Climate risks: nexus between green financial policies and fiscal space

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aimed at preserving firm-level and macro-financial stability against climate-related physical and transition risks, green financial policies are often viewed as complements to fiscal policies. While the latter are aimed directly at an economy-wide state-led green transformation, the former are targeted specifically towards the financial sector. In this context, this article makes two contributions to the climate change/green finance literature. First, it creates a green financial policy intensity index which measures the cumulative number of such policies rolled out by countries from 1995 till 2021. Second, it empirically examines the nexus between the uptake of these policies and fiscal space. Our findings suggest that higher physical and transition climate risks are associated with more green financial policies being undertaken, but only for countries with limited fiscal space or a high fiscal deficit.