The Study On The Impact Of Digital Finance On Green Total Factor Productivity In China

The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasizes the beautiful vision of building a "Beautiful China" and brings the construction of ecological civilization to an unprecedented strategic height.Green development has become an imperative development concept and development method in the context of the "new normal".As an emerging financial industry,digital finance relies on digital means such as big data,cloud computing and blockchain,and gradually becomes a new engine to promote the transformation of China’s economic development mode and move towards a green and low-carbon intensive development model.So what is the impact of digital finance on China’s "green development"?What role will digital finance play in China’s future shift to "green development"?In view of this,this thesis systematically demonstrates the impact of digital finance on China’s green total factor productivity from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.This study is helpful to deepen the understanding of the relationship between digital finance and high-quality economic development,and to better formulate industrial policies,so as to achieve the double carbon goal,promote the green transformation of China’s economy,and build a"Beautiful China" on schedule.Based on the summary and review of the existing literature,this thesis firstly systematically elaborates the theoretical mechanism of the impact of digital finance on green total factor productivity in China,and puts forward relevant research hypotheses,thus clarifying the theoretical basis of this thesis.Secondly,using inter-provincial panel data of China during 2011-2019,the SBM directional distance function and GML index are used to measure the green total factor productivity of 30 Chinese provinces,and the development status of digital finance and green total factor productivity in China is analyzed and evaluated.In the empirical research part,this thesis focuses on the impact of digital finance on China’s green total factor productivity,which is discussed in detail around its direct impact,indirect impact and spatial impact,respectively.In order to address the endogeneity issue,this thesis takes the interaction term of the spherical distance from each provincial capital city to Hangzhou and the annual average value of digital finance as the instrumental variable of digital finance,and first examines the direct impact of digital finance on China’s green total factor productivity,and extends the analysis from the perspective of the segmentation dimension,regional heterogeneity,and temporal heterogeneity of digital finance;then,by constructing a mediating effect model,it tests the the indirect impact mechanism of digital finance on green total factor productivity.Considering the spatial correlation of the variables,this thesis further examines their spatial impact by using a spatial econometric model.Finally,in order to ensure the robustness and reliability of the research findings,the conclusions of this thesis still hold after adopting different econometric models and methods for robustness testing.The main findings are:(1)China’s digital finance development level and green total factor productivity show a steady upward trend,and show a pattern of "high,medium and low" development from east to west.(2)Digital finance,its coverage,depth of use and digitalization have a significant positive impact on the improvement of green total factor productivity in China.(3)Regional heterogeneity shows that the promotion effect of digital finance on green total factor productivity is more obvious in the central and western regions than in the eastern regions,which plays a role of"sending charcoal in snow".Temporal heterogeneity indicates that the development of digital finance significantly improves green total factor productivity,and digital finance contributes to the improvement of green total factor productivity when it is more fully developed.(4)Digital finance not only has a direct impact on green total factor productivity,but also can indirectly promote green total factor productivity through two paths:technological innovation effect and industrial structure upgrading effect;the capital mismatch improvement path fails to pass the test,indicating that the integration dividend of digital technology and traditional financial sector needs to be further released.(5)The estimation results of the spatial econometric model indicate that digital finance can not only promote the improvement of local green total factor productivity,but also promote the improvement of green total factor productivity in neighboring regions through the spatial spillover effect.The findings of this thesis not only expand the understanding of the socioeconomic effects of digital finance as an emerging financial industry,but also point out possible breakthrough paths in the financial supply side of China’s economic green transformation,thus providing certain policy guidance for China to vigorously develop digital technology,deeply implement the new development concept and promote highquality economic development.