Has the establishment of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones improved air quality? Evidence from China

Abstract The role of finance in environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly important. This study conducts a quasi-natural experiment using a sample of 146 prefecture-level cities from 2015 to 2019. It adopts difference-in-differences to examine the impact of China’s green finance reform a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHumanities & social sciences communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 262 - 14
Main Authors Xu, Xiaoyang, Xie, Yufan, Obobisa, Emma Serwaa, Sun, Huaping
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Palgrave Macmillan 01.12.2023
Springer Nature
Subjects
Air pollution
Air quality
Cities
Debt financing
Economic development
Emission standards
Emissions
Environmental conditions
Environmental policy
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
Heterogeneity
Hypotheses
Literature reviews
Mountains
Outdoor air quality
Ozone
Pollutants
Pollution control
Pollution levels
China
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Summary:Abstract The role of finance in environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly important. This study conducts a quasi-natural experiment using a sample of 146 prefecture-level cities from 2015 to 2019. It adopts difference-in-differences to examine the impact of China’s green finance reform and innovations pilot zones (GFRIs) on urban air quality. The findings show that air quality has improved after the establishment of GFRIs, indicating that GFRIs have the potential to control air pollution levels. The mechanism tests indicate that the GFRIs are conducive to improving air quality through industrial structure upgrading and green innovation. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analyses show that the air quality in the south of the Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River line, in large and well-developed financially scaled cities, has improved significantly after the establishment of GFRIs.
ISSN:2662-9992
2662-9992
DOI:10.1057/s41599-023-01773-0