Public participation, innovation capability and green growth: a pilot study in Beijing

Existing studies mainly discuss the effects of command-and-control as well as market-oriented environmental regulations on green economies, yet few have focused on the functions of public participation in environmental governance, especially from a dynamic angle. To further enrich the discussion, this study constructs a dynamic relationship analytical framework between public participation and green growth to test existence of the Porter hypothesis (PH). Under this framework, a green GDP index is first constructed to represent the level of green growth. In addition, technological innovation is introduced as an intervening variable to observe the influencing mechanism of public participation on green growth. The research findings based on an empirical test of Beijing data confirm that a long-term stable coordination relationship exists among the three variables. Public participation promotes the improvement of innovation capability and green growth, but not vice versa. Therefore, the significant role of public participatory environmental regulation is supported which indicates that the PH is valid. Moreover, a virtuous circle relationship is also found between innovation and green growth. Accordingly, policy implications are proposed to advocate public participation in environmental regulations to promote regional green growth.