 Blessing or curse? Fintech adoption and greenhouse gas emission intensityWenwen Li, Samar S. Alharbi, June Cao and Wanfu Li International Review of Economics & Finance, 2025, vol. 97, issue C Abstract: This study investigates the role of fintech adoption in shaping greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Exploiting China's setting and using panel data from 2400 observations and 281 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019, we find that adopting fintech significantly reduces CO2 and SO2 emissions. Further analyses identify the underlying mechanisms as enhanced green innovation and increased fiscal transparency, which strengthen the ability of regions to protect the environment through public governance. To address the potential endogeneity issues arising from non-randomness and the non-exogenous shock of fintech adoption, we employ two novel instrumental variables as the geographical distance of the city to Hangzhou and the number of graduates to re-estimate our baseline results, which yield similar findings. We further find that this effect is more pronounced in regions with better Internet access and less intensive environmental regulations. Moreover, emissions reductions achieved from fintech adoption generate positive economic and social impacts. Keywords: Fintech adoption; CO2 emission intensity; Green innovation; Fiscal transparency (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s1059056024008025 DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2024.103810 Access Statistics for this article International Review of Economics & Finance is currently edited by H. Beladi and C. Chen More articles in International Review of Economics & Finance from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.