PUBLIC ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS PROMOTE REGIONAL GREEN INNOVATION

Green technology innovation is fundamental to solving resource and environmental problems. As a "soft constraint," public environmental concern is increasingly prominent in green innovation. In this paper, we construct a public-innovators evolutionary game model and theoretically demonstrates that public concern is critical for innovators to change their short-sighted behavior and carry out green innovation. Based on the Baidu index data of 289 cities in China from 2011 to 2019, we further empirically tested the effect of public concern on regional green innovation by the fixed effect model and the two-stage least square (2SLS) method. The results indicate that public environmental concern positively affects green innovation. Specifically, for every 1% increase in public concern about the environment, green innovation in the city rose 2.1%. Moreover, government investment in environmental governance is a significant channel through which public concern influences green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis further showed that the positive effect of public concern is more pronounced in economically developed cities than in smaller and less developed cities. Finally, we put forward three possible policy implications: broadening channels for public participation, disclosing environmental information timely, and actively responding to public concerns.绿色技术创新是解决资源与环境问题的根本路径。作为一项“软约束”，公众环境关注度在绿色创新领域的影响力愈发凸显。本文构建了公众-创新者演化博弈模型，从理论层面证明公众关注度是推动创新者摒弃短视行为、开展绿色技术创新的关键因素。本文基于2011-2019年中国289个城市的百度指数（Baidu Index）数据，采用固定效应模型与两阶段最小二乘法（2SLS），对公众关注度对区域绿色创新的影响进行了实证检验。研究结果表明，公众环境关注度对绿色创新具有显著正向影响：具体而言，公众环境关注度每提升1%，城市绿色创新水平将提升2.1%。此外，政府环境治理投入是公众关注度影响绿色创新的重要传导路径。异质性分析进一步显示，相较于欠发达的中小城市，公众关注度的正向促进作用在经济发达城市中更为突出。最后，本文提出三项可行的政策启示：拓宽公众参与渠道、及时披露环境信息以及积极回应公众环境关切。