Effect Of Financial Development On Carbon Emissions

Since the reform and opening up,China's economy has sustained rapid growth for more than 30 years.Meanwhile,emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have also increased rapidly.At the 2014 UN climate summit,our government made a commitment to reduce carbon emission intensity by 40%-45% by 2020.The key to achieving this goal is to promote the transition from a high-carbon economy to a low-carbon economy through technological progress and industrial restructuring.The existing research shows that the finance is an important factor affecting economic development.How can a contry's financial development(including the growth of financial aggregates and the evolution of financial structure)affect carbon dioxide emissions through the effect of technological progress and industrial structure adjustment? This this article is focused on this issue.In the theoretical analysis section,financial development is divided into two aspects: financial scale and financial structure.Starting from the financing characteristics of technological innovation and the upgrading of industrial structure,the paper analyzes the mechanism of financial development affecting technological progress and industrial structure from the perspective of financial function.At the same time,this paper analyzes the theoretical mechanism of technological innovation and industrial structure acting on carbon dioxide emission.On this basis,this paper gets two paths of financial development affecting carbon dioxide emissions,namely,"financial development-technological progress-carbon dioxide emissions" and "financial development-industrial restructuring-carbon dioxide emissions".On the basis of the theoretical analysis,this paper takes the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2015 as the sample,and uses the generalized GMM estimation to analyze the influence of the financial growth and financial structure on the intensity of carbon dioxide emission,and the total factor productivity and industrial structure in which the intermediary effect.The empirical results are as follows:(1)the growth of traditional finance is negatively correlated with the intensity of carbon dioxide emission,and the relationship between the growth of emerging finance and the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions is inverted "U" type;the proportion of direct financing and the credit ratio of small-medium-sized banks are negatively correlated with the intensity carbon dioxide emissions,the relationship between emerging finance and the intensity carbon dioxide emissions is inverted "U" type relationship between the ratio and the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions.(2)technological progress plays an intermediary role in the process of financial development affecting carbon dioxide emissions.From the perspective of the total finance aggregate,both traditional finance and emerging finance growth promote TFP;from the perspective of financial structure,the proportion of direct financing,small medium-sized banks and emerging financial contribute to the improvement of TFP.The improvement of TFP will also contribute to the decrease of CO2 emission intensity.(3)Industrial structure plays an intermediary role in the process of financial development affecting carbon dioxide emissions.From the perspective of the total finance aggregate,traditional financial growth will help reduce the proportion of traditional industrial industries and increase the proportion of emerging industries,emerging financial growth has an inverted "U" shaped relationship with the traditional industrial sectors,and has a "U" shaped relationship with emerging industries;from the perspective of financial structure,the proportion of direct financing and the proportion of emerging financial have an inverted "U" shaped relationship with the traditional industries,and has a "U" shaped relationship with emerging industries,the proportion of small medium-sized banks will help reduce the proportion of traditional industrial industries and increase the proportion of emerging industries.The proportion of traditional industry and carbon dioxide emissions is positively related,and the proportion of emerging industries is negatively related to carbon dioxide emission intensity.The innovation of this paper lies in the following three points: Firstly,this paper focuses on the influence of financial development on the "quality" of economic development.This paper studies financial development,which influences carbon dioxide emissions by influencing technological progress and industrial structure,and enriches the research on financial development and economic growth quality.Secondly,literature pays little attention to the relationship between financial development and carbon dioxide emissions.Thirdly,this paper validates the two paths of financial development affecting carbon dioxide emissions,further enriching the relevant research in the field of financial development and sustainable economic growth.