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Does financial development promote the win-win balance between environmental protection and economic growth?

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 25, pages 36438–36448 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Existing studies have analyzed the effects of financial development on economic growth and environmental pollution respectively, but few studies have analyzed the effects of financial development on economic growth and environmental protection from a unified framework. This paper reports on a study which took the 28 provinces of China, for the years 2002–2014, as its research object. It used green efficiency to measure the win-win balance between economic growth and environmental protection. It divided green efficiency into economic efficiency and environmental efficiency and then studied the effects of financial development on economic growth and environmental protection within a unified framework. The primary findings indicate that (1) overall, financial development is conducive to obtaining the win-win balance in China’s economy, with its positive effects on economic growth being more significant than on environmental protection; (2) capital market development promotes both economic growth and environmental protection, while also playing a significant role in the win-win balance of China’s economy.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Editor, as well as the three anonymous referees for valuable suggestions and comments that helped us improve our paper significantly.

Funding

Work of this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71503039], the Social Science Fund of Jiangsu Province [grant number 17GLB008], the Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Province [grant number 2017ZDIXM013], and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 2242017K40175, 2242018S30008].

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Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Shujing Yue, Rou Lu & Hongtao Chen

  2. Institute of Socialist Development with Chinese Characteristics, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Shujing Yue & Jianhong Yuan

  3. School of Marxism, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Jianhong Yuan

Authors
  1. Shujing Yue
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  2. Rou Lu
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  3. Hongtao Chen
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  4. Jianhong Yuan
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Correspondence to Shujing Yue.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Yue, S., Lu, R., Chen, H. et al. Does financial development promote the win-win balance between environmental protection and economic growth?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 36438–36448 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3549-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3549-y

Keywords

  • Win-win balance
  • Economic growth
  • Environmental protection
  • Financial development
  • Directional slacks-based measure