Summary:
China strives to build a system for market-oriented innovation in green technology to promote a comprehensive shift toward green economic and social development. However, there are multiple problems surrounding development for green and low-carbon technology (such as this technology having long development cycles, being complicated and carrying higher risks), and the global economic recovery in the post-COVID era is uncertain. This makes it difficult to satisfy the vast funds needed for green technological innovation, which places pressure on the achievement of carbon peak and carbon neutralization. The key to satisfying these vast funds is guiding the financial system to provide the required investment and financing support in a market-oriented way. For this reason, the People's Bank of China has fully improved policy incentives for reducing pollution and carbon emissions and policy constraints on such emissions through monetary, credit and macro-prudential policy. Compared with the green financial policy, can green financial products promote green technology innovation？ The reasons for the research on green bonds are as follows. First, although green credit plays a dominant role in China's green financial system, it is difficult to explore the effectiveness of green credit from the perspective of enterprises because of the limited availability of micro data. Second, compared with green insurance and green funds, green bonds have developed rapidly, and have produced good economic consequences by accelerating green low-carbon transformation, providing high-security financial assets and attracting foreign sustainable investment funds. Third, the characteristics of the mandatory disclosure of environmental information in green bond issuance also provide incentives and constraints for promoting green technology innovation through improving corporate governance. To sum up, against the background of limiting investment purposes and strengthening financial supervision, it is not clear whether enterprises can improve the enthusiasm for green technological innovation in the process of issuing green bonds and investing in green projects, thus increasing the number of green patent applications. This paper selects the A-share non-financial companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges issuing green bonds in 2016 and 2017 as the treatment group. Based on the difference-in-differences model, this paper tests the promotion effect of green finance on green technology innovation in enterprises. We find that green bonds can significantly improve the issuers' level of green innovation. This is mainly reflected in green invention patents and green utility model patents, and the promotion effect of issuing green bonds on both patent types is dynamic and sustainable. A heterogeneity test shows that the promotion effect of green bonds is not affected by the nature of enterprise property rights and the inherent technology level. Compared with heavy pollution enterprises, non-heavy pollution enterprises use green bonds to improve the level of green technology innovation more efficiently. Further analysis shows that the promotion effect of issuing green bonds on green technology innovation for enterprises stems from two channels: the resource effect and the supervision effect. This paper makes several contributions to the literature. First, there is little literature on the relationship between green bonds and green technology innovation. This paper uses a difference-in-differences model to analyze the supporting effect of green bonds on green technology innovation, broadens the research perspective of green bonds and green technology innovation, and gives a tentative answer as to how green finance can serve the goal of carbon neutrality and promote the construction of an ecological civilization from a micro perspective. Second, this paper uses the mediating effect model to find that the issuance of green bonds has the resource effect and the supervision effect, and it clarifies the mechanism of the quality and quantity of green bonds to promote green technological innovation, which provides a reference for corporate governance to adapt to the construction of an ecological civilization in the new stage of economic development. Finally, it provides theoretical guidance for optimizing the green financial system and implementing hierarchical and focused green financial supervision and environmental governance to achieve a win-win situation of environmental protection and high-quality economic development.
王营, 冯佳浩. 绿色债券促进企业绿色创新研究[J]. 金融研究, 2022, 504(6): 171-188.
WANG Ying, FENG Jiahao. Research on Green Bond Promoting Green Innovation of Enterprises. Journal of Financial Research, 2022, 504(6): 171-188.
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