Impact of Technology Innovation on Air Quality—An Empirical Study on New Energy Vehicles in China
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Haoxuan Hu; Yuchen Zhang; Xi Rao; Yinghua Jin
- Source
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume 18
Issue 8
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol 18, Iss 4025, p 4025 (2021)
- Subject
- China
vehicle and vessel tax (VVT)
020209 energy
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
air pollution
Air pollution
New energy
new energy vehicles (NEVs)
lcsh:Medicine
02 engineering and technology
010501 environmental sciences
Empirical Research
medicine.disease_cause
01 natural sciences
Article
Unit (housing)
Empirical research
Inventions
0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
medicine
Technology innovation
Air quality index
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
lcsh:R
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
technology innovation
Fixed effects model
Environmental economics
Business
Economic Development
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1660-4601
China’s high economic growth has been accompanied by deteriorating air quality in recent decades. This paper aims to explore the relation between technology innovation (defined as the invention patent counts of each region) of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China and air quality. A panel fixed effect model is used to analyze this relation and the mediating effect methods are used to examine the role of the output of NEVs (defined as the annual production quantity of NEVs in each region (unit: thousand)). The results of our study show: (1) the impact of the technology innovation of NEVs on air quality is positive and statistically significant
(2) the mediating role of the output of NEVs is confirmed in the relation between NEVs innovation and air quality improvement
(3) the technology innovation of NEVs has a more notable impact on the air quality in the regions with higher vehicle and vessel tax (VVT). The present study implicates for the first time that the technology innovation of NEVs can enhance air quality with the mediating role of the output of NEVs and the moderating role of VVT.