Xingang Huan

Green finance can promote economic transformation and technological innovation and play a key role in solving the ecological environment and energy crisis. This paper constructs a comprehensive ecological livable environment evaluation system based on the provincial panel data in China from 2011 to 2019. At the same time, the panel mediation effect and spatial econometric model are used to test the impact of green finance on the ecological and livable environment. The main research conclusions include the following: (1) green finance has significantly improved China’s ecological and livable environment; (2) green finance improves the ecological and livable environment by improving the level of technological innovation; (3) the impact of green finance on the ecological livable environment has regional heterogeneity, and green finance in the central provinces has a better effect on the improvement of the ecological livable environment; and (4) the ecological livable environment among Chinese provinces has a significant positive spatial correlation. Among them, green finance has significantly improved the local ecological livable environment but reduced the ecological livable environment of surrounding provinces. Based on the above conclusions, this paper suggests that the government should pay more attention to green finance and technological innovation and coordinate the development of the ecological livable environment among provinces. The research results provide empirical evidence for better developing green finance and improving the ecological livable environment and also provide certain theoretical guidance for China’s coordinated regional development and high-quality economic development.

Regional green technological progress is an important driver of regional green technology innovations. To explore in depth the impact of green finance and international technology spillover on regional green technology innovation, this study incorporates green finance, international technology spillover, and green technology innovation into the same analytical framework. In addition, based on a new perspective of regional innovation capabilities, this study analyzes the impact of green finance and international green technology spillovers on green technology innovation. The data were collected in 30 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2019 and analyzed by a panel fixed-effects model. The interaction between green finance, international technology spillover, and regional innovation capability was investigated to understand the impact of each interaction on green technology innovation. Second, regional innovation capability was used as an intermediary variable to identify its underlying mechanism. Finally, the spatial spillover effect of green technology innovation was analyzed using the spatial Durbin model. We found that: (1) green finance, import trade, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), and regional innovation capability can promote regional green technology innovation, while inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) has an inhibitory effect on the innovation; (2) the interaction of green finance, international technology spillovers, and regional innovation capacity positively impacts green technology innovation; (3) green finance and international technology spillovers can promote green technology innovation by promoting regional innovation capabilities; (4) and green technology innovations have spatial spillover effects, and innovations in one region can promote the growth of green technologies in adjacent regions. This study provides a reference not only for China but also for other developing countries to promote green technology advancement and achieve sustainable development goals.

Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), as an important carrier of global technology and industrial transfer, will significantly impact the home country’s environment. Therefore, using data from 30 Chinese provinces gathered between 2004 and 2019, we empirically analyze the impact of OFDI on China’s carbon emissions across two dimensions: total carbon emissions and carbon emission efficiency. In addition, when the previous studies explored the impact of OFDI on carbon emissions, there were few studies on the synergistic emission reduction effect of OFDI. Therefore, based on sorting out previous research, we incorporated OFDI, technological progress, industrial structure upgrading, international trade, and carbon emissions into the same analytical framework. Based on the classic fixed model, we introduce the interaction term further to explore the synergistic emission reduction effect of OFDI. Our model suggests that OFDI has increased total carbon emissions, but the associated reverse technology spillover has improved carbon emission efficiency. We also found a synergistic emission reduction effect between OFDI and technological progress, international trade, and industrial structure upgrading. This synergistic effect suppresses the growth of total carbon emissions and improves carbon emissions efficiency. Robustness testing confirmed these results. This research also provides a relatively novel perspective for China to achieve the goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality”.