2026/07/01 by Jing Li, Dan Sun, Dan sun +1
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Economic Growth and Productivity #Economic and Technological Innovation #University-Industry-Government Innovation Models
paper · doi:10.1016/j.iref.2026.105672
openalex publication_date 2026/07/01 · openalex created_date 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This paper studies the causal effect of regional integration on firm-level technological innovation by exploiting the phased expansion of the Yangtze River Delta City Economic Coordination Committee (YRD-CECC) as a quasi-natural experiment and using panel data on listed renewable energy firms from 2005 to 2021. Focusing on renewable energy is substantively important because the sector is central to energy security, low-carbon transition, and sustainable industrial upgrading, while its relatively young innovation networks reduce the confounding influence of long-established interfirm collaboration. Implementing staggered difference-in-differences estimators, we find that integration increases firms' innovation output by relaxing financing constraints, lowering transaction costs, and expanding market access. The effects are heterogeneous: they are stronger for state-owned and small firms, whereas medium-sized firms show weaker responses. We document a pronounced spatial decay pattern: innovation gains decline with distance from the integration core. Digital transformation attenuates, but does not eliminate, this distance penalty by enhancing knowledge spillovers and facilitating cross-regional coordination. The evidence shows that institutional integration and digital upgrading complement each other in promoting renewable energy innovation and offers policy implications for coordinated regional development, green industrial upgrading, and innovation-oriented governance.