Does China's green credit interest subsidies policy promote enterprises' green technology innovation quality? Based on the perspective of financial and fiscal coordination

Against the backdrop of escalating energy and environmental challenges, examining how the green credit policy empowers enterprises to build external pressure transmission mechanisms, activate internal governance capacities, and enhance green technology innovation quality bears substantial practical relevance for accomplishing the 'Dual Carbon' objectives (i.e., carbon peak and carbon neutrality) and propelling high-quality green economic transition. China's green credit interest subsidies policy (GCISP) is an important deployment measure of green credit policy. Using green credit interest subsidies policy as a quasi-natural experiment and based on data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2022, this study examines the impact of green credit policy on enterprises' green technology innovation quality and the underlying mechanisms using the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method. The conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) GCISP can effectively enhance enterprises' green technology innovation quality. This conclusion remains valid after robustness tests such as instrumental variable method, bacon decomposition, and dual machine learning method. (2) Mechanism analysis shows that GCISP can improve enterprises' green technology innovation quality by reducing the enterprises' green washing, enhancing the external pressure effect of green investors' attention, alleviating financing constraints and improving the internal governance effect of resource allocation efficiency. (3) Heterogeneous analysis indicates that the impact of GCISP on the improvement of the quality of green technology innovation is more significant in enterprises with strong local intellectual property protection and the strong green awareness of corporate executives and newly established ventures. (4) The policy coordination intensity, as measured by fiscal expenditure, can positively moderate the influence of local governments' effective implementation of the green credit policy on improving enterprises' green technology innovation quality. Meanwhile, higher green technological innovation quality can produce ecological and environmental protection and economic performance values. Overall, this study has useful policy implications for promoting green financial policies and improving the green technology innovation system.