Green finance development drives renewable energy development: Mechanism analysis and empirical research

Different from the existing studies, this study find the two paths that green finance development (GFD) affects renewable energy development are the clean biased technical progress path and financial constraint path, and at its different stages, there are significant differences in driving effects of GFD and government policies. Through empirically analyzing impact of GFD on renewable energy development with mediation effect model and China's provincial panel data in 2007–2019, this study obtains following conclusions: On the one hand, GFD can promote energy technology innovation to bias to clean energy technology. On the other hand, it can ease the enterprises' finance constraint, thus promotes renewable energy development. In initial stage of renewable energy development, government's supporting policy is the key driving factor, and role of GFD is weak. In growth stage of renewable energy development (accounting for more than 20%), GFD significantly promotes renewable energy development, and driving role of government supporting policy has gradually weakened. In view of above results, the policy recommendations of this paper are, first, government departments and financial institutions should form joint force to promote the growth of green finance scale. Second, balance administrative means and market tools according to the regional renewable energy development stage.