Green finance, energy structure, and environmental pollution: Evidence from a spatial econometric approach

The adjustment of green finance and energy structure is gradually becoming a new engine that reduces environmental pollution in China. In this paper, the energy structure is introduced in the process of discussing the impact of green finance on environmental pollution. We analyze the spatial correlation of green finance and study whether the adjustment of energy structure is affected by green finance and thus affects environmental pollution using a spatial econometric model. The results of empirical analysis show that green finance among provinces presents a significant spatial agglomeration, improving the green finance, and the energy structure can significantly reduce environmental pollution, and there are significant spatial spillover effects. There is inverted U-shaped relationship between energy structure and green finance in the national space, that is, after the green finance is raised to a certain extent, with the level of green finance once more, the energy structure will gradually improve, and then, green finance drives the reduction of environmental pollution by improving the energy structure. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that compared with other regions, the improvement of the green finance in the eastern region has significantly improved the energy structure, and environmental pollution has also decreased every year.