Abstract
More and more scholars have paid attention to the importance of coordinated development between ecological environmental protection and economy. Eco-city construction has been implemented in many countries in recent years; however, quantitative research on its economic impact has only started. This study establishes a theoretical model of the impact of eco-city construction on a firm’s research and development (R&D) investment. The numerical simulation results show that eco-city construction promotes a firm’s R&D investment and long-term earnings from two aspects: (1) macro policies increase a firm’s exogenous uncertainty and (2) ecological capital enhances a firm’s business conditions. The empirical study matches the microscopic data of 115 cities and 2612 listed firms in China from 2008 to 2017, and results show that eco-city construction has a significant positive impact on firm innovation input and output. Further research shows that this positive impact mainly comes from ecological environment and ecological economy, and there is regional heterogeneity. For the first time, this study affirms the positive role of eco-city construction from the perspective of firm innovation activities at the micro level. It provides strong evidence for the government to realise the sustainable development of firms by accelerating eco-city construction.
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Data availability
The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Although the Cobb–Douglas production function is assumed, other homogeneous supermodel unit income functions are also applicable. One example is the production function of the fixed elasticity of substitution of capital and labour, \( {Y}_t={X}_t{\left({\alpha}_1{K}^{\sigma }+{\alpha}_2{L}^{\sigma }+{\alpha}_3{G}^{\sigma}\right)}^{\raisebox{1ex}{$1$}\!\left/ \!\raisebox{-1ex}{$\sigma $}\right.} \). The simulation results are similar.
For the convenience of calculation, Christiano et al. (Christiano et al. 2005) did not take consumer price index into account.
Bloom (Bloom 2006) proved this finding in The uncertainty impact of major shocks: firm level estimation and a 9/11 simulation.
Detailed calculation results can be obtained by contacting the author.
See Eco-city Green Paper: China Eco-city Construction and Development Report (2018) for detailed instructions.
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Funding
The research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 71573031, Social Science Planning Fund of Liaoning Province in 2020, grant number L20AJY014, and Joint Research Fund Liaoning-Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, grant number 2019JH3/30100011.
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Z.S. and Y.X. contribute equally to the article. Conceptualisation, methodology, software, Z.S.; writing—original draft preparation, Z.S. and Y.X.; Writing–review and editing, Z.S. and S.R.; visualisation, Y.X.; supervision, S.R.; funding acquisition, Y.X. and S.R.; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Song, Z., Xuan, Y. & Ren, S. Impact of eco-city construction on firm innovation in the case of China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 37547–37561 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13088-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13088-1