The heterogeneous role of green finance on industrial structure upgrading - Based on spatial spillover perspective

Financial support is a great driving force for industrial transformation and upgrading, and is an inevitable requirement for high-quality economic development, which is profoundly affecting industrial structure and promoting industrial upgrading. Therefore, based on China's provincial panel data from 2011 to 2021, this paper examines how green finance affects industrial structure upgrading from two perspectives: overall and regional heterogeneity, and introduces carbon emission as a mediating variable to establish a spatial Durbin model to test the spillover effect of green finance on industrial structure upgrading. The results show that green finance can promote industrial structure upgrading, which meets the requirements of the robustness test, and it can promote industrial structure upgrading in the central and western regions more than that in the eastern region; in terms of the mediating effect, green finance can effectively affect industrial structure upgrading by reducing carbon emission. Meanwhile, the development of green finance can promote the upgrading of the industrial structure of the province and at the same time drive the upgrading of the industrial structure of neighboring provinces, which has a spatial spillover effect. The results of the study can provide reference for financial institutions and governments in different regions to formulate policies, understand the mechanism of green finance on industrial structure upgrading in different regions, help optimize the design and development path of green finance, and promote the application and development of green finance globally, which will in turn promote the development of green finance and facilitate the sustainable development of the economy.