Government intervention relieving and green innovation: evidence from China administrative approval reform

This paper studies how government intervention relieving affects corporate green innovation based on the establishments of administrative approval centers in China. We find that administrative approval reform impedes firm green innovation using a staggered difference-in-differences design. The underlying reason is that government intervention relief reduces firm’s pressure on green activities. We further show that the negative effect of establishment of service-oriented government on green innovation is more pronounced if the firms ex-ante are more affected by the government, firms with higher government subsidies, and firms located in lower marketization places.