The Influence of the Policy of Replacing Environmental Protection Fees with Taxes on Enterprise Green Innovation—Evidence from China’s Heavily Polluting Industries

This paper analyzes the impact of the policy of replacing environmental protection “fees” with “taxes” on enterprise green innovation based on the Chinese A-share listed companies sample from 2015 to 2019. This paper tries to analyze the factors that may affect the level of green innovation of enterprises and the ability of enterprise green innovation (GI) under the background of the implementation of this policy. This paper adopts the difference-in-differences method (DID), takes 1 January 2018 as the time variable demarcation boundary and uses the heavily polluting industry as the dummy variable boundary, conducts group research on the experimental variables, and observes and analyzes the impact of heavily polluting industries and non-heavy pollution before and after the implementation of the policy. It is found that the policy significantly improves green innovation and the R&D efficiency of green innovation of enterprises in heavy pollution industries. Further research reveals that after the implementation of the policy, large enterprises and private enterprises, compared with SMEs and state-owned enterprises, lay more stress on improving green innovation technology. In the end, it examines the relationship between senior executives’ academic research experience and enterprises’ green innovation and finds that senior executives’ academic research experience can not only promote green innovation, but also improve the R&D efficiency of green innovation. The research results of this paper provide a theoretical basis for decision makers and enterprise management in formulating rules and managing enterprises.