Digital finance and renewable energy consumption: evidence from China

Minli Yu, Fu-Sheng Tsai (), Hui Jin and Hejie Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Minli Yu: Zhejiang University of Technology
Fu-Sheng Tsai: North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power
Hui Jin: Zhejiang Sci-Tech University
Hejie Zhang: Zhejiang University of Technology

Financial Innovation, 2022, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract While digital finance and renewable energy consumption (REC) are two timely issues, it remains unclear whether the former affects the latter, especially in developing economies. This paper examines the impact of digital finance on China’s REC between 2011 and 2018 and explores the underlying mechanisms. Results show that digital finance, along with its coverage breadth and usage depth, significantly improved REC in China and that digital finance in the area of credit has had the most significant impact. Additionally, the results show that loan scale and income level are the main mediation variables, through which digital finance affects REC. The findings also suggest that economic growth and technological progress have increased REC in China, while carbon dioxide emissions have had no meaningful effect on this consumption. The results further indicate that policymakers must pay close attention to the role of digital finance when formulating policies on REC. To promote REC and environmental sustainability, developing economies like China should strengthen the breadth and depth of digital finance development, focus on the influence channels of digital finance, and promote economic growth and technological progress.

Keywords: Digital finance; Renewable energy consumption; Developing economy; Two-way fixed effects model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40854-022-00362-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:fininn:v:8:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1186_s40854-022-00362-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nomics/journal/40589

DOI: 10.1186/s40854-022-00362-5

Access Statistics for this article

Financial Innovation is currently edited by J. Leon Zhao and Zongyi

More articles in Financial Innovation from Springer, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().