Front-End Environment Regulation, Heterogeneous FDI Spillover, and the Firm’s Green Global Value Chains Upgrading

This paper aims to leverage a unique dataset of enterprises that have undergone clean production audits and employ the propensity score matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method to examine the synergistic effects of clean production audit policies and heterogeneous FDI spillovers on firms’ green global value chain (GGVC) positions. The results indicate that clean production audit policies significantly promote the GGVC position of enterprises. Specifically, the synergistic effect between clean production audit policies and JVs spillovers substantially enhances firms’ GGVC positions, while no significant synergistic effect is observed with WOFEs spillovers. Furthermore, the synergistic effects exhibit notable heterogeneity across different enterprises. This research has important implications for developing countries seeking to facilitate the upgrading of firms’ GGVC positions.