The moderating effect of Expressway Construction on Environmental Governance: Evidence from China

With the increasing severity of pollution, environmental infrastructure (EI) has gained more attention as a means of environmental governance to achieve regional sustainability. However, the construction of EI is complex and systematic due to path dependence of cities on technology and traditional industries. This paper investigates the relationship between technology transfer, EI investment, and expressway construction using panel data collected 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019. A twoway fixed effects model is utilized to validate the hypothesis. The results show that regions with higher levels of technology transfer significantly promote EI investment; Expressway construction has a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between EI investment and technology transfer. These findings indicate that regions that rely heavily on expressways may face challenges when transforming toward green development. Substitution variable method and time lag method were utilized to test the robustness of the results. This research not only reveals the micro mechanism of how technological transfer impacts EI investment, but also suggests the construction of EI should be region-specific by considering transport infrastructure.