Does the import of green products encourage green technology innovation? Empirical evidence from China

Green technology innovation capability is an important support for the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals, and it is of great significance to discuss the impact of green product imports on green technology innovation policy formulation in importing countries. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2012 to 2020, this paper empirically examines the effect and mechanism of green product imports on green technology innovation. The empirical results show that (1) the import of green products significantly constrain China's green technology innovation. After a series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests, the conclusion is still valid, and the inhibitory effect is mainly manifested as the import technology dependence effect. (2) From the impact of green product imports on different types of green technology innovation, the inhibition effect of incremental-type green technology innovation with lower innovation is stronger than that of radical-type technology innovation with higher innovation. (3) Further test of the moderating effect shows that green R&D investment weakens the inhibitory effect of green product import in the regions with higher and lower economic development levels, while the moderating effect of intellectual property protection only exists in the regions with less economic development. (4) The heterogeneity analysis shows that the import of different types of green products has a significant difference in the impact of green technology innovation. The finding of this study provides useful suggestions for formulating reasonable policies for promoting and protecting green technology innovation.