Impact of Digital Finance on Green Technology Innovation: The Mediating Effect of Financial Constraints

Abstract

Green technology innovation is crucial for achieving sustainable development. This paper establishes fixed effect and mediation effect models to study how digital finance influences corporate green technology innovation and the moderating role of financial constraints using the data of Chinese A-share public businesses from 2011 to 2020. The results show that, first, green technology innovation is facilitated by digital finance, and both the coverage breadth and use depth play important roles. Second, digital finance encourages business innovation in green technology by alleviating financial constraints. Third, in state-owned businesses and businesses located in the eastern regions, digital finance has a more visible driving impact on green technology innovation. The aforementioned findings offer insightful research to encourage the balanced growth of digital finance and better enable corporate green technology innovation.