Corporate financialization, digitalization and green innovation: A panel investigation on Chinese listed firms

Abstract

By employing a panel dataset of Chinese listed companies spanning from 2010 to 2021, our study empirically examines the correlation between corporate financialization and corporate green innovation, and explores its heterogeneities in terms of property rights structure and digitalization. Our findings suggest that corporate financialization has a negative impact on corporate green innovation. This negative influence is primarily attributed to the substitution of corporate financialization for research and development funds that are essential for corporate green innovation, while the “reservoir effect” of corporate financialization is not significant. In comparison to state-owned enterprises, which face weaker financing constraints, the impact of corporate financialization on green innovation is more significant in private enterprises. Moreover, we find that digitalization could alleviate the inhibition of corporate financialization on green innovation. Based on our findings, we offer several suggestions for developing strategies to promote green innovation in China.