| Currently,China’s economy is in a high-quality development stage of shifting gears and improving growth rates.As the leading force for green development,ecological technology innovation is not only an important support for the construction of ecological civilization but also an important means to achieve sustainable economic and social development and the"dual carbon" target.Despite this,the improvement of China’s ecological technology innovation level has been constrained by a funding bottleneck.Green finance,as the financial"lifeblood" of green development,can guide financial resources to tilt towards green industries and provide financing and investment support for the research and development of ecological technology,accelerating its development and promotion.Therefore,exploring the mechanisms and heterogeneity of how green finance affects the efficiency of ecological technology innovation is of great significance for improving China’s ecological technology innovation level and achieving green and low-carbon development.Firstly,based on the theories related to financial sustainable development and technological innovation,this paper analyzes the impact and mechanism of green finance on ecological technology innovation efficiency from the perspective of its basic functions.Secondly,the indicator system for green finance and ecological technology innovation efficiency is improved,and a combined subjective and objective panel entropy method and a super-efficiency SBM model including unexpected outputs are used for measurement and current situation analysis.Then,a two-way fixed effects model is constructed using panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020 to empirically verify the hypotheses proposed in this paper.To address endogeneity,instrumental variable methods and generalized method of moments estimation are used,and the robustness of the conclusions is further verified by changing the econometric model,adjusting the weighting of explanatory variables,and changing the measurement method of the dependent variable.Finally,based on the analysis of heterogeneity,a mediation effect model is used to verify two mechanisms,namely the intensity of independent research and development investment and the optimization of industry structure.Research shows that:(1)Overall,both the efficiency of green finance and ecological technology innovation in China have significantly improved and shown a sustained upward trend.However,the problem of regional development imbalance is increasingly prominent.Among them,the development of green finance shows a distribution pattern of "high in the east and low in the west",while the efficiency of ecological technology innovation shows a distribution pattern of decreasing order in the eastern,central,western,and northeastern regions;(2)Green finance can significantly promote the improvement of ecological technology innovation efficiency,but it shows obvious regional heterogeneity.Among them,green finance in the eastern and central regions can significantly improve the efficiency of ecological technology innovation,while its positive impact in the western and northeastern regions is not significant.Further analysis shows that green finance will only have a significant promoting effect on improving ecological technology innovation efficiency in regions with high financial development and more mature technology markets;(3)The deployment of green loans,the increase of green investments,and the issuance of green securities can greatly improve China’s ecological technology innovation efficiency;(4)Green finance mainly achieves the promoting effect of improving the efficiency of ecological technology innovation by increasing independent research and development investment intensity and promoting the optimization path of industrial structure.Therefore,in order to fully leverage the positive role of green finance in improving the efficiency of ecological technology innovation,this article proposes the following suggestions:(1)Coordinate the development of regional green finance and ecological technology innovation,strengthen top-level design and standard-setting;(2)Develop a multi-level green finance product and market system,promote diversification of green products,and deepen reforms of the green capital market;(3)Smooth the channels for green finance to support ecological technology innovation,improve green information disclosure and technology transfer mechanisms,and improve the support and guarantee system for the development of green industries. |
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