The Impact of Green R&D Activities on SO2 Emissions: Evidence from China

Prior research on the effectiveness of improving environmental performance has acknowledged the importance of domestic research and development (R&D) activities. However, these studies remain general and ambiguous because they assume that all R&D operations are associated with environmental performance. The corresponding empirical evidence is inexact and ambiguous. In this study, we focus on the effect of green R&D activities on SO2 emission. Considering that heterogeneity exists in green R&D activities, we divide them into two groups for two purposes. The empirical results, explored based on China’s interprovincial data between 2000 and 2016, suggest that green R&D activities critically influence the reduction of SO2 emissions. However, the R&D activities of different purposes show statistically differentiated effects on SO2 emissions. Primarily, utility-type R&D activities show the most significant positive impact on SO2 emissions reduction. Subsequent research based on the panel threshold also indicates that the impact of green R&D activities on SO2 emissions shows nonlinear characteristics, depending on the technology’s absorptive ability.