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Does green finance stimulate green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises? Evidence from green finance pilot zones in China

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Abstract

There is a relative dearth of empirical studies quantitatively analyzing the implementation effect of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones (GFRIs) on green innovation at the micro-enterprise level. Thus, this paper aims to construct the difference-in-difference-in-difference method to explore the influence of Chinese GFRIs on corporate green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises based on green patent data. Results show that the pilot policy has significantly decreased green patents of heavy-polluting enterprises by approximately 42.64%, indicating that the policy has a significant innovation inhibition effect and fails to exert the Porter effect. Furthermore, establishing GFRIs has a more effective inhibition effect on the green invention patent than the green utility model patent. Moreover, although enterprises of different scales have different innovation capabilities, the negative impact of GFRIs on green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises is widespread. Still, the negative impact is more pronounced for big-scale enterprises. The above empirical evidence is essential in formulating green finance development strategies and promoting green economic transformation.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. The five priority tasks include cutting overcapacity, reducing excess inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and strengthening areas of weakness.

  2. http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2017-06/14/content_5202609.htm

  3. This paper mainly focuses on the effect of the first batch of pilots; thus, the pilot zones mentioned below refer to the eight regions in five provinces if there is no special explanation.

  4. See, http://www.pbc.gov.cn

  5. https://www.cnrds.com

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, People’s Republic of China

    Chenyang Ran

  2. School of Economics and Management, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, 266580, People’s Republic of China

    Yuru Zhang

Authors
  1. Chenyang Ran
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  2. Yuru Zhang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Yuru Zhang. The data analysis was performed by Chenyang Ran, and the first draft of the manuscript was written by Chenyang Ran. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chenyang Ran.

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Appendices

Appendix 1. The brief description of the variables

Table

Table 8 This table gives the definition and description of each variable used in the analysis. Green patent is the dependent variable, and green invention patent and green utility model patent are the two dimensions of green patent. The next six are control variables
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8

Appendix 2

Table

Table 9 Heavy-industry classification of listed companies
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9

Appendix 3

Table

Table 10 The corresponding estimated results of the common trend test
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10

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Ran, C., Zhang, Y. Does green finance stimulate green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises? Evidence from green finance pilot zones in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 60678–60693 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26758-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26758-z

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