The role of green innovation in advancing China’s rural revitalization: Evidence from Guangdong’s prefecture-level cities

This study investigates how green innovation drives rural revitalization in China’s sustainable development framework, focusing on institutional thresholds and spatial heterogeneity. We use panel data from 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province from 2009 to 2022 and apply a threshold regression model to examine both linear and nonlinear effects of green innovation. The results reveal that green innovation positively influences rural revitalization only after surpassing a critical level of regional innovation capacity. This critical threshold effect indicates that the benefits of green innovation for rural development are unevenly distributed and rely heavily on local absorptive capacity and institutional context. Our findings contribute to sustainability research, highlighting how green innovation interacts with policy-driven rural development goals, particularly in emerging economies. Furthermore, this research provides region-specific policy recommendations to support inclusive, innovation-driven, and environmentally sustainable revitalization strategies. This paper integrates institutional and sustainable development theory to provide a deeper understanding of the dynamic role of technological change in reshaping rural development pathways within the global green transition agenda.