Quantity or quality? The impacts of environmental regulation and government R&D funding on green technology innovation: evidence from China

Utilizing a panel data of 271 cities in China from 2009 to 2019, this study explores the impacts of environmental regulation and government R&D funding on the quantity and quality of green technology innovation. The results firstly show that environmental regulation exerts U-shaped effects on the quantity and quality of green technology innovation, and its promoting effect on the quality of green technology innovation appears earlier than that on the quantity of green technology innovation. Secondly, government R&D funding significantly promotes the quantity and quality of green technology innovation, while its promoting effect on the quantity of green technology innovation overweighs that on the quality of green technology innovation. Finally, government R&D funding positively moderates the relationships between environmental regulation and the quantity of green technology innovation as well as environmental regulation and the quality of green technology innovation, and the positive moderating effect on the quantity of green technology innovation exceeds that on the quality of green technology innovation.