Does the Opening of High-speed Rail Promote the Greening of Technological Innovation?
Promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is a key factor to achieve high-quality develop-ment.The greening of technological innovation is essential for green and sustainable development,and is of great significance in leading the overall green transformation and development of economy and society.In recent years,China's transportation infrastructure,represented by high-speed railway,has achieved leapfrog development.The opening of high-speed rail has greatly improved the accessibility of areas along the route,promoted the flow and reallocation of resources and factors,and created more convenient conditions for innovative activities.Existing studies have carried out abundant research on the inno-vation effect of the opening of high-speed rail,but paid less attention to green innovation.By taking the opening of China's high-speed railway as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper empirically studies the impact of high-speed railway opening on the greening of technological innovation from the dual dimensions of absolute quantity and relative quantity of green inno-vation using the difference-in-difference model,based on the data of 282 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019.Results show that the opening of high-speed rail significantly improves the quantity of green innovation in cities along the line,but fails to significantly improve the proportion of green innovation.Mechanism analysis shows that,in terms of de-mand,the opening of high-speed railway promotes the growth of tourism economy,which increases the demand for green inno-vation;and in terms of supply,the opening of high-speed railway speeds up the flow of innovation factors and the spillover of knowledge,which improves the supply conditions of green innovation,increasing the number of green innovations.Further analysis shows that the opening of high-speed railway has more prominent influence on the greening of technological innova-tion in tourist cities and non-central cities compared with non-tourist cities and central cities;it optimizes the green innova-tion structure and improves the quality of green innovation in the cities along the route;and it also has a significant positive spillover effect on the quantity of green innovation.This paper provides a reference for the government to fully understand the role of high-speed railway opening in promot-ing the greening of technological innovation and further stimulate the enthusiasm of subjects to carry out green innovation.Hence,the following policy recommendations are proposed:firstly,promote the integration of transportation infrastructure up-grading,which is represented by the opening of high-speed rail,and environmental economic policies,to accelerate the green development of technological innovation;secondly,improve the supporting policies for green innovation development from both demand and supply aspects,to strengthen the effect of high-speed rail opening in promoting the greening of technologi-cal innovation;thirdly,fully expand the positive impact of the opening of high-speed rail on the greening of technological in-novation relying on the spatial spillover effect.
Opening of High-speed Railthe Greening of Technological InnovationTourism Developmentthe Flow of Innova-tion Factors
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