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Can foreign trade and technological innovation affect green development: evidence from countries along the Belt and Road

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Abstract

Foreign trade and technological innovation are major driving forces for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative. This paper investigates the green development of 32 countries along the Belt and Road during the period of 2010–2018, and uses the Data Envelopment Analysis method to measure the green development level of countries along the Belt and Road. Based on the dynamic panel model, the system generalized method of moments is used to estimate the impact of foreign trade and technological innovation on green development. The results indicate that most of countries along the Belt and Road are in inefficient green development, and that there is still much room for improvement. Meanwhile, foreign trade and technological innovation can significantly contribute to green development of countries along the Belt and Road. Further research has found that there is a threshold effect on the impact of technological innovation on green development of countries along the Belt and Road. Therefore, it is suggested that policymakers should promote green development of countries along the Belt and Road by strengthening their trade flows, improving innovation efficiency, changing the way of urbanization and optimizing their health care systems.

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Fig. 1

Data source: “UN Comtrade database”

Fig. 2

Data source: “UN Comtrade database”

Fig. 3

Data source: “World Bank database” and “BP 2019 World Energy Statistics Yearbook”

Fig. 4

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Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Key Project of National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No.19AJY011), the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No.20BJL144), the Key Project of Jiangsu’s Social Science Fund (Grant No.19CSJ010) and Scientific Research Fund for the Fifth Phase of “333 High-level Talent Training Project” of Jiangsu Province in 2020 (Grant No.BRA2020038).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Jingguan Building, Dongnandaxue Road 2, Jiangning District, Nanjing, 211189, People’s Republic of China

    Yingzhi Xu, Biying Dong & Zihao Chen

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  1. Yingzhi Xu
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  2. Biying Dong
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Yingzhi Xu provided the article’s idea, methods and the framework of the whole paper; Biying Dong was responsible for the overall grasp of the paper (text and graphics); Zihao Chen was responsible for the consolidation of data and specific writing of the paper’s content; Biying Dong was responsible for the model research, English text content and polishing.

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Appendix

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Table 6 Green development level of countries along the Belt and Road from 2010 to 2018.
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Table 7 Unit roots test
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Table 8 Results of Robustness Test
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Table 9 List of abbreviation
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9 and Fig. 4

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Xu, Y., Dong, B. & Chen, Z. Can foreign trade and technological innovation affect green development: evidence from countries along the Belt and Road. Econ Change Restruct 55, 1063–1090 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-021-09337-5

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