| Innovation-driven development and green development are important parts of China’s efforts for building the modernization of economy and realizing its high-quality development.The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century,adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,emphasizes that,we must achieve high-quality development in which innovation must be the primary driving force,coordination should be an endogenous characteristic,green should be universal form,opening should be the only way,and sharing must be the fundamental goal,with a view to propelling transformative changes in the quality,efficiency and impetus of economic development.“Priority of eco-environmental protection and green development” in the Yangtze River Economic Belt(YREB)is not only an important component of China’s regional development strategy,but also a forerunner and example of China’s economic green transition.The key to the high-quality development of the fundamental is to accelerate the impetus transformation promoting the quality and efficiency improvement of its green development.Therefore,this study focuses on the important driving force of scientific and technological(S&T)innovation,explores how it affects the green economy efficiency of the YREB,and then makes proposals regarding relevant policies.The research conclusions are of theoretical and practical significance in promoting the high-quality development of the YREB.First,judging from the evaluations of the S&T innovation level in the YREB,on the whole,the development of the S&T innovation level in 108 cities of the YREB is not balanced,and the gap in the S&T innovation level in different river basins is obvious,which shows the gradient of “Downstream Region>Middle Region>Upstream Region”.The spatial Moran’I index indicates the spatial clustering patterns of the S&T innovation level in the YREB are the“High-high” type or “Low-low” type generally,which results in the continuous advantage of the high level of S&T innovation and the persistent backwardness of the low level of S&T innovation.Furthermore,the level of S&T innovation in the YREB also shows different convergence characteristics.Second,from the calculation results of the green economy efficiency of the YREB,the input-output of the green economy efficiency in the sample period is DEA-efficient,and the optimal output scale is realized under the given input.From the perspective of index decomposition,the improvement of green economy efficiency in the YREB and in its downstream,middle and upstream regions are mainly influenced by the technological progress of green economy,and the contribution of neutral technological progress is greater than that of input-biased technological progress and output-biased technological progress.The spatial gap of green economy efficiency in the YREB is large,and the gap has not been alleviated over time.The “regional divide” in green economic efficiency has restricted the improvement of green economic efficiency in the YREB.The green economy efficiency of the YREB shows obvious σ convergence and spatial σ convergence,especially absolute β convergence and spatial β convergence,which indicates that the green economy efficiency is influenced by its neighboring areas.At the same time,10 clubs are formed in 108 cities in the YREB based on the results of club convergence clustering.Third,Granger’s causality test shows that there is no two-way causal relationship between technological S&T innovation and green economy efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.S&T innovation is the driving force of green economic efficiency,specifically in the form of a unidirectional causal relationship between S & T innovation and green economic efficiency,and overall S&T innovation has a positive impact on green economic efficiency.The strong and continuous positive impact of S&T innovation on itself shows the “inertial dependence” and the strong vitality of S&T innovation,and the impact also affects green economic efficiency in a direct way,resulting in a fluctuating trend that the contribution of S&T innovation to green economic efficiency increases significantly over time.In terms of the decomposition of green economy efficiency,S&T innovation promotes green economy efficiency mainly by influencing the technological progress of green economy.Fourth,S&T innovation in the YREB has significant local promotion and spatial spillover effect on green economic efficiency,and the test results are robust.From the perspective of heterogeneous group regression,S&T innovation in the YREB has equally promoted the green economy efficiency,and its spatial interaction effects are quite different.Comparing the long-term and short-term results from the decomposition of the spatial spillover effects of S&T innovation on green economic efficiency in the YREB,it can be seen that from 2002 to 2013,the long-term spatial spillover effect of S&T innovation on green economy efficiency is lower than the short-term spatial spillover effect;from 2014 to 2019,the long-term spatial spillover effect of S&T innovation is significantly higher than the short-term spatial spillover effect.From the result of the mechanism test,the S&T innovation can affect the green economic efficiency of the YREB through the effects of factor allocation and industrial structure optimization.Fifth,the implementation of S&T innovation policies in the YREB has a significant driving effect on the green economic efficiency of the pilot cities and their surrounding areas,with the green economy efficiency of the pilot cities increased by about 0.201 percentage points;the result coefficient of spatial interaction DID was0.0331,and the estimated coefficient was significantly higher than that of DID,so the experimental effect of S&T innovation policies has more positive effect on neighboring cities than on itself.In general,the implementation of S&T policies in the YREB has greater impact on the technological progress of green economy,the output-biased technological progress of green economy and the neutral technological progress of green economy.However,the impact on the overall technical efficiency of green economy and the input-biased technological progress of green economy decreases as the policy implementation period lasts longer,thus the effect of S&T innovation policies varies with different decomposition efficiencies of green economy.Based on the conclusions of the study,we can gain the following insights: It is necessary to adhere to the concept of high-quality development to promote the efficiency of green economy in the Yangtze economic belt,in the aspect of scientific and technological innovation,we should improve the foundation of scientific and technological innovation,optimize the environment for scientific and technological innovation,increase the effective input of scientific and technological innovation,and promote the effective transformation of scientific and technological innovation achievements,fully mobilize the scientific and technological innovation in promoting the green economy efficiency of the Yangtze River economic belt in all aspects of positive factors,so as to increase regional economic output per unit of input,reduce regional output per unit of environmental pollution.First,we should adhere to the innovation-driven approach and promote all-round innovation with S&T innovation as the core;second,we should adhere to the coordinated development and promote the overall efficiency of green economy in the region;third,we should stick to the dominant position of enterprises,deepening the reform of science and technology evaluation and improving the efficiency in the commercialization of scientific and technological innovation results;fourth,we will combine market regulation with macroeconomic regulation and control to promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure;fifth,we will emphasize green technology innovation and continue to improve the market-oriented green technology innovation system;sixth,we will increase supporting policies and continue to improve the effectiveness,timeliness and systematicness of S&T innovation policies. |
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