Can government subsidies promote the green technology innovation transformation? Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on social activities and the global economy, the investment enthusiasm for green transformation in various countries has still been active. In fact, most countries have launched "green recovery" plans after 2020. Green technology innovation has attracted much attention, and many countries have introduced a series of subsidy policies to support green technology innovation transformation (GTIT). This study first discusses the influence of government subsidies on the GTIT of Chinese enterprises by using the manual collection and sorting of data concerning environmental protection subsidies, R&D subsidies, and talent subsidies, and the effects of these subsidies on different enterprises are analyzed. Empirical results show that environmental protection subsidies, R&D subsidies, and talent subsidies can significantly promote GTIT, and the effects of these subsidies on the GTIT of different enterprise are heterogeneous. The environmental protection subsidies, R&D subsidies, and talent subsidies have significant positive impacts on the GTIT of non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and high asset–liability-ratio enterprises. In contrast, only environmental protection and talent subsidies have significant positive effects on the GTIT of enterprises with low asset–liability-ratio. Environmental protection subsidies, R&D subsidies, and talent subsidies will promote the enterprises to increase their R&D investment, therefore enhancing their GTIT. Our research distinguishes the types of government subsidies for the first time and analyzes their impacts on different enterprises, which will be helpful for governments to improve relevant policies.