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Environmental protection tax is an important tool for directing environmentally friendly growth in heavily polluting enterprises, but existing research has yet to provide consistent conclusions on whether and how environmental protection tax can promote green innovation in heavily polluting industries. The paper uses a double difference model based on data from Chinese listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2012 to 2021 to empirically investigate whether environmental protection tax drives green innovation behavior of heavily polluting enterprises. The findings show that the environmental protection tax increases the degree of green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, primarily through the anti-driving effect, in which an increase in environmental management expenses forces firms to increase their R&D investment, which improves the degree of green technical innovation. Furthermore, the environmental protection tax has a strong promotion effect on heavy polluters’ green innovation for state-owned enterprises and those in growing period or located in high marketization regions. However, this promotion effect is insignificant for non-state-owned enterprises and those in recession period, and environmental protection tax hinders green innovation of enterprises in mature period and those located in low marketization regions. Accordingly, it is suggested to improve preferential tax policies, increase investment in corporate green innovation and strengthen the supervision of environmental tax.

环境保护税（environmental protection tax）是引导重污染企业（heavily polluting enterprises）向环境友好型增长转型的重要工具，但现有研究尚未就环境保护税能否以及如何推动重污染行业（heavily polluting industries）绿色创新（green innovation）达成一致结论。本文基于2012-2021年中国重污染行业上市公司（listed companies）数据，运用双重差分模型（double difference model），实证检验了环境保护税对重污染企业绿色创新行为的驱动作用。研究结果表明，环境保护税能够提升重污染企业的绿色创新水平，其作用路径主要为倒逼效应：环境管理成本的增加倒逼企业加大研发（R&D）投入，进而提升绿色技术创新水平。进一步研究发现，环境保护税对国有企业（state-owned enterprises）、成长期企业以及位于高市场化地区的重污染企业的绿色创新具有显著的促进作用；而对非国有企业（non-state-owned enterprises）、衰退期企业的促进作用并不显著，同时还会抑制成熟期企业以及位于低市场化地区企业的绿色创新。据此，本文提出优化税收优惠政策、加大企业绿色创新投入以及强化环境税监管的相关建议。