The greening effects of regional innovation symbiosis – Evidence from Chinese listed firms

This paper investigates the regional innovation symbiosis effect on firm green innovation. Chinese A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2018 were the sample and the entropy method was used to construct a regional innovation symbiosis index. We found that innovation symbiosis significantly promoted firm-level green innovation, with regional government environment investment playing an intermediary role. Further tests indicated that the effect was more pronounced when firms were in cities that had green industrial parks and in firms that publicly disclosed more environmental information. State-owned firms were found to be more likely to focus on green innovation in higher innovation symbiosis systems.