How does digital finance influence green technology innovation in China? Evidence from the financing constraints perspective

Green innovation activities of enterprises often fall into the dilemma of financing constraints. Hence, it is urgent that the financial system develops and becomes innovative, especially for a developing country like China. Existing literature mainly explores the influencing factors of green innovation from the environmental regulation, economic growth and government subsidies perspective. However, few papers critically study how digital finance influences green innovations. To explore the internal influencing mechanism of digital finance on the quantity and quality of green technology innovation, panel data of 271 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019 in China is used. Based on theoretical analysis and empirical research, we get the following conclusions. First, digital finance can improve the quantity and quality of green technological innovation, which has become a significant driving force for green innovations in China. The results are still robust after the endogeneity tests. Second, the results of heterogeneous analysis indicate that the different dimensions of digital finance can improve green innovations. They include breadth of coverage, depth of use, and degree of digitization. The positive effect of digital finance is most substantial in eastern cities, followed by central cities, and weakest in western cities. Third, digital finance indirectly improves green innovation mainly by alleviating financing constraints. Our empirical results provide policy enlightenment for realizing the coordination of China's urban digital transformation and green economic development.

Spatial effect analysis of heterogeneous green technology innovations on pollution emission reduction: evidence from China's power industry

Based on the provincial panel dataset of the power industry in China from 1997 to 2020, this study employed the dynamic spatial Durbin model (SDM) to investigate the spatial effects of heterogeneous green technology innovations (GTIs) of the power industry chain-clean energy GTIs (GTI1), fossil-fueled GTIs (GTI2), energy-saving GTIs (GTI3), and power transmission technology innovations (GTI4)-on three pollution emission reduction: SO_2, solid waste (SW), and waste water (WW). The empirical results revealed that three pollution emissions showed "path dependent" and "snowball effects." GTI1, GTI2, and GTI3 reduced local SO₂ and SW emissions, while GTI2 and GTI4 had no obvious reduction effects on WW emissions. Different GTIs had the same spatial "symbiotic effects" on SO₂ emission reduction in the short term, showing positive spatial spillover reduction effects. Finally, it is of great significance to make full use of the positive spatial spillover effects of GTIs to promote the regional collaborative linkage of pollutant governance in the power industry.