Innovation stages, knowledge spillover, and green economy development: moderating role of absorptive capacity and environmental regulation

In the past 20 years, the green economy has increasingly attracted the attention of governments and policy makers. However, most studies have only focused on the relationship between the green economy and innovation, and little attention has been given to the relationship between the different innovation stages and the green economy. This study draws on eco-innovation and institutional theories and proposes a model to empirically investigate the effects between the different innovation stages and green economy. Furthermore, it explores how these effects are mediated by knowledge spillover and moderated by absorptive capacity and environment regulations. We use data from the last 5 years (2012–2016) obtained from different China regions to empirically test the model. Results show that knowledge innovation, research and development (R&D) innovation, and product innovation have the same significant positive impact on knowledge spillovers. R&D and product innovation have a significant positive impact on green economy, whereas knowledge innovation has no significant effect on the development of the green economy. Knowledge spillover partially mediates the relationship between the innovation stage and the green economy. Meanwhile, absorptive capacity positively moderates the relationship between knowledge spillover and the green economy. However, environmental regulation negatively moderates the relationship between knowledge spillover and the green economy. In addition, corresponding measures are proposed based on the conclusions.