The impact of innovation on environmental quality: Evidence for the non-linear relationship of patents and CO2 emissions in China.

We seek to test whether innovation, measured by the number of accepted patents improves or worsens the environment in China. We hypothesize the existence of an inverse U-shaped curve, which differs by industry and provincial level of development. In that context, we test for a quadratic relationship between accepted patents and CO2 emissions per capita in 30 provinces and 32 economic sectors of China.