The local-neighborhood effect of green credit on green economy: a spatial econometric investigation

Green credit is one of the most important financial instruments to promote sustainable development. Taking the provincial panel dataset of China as the research sample, this paper investigates the spatial impacts of green credit on the green economy. The super slack-based measure (Sup-SBM) model with undesirable outputs is employed to calculate the level of green economy within China. On this basis, we establish spatial Durbin models to study the impact of green credit on green economy and its transmission mechanisms. The results show that green credit exhibits a local-neighborhood effect on green economy; that is, the green credit can not only improve the local green economy but also generate spatial spillover effect to promote the development of green economy in surrounding areas. The above conclusion still holds after the robustness test by replacing spatial weight matrices and alternative measurement for the explained variable. Furthermore, enhancing innovation efficiency and optimizing energy structure are important ways for green credit to promote green economy. The findings of this study not only provide a new perspective for understanding the economic consequences of green credit policy but also provide empirical evidence for the important role of green finance in achieving the win-win goals of economic growth and environmental protection. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-021-15419-8.