数字金融如何影响绿色全要素生产率?——动态特征、机制识别与空间效应

How Does Digital Finance Affect Green Total Factor Productivity:Characteristics of Dynamics,Identification of Mechanisms and Spatial Effects

提升绿色全要素生产率是推动绿色经济高质量发展的关键,数字金融作为驱动中国经济发展的新引擎,或对加速新旧动能转换、提升绿色全要素生产率产生重要影响。在利用Meta-SBM-Luenberger生产率指数测度2011—2018年中国281个城市的绿色全要素生产率的基础上,从动态视角出发系统考察数字金融对绿色全要素生产率的影响。研究发现:数字金融显著提升了绿色全要素生产率,提升效应在西部城市要强于东中部城市,起到了填平区域间绿色增长鸿沟的包容性作用,在利用工具变量法和双重差分法克服内生性干扰后仍然成立。进一步的机制检验表明,数字金融可以通过绿色技术创新效应和产业结构升级效应的渠道来提升绿色全要素生产率。空间溢出效应分析还发现,数字金融不但对本城市的绿色全要素生产率有着正向促进效应,还能辐射带动邻近城市绿色全要素生产率的提升。据此提出了加快构建以数字金融为支撑的多主体参与金融模式,差异化推进信息基础设施建设,积极搭建跨区域跨组织数字技术与信息人才合作平台的政策建议,以促进和倍增数字金融的绿色增长效应。

Green total factor productivity(GTFP),as the key link between green and growth,is the core to achieve high-quality development of green economy.Digital finance,as a new engine driving China’s economic development,plays a significant role in improving GTFP.However,the deep-level research on how digital finance affect GTFP are still scarce,and the existing literatures need to be further expanded in terms of both research perspective and content.This paper uses the Meta-SBM-Luenberger productivity index to measure the GTFP of 281 cities in China from 2011 to 2018,and adopts system generalized method of moments estimation,instrumental variable(IV),difference-in-differences(DID)and spatial Durbin model to investigate the impact,regional heterogeneity,internal mechanism and spatial effect of digital finance on GTFP from a dynamic perspective.Empirical studies show that digital finance facilitates the improvement of GTFP,and the result remains robust after using IV and DID to deal with the endogeneity.The green economic effect of digital finance is stronger in western cities than in eastern and central cities.Mechanism tests show that green technology innovation and industrial structure upgrading are important channels for digital finance to improve GTFP.Further analysis shows that digital finance not only improves the GTFP of the city,but also enhances the GTFP of neighboring cities by breaking the regional and spatial constraints.Compared with previous literature,this paper contributes to the following three aspects.First,it explores the impact of digital finance on GTFP from the perspective of dynamic accumulation and profoundly reveals the possible influence channels,thus enriching the empirical evidence in terms of digital finance’s green economic effect.Second,it explores the spatial spillover effect of digital finance on GTFP,which expands the benefit scope of digital finance facilitating green growth.Third,with the help of the quasi-natural experiment formed by the G20 High-level Principles for Digital Financial Inclusion issued by the People’s Bank of China,it addresses the possible endogeneity via the DID,which is helpful for establishing the causal relationship between digital finance and GTFP.This paper expands the research field of digital finance function and deepens the theoretical basis of the green economic effect of digital finance.In addition,it can help to make full use of digital finance to integrate financial resources,improve the efficiency of allocation,and build an ecological civilization and a beautiful China.It can be also said that this paper provides new ideas and beneficial policy guidance for accelerating the construction of a dual circulation pattern in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other with the domestic market as the mainstay.