Achieving green growth through official accountability: The impact of administrative pressure on green innovation efficiency

Administrative pressure on local officials concerning environmental performance is a pivotal factor influencing regional green development. To explore how such pressure affects green innovation efficiency—a key determinant of competitive sustainability—this study examines the case of China, based on the data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2022, considering the Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Inspection system as a quasi-natural experimental scenario and constructing a comprehensive theoretical framework to conduct empirical investigations. The results confirm that administrative pressure for environmental performance has a constructive influence on the efficiency of regional green technology innovation. Specifically, heightened accountability motivates officials to employ more proactive administrative measures to improve green innovation outcomes. In addition, the ecological assessment pressure on officials can accelerate the development of green finance, promote the upgrading of industrial structure, increase environmental regulatory pressure, and thereby improve regional green innovation efficiency. Notably, the effect of administrative pressure is nonlinear. As regional green innovation efficiency improves, the marginal effect of such pressure initially increases and then declines. Furthermore, considering regional divergences in pollution intensity and innovation resource endowments and conditional on the stringency of local environmental oversight, the marginal effect of administrative environmental pressure on the efficiency of green technology innovation is spatially heterogeneous. These findings demonstrate the importance of calibrating administrative assessment pressure to incentivize local officials to effectively employ policy tools that support enterprises and research institutions. Such tailored approaches can strengthen regional green innovation capacity, enhance efficiency, and ultimately bolster sustainable competitiveness.