Abstract:Numerous studies have revealed that developing green technology innovation is extremely important for  minimizing haze pollution. However, limited by serious endogenous problems, research rarely focuses on the  effect of haze pollution on green technology innovation. Based on a two-stage sequential game model including  both production and government departments, this paper mathematically deduced the effect of haze pollution on  green technology innovation. Then China’s central heating policy is considered a natural experiment in our study  to verify whether haze pollution is the key factor affecting the development of green technology innovation. The  result that haze pollution significantly inhibits green technology innovation is confirmed, and this negative  impact is mainly concentrated on substantive green technology innovation. Robustness tests have been per-formed, and the conclusion is still valid. Moreover, we find that government behavior can significantly affect  their relationship. Specifically, the government’s economic growth target will increase the haze pollution’s  ability to block the development of green technology innovation. However, if the government has a clear  environmental target, their negative relationship will weaken. Based on the findings, targeted policy insights are  presented in this paper.

Keywords:  Haze pollution ;Green technology innovation ;Environmental target ;Economic growth target

Authors: Xing Wang ^a , Zhi Su ^a , Jinhuang Mao ^a,b,*  

a School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China 

b Institute of County Economic Development & Rural Revitalization Strategy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

How does haze pollution affect green technology innovationA tale of the government economic and environmental target constraints-Journal of Environme.pdf