LAUSR

Abstract Energy-intensive industries are a priority for achieving low-carbon economic growth in China, and a large number of government R&D subsidies have been injected into energy-intensive firms to support green innovation in recent years. Most of the existing literature has studied the impacts of R&D subsidies on the general innovation of high-tech firms or emerging enterprises. This paper explores the impacts of government R&D subsidies on the green innovation of energy-intensive firms. By employing propensity score matching with 527 samples of listed companies from 2010 to 2015, the empirical results show that government R&D subsidies increase the green innovation of energy-intensive firms, specifically their tendency and performance, by 107.3% and 54.1%, respectively. Heterogeneity analyses show that the impact is stronger in state-owned enterprises and in small and medium enterprises. Finally, some practical implications are put forward that may help to improve the efficiency of government R&D subsidies and promote the green innovation of energy-intensive firms.