Can green bonds promote corporate green technology innovation?——evidence from China

ABSTRACT

The development of green finance is of great significance in promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, advancing the sustainable development of the regional economy, and realizing the goal of ‘double carbon’. To explore the effect of green bonds on corporate green technology innovation, this paper uses 856 quarterly data from 45 A-share listed companies that issued green bonds in China from 2016 to 2020, and establishes a double fixed-effects model to test the impact and mechanism of green bonds on corporate green technology innovation. The results show that the issuance of green bonds by enterprises can significantly promote green technological innovation of enterprises, and the promotion effect of green bonds on strategic green innovation is stronger compared with substantive green innovation; this promotion effect is more obvious in regions with high polluting enterprises and better bank competitiveness. Further analysis reveals that green bonds promote green technological innovation mainly by reducing the agency cost and financing cost of enterprises; the degree of equity checks and balances will weaken the promotion effect of green bonds on enterprises’ green technological innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Green bonds
• green technology innovation
• financing constraints
• regulatory effects
• China

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q53
• O32
• O38

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank the journal reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This work is supported by the the Project of China National Social Science Foundation [grant number 19CJY034].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [19CJY034].