Is green manufacturing expensive? Empirical evidence from China

With increasingly serious environmental problems, a circular economy production system is in urgent needs. This study explores whether green manufacturing (GM) is expensive and how external institutional environmental pressures influence the cost of GM among industrial enterprises in emerging economies. Through an analysis of 10,380 observations of 1470 listed manufacturing firms in the Chinese share market from 2008 to 2015, this paper finds that GM increases operating cost (OC). In addition, the positive relationship between GM and OC is strengthened with reduced pollution level in the local city. Furthermore, synergistic effects of the local pollution level and the local government's pollution information transparency are found. Firms' OC increases more as firms carry out GM when both the local pollution level and pollution information transparency of local government are high, or when the local pollution level and the local government's pollution information transparency are low.