Lecture title：How does green finance affect green total factor productivity? Evidence from China
Time: 10:00-12:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 4
Place: # Tencent Conference: 165-848-935
Reporter: Professor Li Jianqiang, School of Economics and Management, Nanchang University
Introduction to the keynote speaker:
Li Jianqiang, born in 1972, is a professor, doctoral advisor, outstanding talent of the School of Economics and Management of Nanchang University, the head of the International Institute of Energy Economics and Finance, and the innovation leader of Jiangxi Province. The research direction is energy economics and green finance. Ranking of global economists released by RePEc ranks top 1% in Asia; Awarded 2021 Elsevier "China's highly cited scholar"; He has published more than 200 SSCI papers as the first author or corresponding author, and has been cited more than 17000 times by peers at home and abroad. Two monographs have been published, including: research on the characteristics of global energy economy development -- evaluation, impact and comparative analysis; Modern energy economics. International journals published include Journal of Banking and Finance; Journal of Money, Credit and Banking; Ecological Economics; Energy Policy; Energy Economics; Energy Journal, etc. He served as the guest editor of SSCI's authoritative journal Energy Economics, Applied Economics, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Economic Analysis and Policy, Renewable&Sustainable Energy Reviews, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, and other guest editors. The guest editor published special topics including green finance, energy transformation, and sustainable development.
Photo of the speaker:
While the literature has studied various factors affecting green productivity growth, there is a relative dearth of empirical studies quantitatively analyzing the linkage between green finance development and green productivity. Based on a comprehensive index of green finance development, this research thus employs panel data of 30 China’s provinces for the period 2006-2018 to explore the influence of green finance on green total factor productivity (GTFP), revealing estimation results that green finance development significantly improves the level of green productivity. This beneficial effect tends to be stronger in provinces with higher levels of economic and social conditions, more public participation in environmental protection, and high pollution levels. We also find that implementing a green finance policy can further enhance the impact of green finance development. The empirical results herein offer policy implications to China’s green finance planning and environmental policy.
The contributions of the current research can be summarized as three-fold. First, we fill the gap in the literature on increasing awareness as to the importance of the green economy by exploring the connection between green finance and green productivity. Compared with the standard approach that considers green productivity is a function of scale, technology, and structure, we expand the theoretical framework by adding green finance development as an important influencing factor on GTFP. By doing so, more complete information about the causes of green productivity can be drawn not only from the real sector, but also from the financial sector. Second, compared to previous single-dimensional measures of green finance such as low-carbon financial flows and the amount of green credit or green investment, we extend existing research by introducing a thorough index system of green finance from the perspectives of green-oriented credit, securities, insurance, and investment to explore the role of green finance development on the green economy. The multidimensional index could provide a more complete evaluation on the development of green finance. Third, unlike previous works on traditional productivity that mainly considers good output, we apply the super-SBM model with undesirable output and solve the potential omission problem of energy and environmental constraints.
At present, many literatures have studied various factors that affect the growth of green productivity, but empirical research on quantitative analysis of the relationship between green financial development and green productivity is relatively lacking. Based on the comprehensive index of green finance development, this study discusses the impact of green finance on green total factor productivity (GTFP). The results show that green finance has significantly improved GTFP, and the positive impact is more obvious in provinces with higher economic and social conditions, higher public participation in environmental protection and higher pollution. This paper also finds that the implementation of green finance policy can further enhance the impact of green finance development. Finally, this paper provides corresponding policy recommendations for China's green financial planning and environmental policy.
The research contributions of this paper can be summarized into three points. First, this paper fills in the literature gap about the importance of green economy by exploring the relationship between green finance and green productivity. Secondly, compared with the previous single-dimension indicators of green finance, this paper introduces a complete set of green finance indicator system from the perspective of green-oriented credit, securities, cash preservation and investment to explore the relationship between green finance and green productivity. Thirdly, unlike traditional productivity measurement, this paper applies Super-SBM model to solve the potential omission of energy and environmental constraints.
(Undertaken by: Department of Applied Economics, Scientific Research and Academic Exchange Center, Graduate Teaching Center)
