How does green finance affect energy efficiency? The role of green technology innovation and energy structure

Chien-Chiang Lee (), Chang-song Wang, Zhiwen He, Wen-wu Xing and Keying Wang

Renewable Energy, 2023, vol. 219, issue P1

Abstract: As climate warming intensifies, reducing greenhouse gas emissions has become a national consensus for many countries. Green finance plays an important role in promoting energy efficiency and lowering such emissions, but there is scant literature that analyzes the impacts and mechanisms of green finance on energy efficiency. Based on China's provincial panel data from 2010 to 2018, this research measures the green finance index using the panel entropy weighting method and systematically evaluates the relationship between green finance and energy efficiency using the fixed-effects model. The results show the following. (1) Green finance significantly contributes to energy efficiency and remains the same after a series of robustness tests such as endogeneity treatment, replacement of explanatory and interpreted variables, and replacement of regression models. (2) Green technology innovation and energy structure optimization are the transmission mechanism of green finance for energy efficiency, which means that green finance improves energy efficiency by promoting green technology innovation and energy structure optimization. (3) There is regional heterogeneity, temporal heterogeneity, and industry heterogeneity in the impact of green finance on energy efficiency. The positive effects of green finance on energy efficiency are more pronounced in resource-dependent regions, regions with irrational industrial structure, north regions, industrial sectors, and after 2013. The conclusions of this paper offer some policy recommendations, including promoting the development of green finance, building a cooperation platform for green finance and technological innovation, enhancing the depth and breadth of renewable energy utilization, and building differentiated green finance strategies according to local conditions.

Keywords: Energy efficiency; Green finance; Energy structure; Green technology innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123013320
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:renene:v:219:y:2023:i:p1:s0960148123013320

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.119417

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().