The Golden Tax Project III and green innovation: evidence from heavily polluting enterprises in China

Using Golden Tax Project III in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the influence of tax enforcement on green innovation based on the panel data of China’s heavily polluting enterprises from 2012 to 2020. Our baseline results show that the Golden Tax Project III negatively affects green innovation, and the impact still exists after a battery of robustness and endogeneity tests. Mechanism analyses reveal that increasing financial constraints contributes to less green innovation. Furthermore, heterogeneity analyses show that the negative relationship is more prominent in non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with fewer analyst coverage, enterprises with lower institutional shareholding, non-high-tech enterprises, and enterprises located in eastern region. Our research reveals a previously under-explored adverse consequence of the Golden Tax Project III, its hindrance to green innovation. Some implications are put forward to mitigate the negative effect of Golden Tax Project III on corporate green innovation.