEOs negatively moderate this effect. Therefore, our study believes that most of the M&As of heavy polluting enterprises are taking the initiative to take environmental protection responsibilities and embarking on the path of green transformation. The government can issue relevant policies to encourage heavily polluting enterprises to conduct green M&A in order to achieve their goal of green transformation. Our study has enriched the relevant literature on green investment and green innovation, and can be used as a reference for the government to introduce policies for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises.

Exploring the dynamic relationship and coupling coordination between urban industrial co-agglomeration and intensive land use is vital to ensure high-quality urban development. Based on an industrial co-agglomeration model, a revised intensive land use model, and a coupling coordination model, this paper comprehensively measured the urban industrial co-agglomeration and intensive land use coupling coordination in eight cities in the Chengdu metropolitan area from 2004 to 2018. It was found that despite the structural adjustment of the secondary and tertiary industries during the study period, the industrial co-agglomeration in the Chengdu metropolitan area fluctuated, the intensive urban land use had spatial characteristics that were decreasing from the center to the periphery, and while the general coupling coordination level was increasing, the increase rate in each city was different. The coupling coordination between the urban industry co-agglomeration and the intensive land use was found to have “low-high-low” spatial characteristics from the southwest to the northeast of the Chengdu metropolitan area, which revealed the core position of Chengdu. Suggestions are provided to improve the industrial co-agglomeration and intensive urban land use coupling coordination.