IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i23p10376-d1530636.html

Intelligent Manufacturing and Green Innovation—Evidence from China’s Listed Manufacturing Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoshu Xu

    (School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)

  • Jiangpei Pan

    (School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)

  • Xuechen Meng

    (School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)

Abstract

The realization of intelligent and green manufacturing represents two core challenges currently faced by manufacturing enterprises. The “Intelligent Manufacturing Pilot Demonstration List” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of the People’s Republic of China provides a sample of firms that have undergone stringent selection processes, demonstrating secure and controllable technological capabilities, with no intellectual property disputes. Using data from manufacturing firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2011 to 2020, we identify those that implemented intelligent manufacturing based on the aforementioned pilot list from 2015 to 2019 as the treatment group and the remaining firms as the control group to investigate whether intelligent manufacturing increases the number of green patent applications. The findings indicate that the implementation of intelligent manufacturing significantly increases green patent applications by 3.676% through three main pathways: reducing the level of financing constraints, improving resource utilization efficiency, and increasing R&D investment. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that state-owned enterprises exhibit a significantly stronger promotion effect on green innovation post-implementation of intelligent manufacturing compared to non-state-owned enterprises, with enterprises in the western region demonstrating the most pronounced enhancement in green innovation. Based on these findings, we propose corresponding recommendations from the perspectives of policy support and enterprise strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoshu Xu & Jiangpei Pan & Xuechen Meng, 2024. "Intelligent Manufacturing and Green Innovation—Evidence from China’s Listed Manufacturing Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-15, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:23:p:10376-:d:1530636
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/23/10376/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/23/10376/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Philippe Askenazy & Nicolas Berman & Gilbert Cette & Laurent Eymard, 2012. "Credit Constraints And The Cyclicality Of R&D Investment: Evidence From France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1001-1024, October.
    2. William Nordhaus, 2019. "Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 1991-2014, June.
    3. Arik Levinson, 2009. "Technology, International Trade, and Pollution from US Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2177-2192, December.
    4. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Zhengang & He, Gailei & Lu, Yushu, 2025. "Big data and Sustainability: Exploring the role of data element allocation in enhancing corporate performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Danni Wang & Tingwei Wang, 2025. "Does ESG Information Disclosure Improve Green Innovation in Manufacturing Enterprises?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-17, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Roberto Ganau & Kristina Maslauskaite & Monica Brezzi, 2021. "Credit constraints, labor productivity, and the role of regional institutions: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Europe," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 299-328, March.
    2. Xu Gong & Qin Liao & Wenzhou Qu & Wuqi Song, 2025. "Does Climate Risk Attention Sensitivity Affect Corporate Green Innovation? Evidence From China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 65(4), pages 3618-3632, December.
    3. Hanna Hottenrott & Bettina Peters, 2012. "Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation: More Money, More Innovation?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1126-1142, November.
    4. Masayuki MORIKAWA, 2012. "Financial Constraints in Intangible Investments: Evidence from Japanese firms," Discussion papers 12045, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Ferrando, Annalisa & Preuss, Carsten, 2018. "What finance for what investment? Survey-based evidence for European companies," EIB Working Papers 2018/01, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    6. Silvestri, Daniela & Riccaboni, Massimo & Della Malva, Antonio, 2018. "Sailing in all winds: Technological search over the business cycle," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 1933-1944.
    7. Bettina Peters & Mark J. Roberts & Van Anh Vuong, 2017. "Dynamic R&D choice and the impact of the firm's financial strength," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1-2), pages 134-149, February.
    8. Théo Nicolas, 2019. "How Do Short-term Financial Constraints Affect SMEs Long-Term Investment: Evidence from the Working Capital Channel," Working papers 731, Banque de France.
    9. Zeynep Kabukcuoglu, 2019. "The cyclical behavior of R&D investment during the Great Recession," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 301-323, January.
    10. Poncet, Sandra & Steingress, Walter & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2010. "Financial constraints in China: Firm-level evidence," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 411-422, September.
    11. Aysun, Uluc & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2019. "Interest rates, R&D investment and the distortionary effects of R&D incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 191-210.
    12. Zoey Wong & Afei Chen & Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary & Rongrong Li & Qunxi Kong, 2023. "Financing Constraints and Firm’s Productivity Under the COVID-19 Epidemic Shock: Evidence of A-Shared Chinese Companies," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(1), pages 167-195, February.
    13. Abdin, Joynal & Sharma, Abhijit & Trivedi, Rohit & Wang, Chengang, 2024. "Financing constraints, intellectual property rights protection and incremental innovation: Evidence from transition economy firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    14. Simona Mateut, 2018. "Subsidies, financial constraints and firm innovative activities in emerging economies," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 131-162, January.
    15. Annalisa Ferrando & Carsten Preuss, 2018. "What finance for what investment? Survey-based evidence for European companies," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(3), pages 1015-1053, December.
    16. Jan Philip Schain & Joel Stiebale, 2021. "Innovation, institutional ownership and financial constraints," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1689-1697, September.
    17. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Taylor, Mark P. & Wang, Zigan & Xu, Qi, 2022. "Currency volatility and global technological innovation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    18. Li, Dongxu, 2024. "Horizontal mergers and heterogeneous firm investments: evidence from the United States," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    19. Yu, Chin-Hsien & Wu, Xiuqin & Zhang, Dayong & Chen, Shi & Zhao, Jinsong, 2021. "Demand for green finance: Resolving financing constraints on green innovation in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    20. Kadri M�nnasoo & Jaanika Merikull, 2011. "How do demand fluctations and credit constraints affect R&D? Evidence from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2011-09, Bank of Estonia, revised 19 Jul 2011.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:23:p:10376-:d:1530636. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.