Be regulated before be innovative? How environmental regulation makes enterprises technological innovation do better for public health

Global environment deterioration has been posing threats to public health (PH), which becomes the evidence questioning the efficiency of environmental regulation (ER) from the government. As such, whether ER positively affects PH is an important issue to explore. According to institutional theory and resource-based view, this study aims to analyze the relationships among ER, Environmental regulation flexibility (ERF), enterprise technological innovation (TI) and PH. This study is conducted among the Chinese A-share listed companies running from 2015 to 2018. The results show that: (1) A strict ER is conducive to PH. (2) ER has a restraining effect on TI. (3) There is a negative relationship between TI and PH, where TI partially mediates the impact of ER on PH. (4) ERF has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between ER and TI, but it positively regulates the relationship between TI and PH. The results also indicate that it is necessary to give ER more flexible to enable TI to exert positive roles and restrain its negative effects, thereby improving PH.