Against the backdrop of China’s growing environmental concerns, investing in green technology innovation is a crucial solution to achieve the goal of “carbon peak and carbon neutrality”. Combining the perspectives of signaling theory and corporate governance theory, we use a sample of Chinese-listed companies from 2008 to 2020 to investigate the influence of analysts’ green coverage (AGC) on corporate green innovation (CGI) and the moderating effect of corporate environmental information disclosure (CEID) based on a textual analysis approach. The results show that AGC can significantly promote the quantity and quality of CGI, and CEID has a positive moderating effect on the process. Moreover, the mechanism analysis reveals that enhancing investors’ value recognition, improving corporate reputation capital, alleviating corporate financing constraints, reducing management agency costs, and curbing managerial myopia are the influence mechanisms of AGC on CGI. Additionally, the positive effect of AGC is more significant for firms located in regions with a favorable institutional environment, firms belonging to heavily polluting industries, and firms that have not adopted continuous innovation strategies.

Green technology innovation of heavily polluting enterprises is a critical way to alleviate environmental pressure and promote sustainable development. However, the ways in which the interaction of influencing factors affects heavily polluting enterprises in green technology innovation in China have not been fully addressed and need to be investigated in this field. This paper explored the impact of government environmental regulation, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and public attention on promoting green technology innovation of heavily polluting enterprises based on S-O-R (stimulus–organism–response) and stakeholder theories. The panel data of A-share listed companies in China’s heavily polluting industries from 2008 to 2020 was used to investigate their interactions by adopting POLS (Pooled Ordinary Least Square) method. The main results show that (1) environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation; it especially has a great impact on state-owned heavily polluting enterprises; (2) CSR plays a mediating role between environmental regulation and green technology innovation; (3) public attention has a moderating effect between CSR and green technology innovation and also moderates the indirect effect of environmental regulation on green technology innovation through CSR. The results illustrate that green technology innovation should be not only guided by governmental regulation, but also supplemented by enterprises’ internal driven force and public supervision, which can give implications for promoting the development of green technology innovation and optimizing environmental policy tools.

Reasonable spatial system distribution is the prerequisite for the optimization of resource and spatial allocation and the coordinated development of the regional economy. Therefore, correctly identifying the impact of different types of spatial structures on scientific and technological innovation is an important way to promote the rational layout of regional spatial structures and enhance the strength of regional scientific and technological innovation. Based on the theory of regional spatial structure and panel data of 26 provinces and autonomous regions in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper tested the impact of regional spatial structure on innovation efficiency and gap by constructing the regional spatial structure index, the innovation efficiency index, and the innovation gap index. The research results show that: First, the agglomeration effect produced by a single-center spatial structure is conducive to improving the efficiency of scientific and technological innovation, whereas the spillover effect generated by a multi-center spatial structure is more favorable for narrowing the gap in scientific and technological innovation. Second, the single-center spatial structure is more suitable for provinces and cities in the western region with relatively low levels of economic development, whereas the multi-center spatial structure is more beneficial to the achievement of innovative and high-quality development in the eastern region. Third, the moderating effect analysis shows that with an increase in cultural diversity and inter-city distance, the partial effects of the single-center spatial structure on innovation efficiency present an “N” shape and an “inverted-U” shape, respectively, whereas the partial effects of the multi-center spatial structure on the innovation gap exhibit “inverted-U” shapes. This research not only provides theoretical support for the impact of regional spatial structure on innovation efficiency and gap but also offers empirical evidence for future regional development path choices.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance has become a vital instrument for corporations to integrate sustainable development principles into business operations. Against the dual backdrop of disruptions in the international order and economic instability, investigating the impact of corporate ESG performance on total factor productivity (TFP) under environmental uncertainty is of significant importance. Utilizing data from Chinese A-share listed companies spanning the period 2011 to 2022, this study employs a baseline regression model, a mediation effect model, a moderation effect model, and a moderated mediation model to examine the impact of corporate ESG performance on TFP under conditions of environmental uncertainty. The results indicate that (1) corporate ESG performance exerts a positive influence on TFP, particularly in tertiary industry firms, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and enterprises with lower environmental risks; (2) improving ESG performance helps alleviate financing constraints, enhance human capital, and boost innovation capability, thereby strengthening TFP; and (3) environmental uncertainty moderates the pathway through which ESG performance affects TFP, amplifying its positive effect. Based on these findings, it is recommended that countries collaborate to establish a global, cross-industry platform for sharing ESG practices, develop a stable ESG policy framework and incentive mechanisms, and encourage enterprises to enhance their ESG management and resilient governance capabilities to promote sustainable economic development.