Can green financial development promote regional ecological efficiency? A case study of China

Abstract

This paper aims to objectively identify the impact of green finance on the green economy of China, and then put forward some suggestions that good for the government to guide the development of green finance, and promote the full play of finance in promoting development of the green economy. Through constructing an index system and a super-efficiency slack-based model, this study measures the level of green financial development and regional ecological efficiency, respectively, for Chinese 30 provinces between 2010 and 2015. On this basis, taking per capita GDP, industrial structure, urbanization rate, and energy efficiency as controlling variables, we construct a varying intercept model and a varying coefficient model. Our primary findings are that the impact of China’s green financial development on regional ecological efficiency is not obvious in general, and the corresponding average influence coefficient is − 0.1847, which is inconsistent with theoretical analysis. Also, other impacts from per capita GDP, industrial structure, urbanization rate, and energy efficiency on ecological efficiency are statistically significant; the coefficients are − 0.1701, 0.3901, 0.5410, and 0.3022, respectively. Moreover, there are significant regional differences in the impacts of green financial development on ecological efficiency. For some provinces, such as Tianjin, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, green financial development significantly promotes ecological efficiency. However, for Beijing, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, it is inconsistent with theoretical analysis.