Can financial efficiency and environmental regulation promote R&D innovation? From the perspective of value chain decomposition

There is a plethora of current research on economic or financial resources for fostering innovation. These studies lack the micro-analysis and, more importantly, disregard the effect of environmental control. This study will offer a new analytical paradigm by linking financial growth, environmental regulation, and innovation growth throughout the value chain. Using the information on 30 Chinese provinces collected between 1990 and 2020, we develop a dynamic panel data model to examine the interplay between financial effectiveness, ecological regulation, and research and development (R&D) innovation. We assess the impact that the efficiency of financial organizations and the stock market have on R&D’s ability to influence R&D innovation. There are positive spillover effects for stock market efficiency, which boosts the development and conversion of R&D innovation; there are positive spillover effects for financial institution efficiency, which hurts the conversion of R&D innovation, and there is an adverse effect on environmental regulation efficiency. To what extent environmental rules affect the commercialization of research and development innovation is unclear; human capital is an effective motivator for the advancement of R&D innovation, and the volume of FDI may increase the commercialization of R&D innovation.