How does environmental regulation affect different approaches of technical progress?-Evidence from China's industrial sectors from 2005 to 2015

More and more literature pays attention to the relationship between environmental regulation and technical progress. Researchers usually select patents or total R&D expenditure as a proxy for technical progress. However, researchers cannot identify R&D strategies of producers through total R&D expenditure. Moreover, external technical support, such as technical cooperation or technical introduction, cannot be patented although it can achieve technical progress. To fill this gap, the approaches to technical progress need to be reidentified and new measurements made. This study considers three approaches to technical progress: technical cooperation, technical introduction, and in-house R&D. The impacts of environmental regulation on the three approaches are examined based on data from China's industrial sectors from 2005 to 2015. The findings show that environmental regulation has a significant negative impact on technical cooperation and technical introduction, but no impact on in-house R&D. In highly polluting sectors, environmental regulation has a significant negative impact on all three approaches. There is no significant impact of environmental regulation on the three approaches in low polluting sectors. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.