绿色金融改革创新试验区政策对城市减污降碳的影响及作用机制

Impact of China′s green finance reform and innovation pilot zone policies on urban pollution and carbon emission reduction and their mechanisms

金融是国民经济的血脉,绿色金融要为经济社会绿色发展提供高质量服务。设立绿色金融改革创新试验区是推进中国绿色金融改革的重要举措之一,对实现环境污染治理和“双碳”目标具有重要意义。该研究选取2012—2021年中国267个地级及以上城市的面板数据,以2017年设立的绿色金融改革创新试验区作为准自然实验,运用双重差分模型考察绿色金融改革创新试验区政策对城市减污降碳的影响,并进一步分析其作用机制及异质性。研究发现:(1)绿色金融改革创新试验区政策显著促进了城市的减污降碳,该结论在经过一系列稳健性检验后依然成立;(2)绿色金融改革创新试验区政策主要通过降低能源强度和激励绿色技术创新促进城市的减污降碳,其中降低能源强度在试验区政策促进减污降碳中的中介效应尤为显著;(3)从异质性角度分析,相较于东部城市、金融发展水平较低的城市和非资源型城市,绿色金融改革创新试验区政策对中西部城市、金融发展水平较高的城市和资源型城市的减污降碳的作用更为明显。因此,需有序扩展绿色金融试点工作,建立地区间绿色金融助推减污降碳的协调机制;通过加大对节能降耗和绿色创新的支持力度,发挥绿色金融改革创新试验区政策优化资源配置的激励机制;深化绿色金融供给侧结构性改革,加强绿色金融数字化服务平台建设,搭建绿色金融需求与供给桥梁,因地制宜促进绿色金融供需匹配,加强对重点领域和薄弱环节的绿色金融支持,促进减污降碳协同增效。

Finance is the lifeblood of the national economy,and green finance should provide high-quality services for the green devel-opment of the economy and society.The establishment of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones is an important initiative to ad-vance China′s green finance reforms,playing a significant role in achieving environmental pollution control and the‘dual carbon’goals.This study regarded the green finance reform and innovation pilot zones established in 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment.Based on panel data from 267 Chinese cities at or above prefecture level from 2012 to 2021 and using the difference-in-differences model,this study examined the impact of green finance pilot policies on urban pollution and carbon emission reduction and further analyzed their mechanisms and heterogeneity.The findings were as follows:①Green finance pilot policies significantly promoted urban pollution and carbon emission reduction,and this conclusion still held after a series of robustness tests.②Mechanism analysis showed that green fi-nance pilot policies mainly promoted pollution and carbon emission reduction by reducing energy intensity and encouraging green inno-vation,with the intermediary effect of energy intensity being more significant.③From the perspective of heterogeneity,compared with eastern cities,cities with lower financial development levels,and non-resource-based cities,pilot policies had more pronounced effects on pollution and carbon emission reduction in central and western cities,cities with higher financial development levels,and resource-based cities.Therefore,it is necessary to expand the pilot work of green finance in an orderly manner and establish a coordinated mech-anism for promoting pollution and carbon emission reduction through green finance among regions to improve the quality and efficiency of green financial services for the real economy.By increasing support for energy conservation and technological innovation,it helps to leverage the incentive mechanism of optimizing resource allocation through green finance pilot policies,deepen the supply-side structur-al reform of green finance,strengthen the construction of digital service platforms for green finance,build a bridge between demand and supply of green finance,promote the matching of supply and demand of green finance according to local conditions,strengthen green fi-nance support for key areas and weak links,and promote coordinated efficiency of pollution and carbon emission reduction.