Does innovation efficiency inhibit the ecological footprint? An empirical study of China’s provincial regions

Innovation is an important driving force in regional sustainable development, and innovation efficiency improvements can promote regional innovation. This study uses the Hansen threshold regression model to examine innovation efficiency’s impact on the ecological footprint at different economic development levels in China’s provinces from 2003 to 2013. It uses the super efficiency slacks-based model to measure innovation efficiency, with night light data from the operational line-scan system employed by the defense meteorological program representing the regional economic development level. The conclusions are as follows: (1) improvements in regional innovation efficiency have an inhibitory effect on the ecological footprint, and this effect gradually weakens with increasing levels of economic development. (2) The inhibitory effect is spatially heterogeneous: it is stronger in eastern China than in central and western China. (3) Scientific and technological human resources are inhibitory at first, later promoting the ecological footprint. Scientific and technological financial and informational resources, as well as the number of scientific papers, promote the ecological footprint, but the promoting effect of financial resources is relatively smaller. Meanwhile, the number of patent applications has an inhibitory effect on the ecological footprint.