Does green technology innovation promote green economic growth? –Examining regional heterogeneity between resource-based and non-resource-based cities

Using the radial Direction Distance Function (DDF) Golbal-Malmquist-luenberger (GML) index to calculate the growth efficiency of all-factor green economy, 262 resource-based and non-resource-based cities in China from 2003 to 2018 were taken as samples. The effects of green technology innovation on the growth efficiency of green economy and its heterogeneity are discussed through the fixed-effect model, and the internal influencing mechanism between resource dependence, green technology innovation and green economy growth in resource-based areas is further tested. The results show that: under the whole sample, green technology innovation has an “inverted U-shaped” nonlinear effect on the efficiency of green economy. Green technology innovation promotes the growth of green economy, However, with the continuous improvement of the level of green technology innovation, its marginal effect on the efficiency of green economy growth decreases. In the heterogeneity analysis of resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities, it is found that the impact of green technology innovation on green economic growth in resource-based cities is greater than that in non-resource-based cities. In the heterogeneity analysis of different resource-based cities, it is found that green technology innovation of growing and mature resource-based cities will significantly promote the growth of green economy. The mechanism test shows that the dependence of resource-based cities on natural resources will have a “crowding out effect” on human capital investment and science and technology investment.