The Impact of Green Financial Policy on the Regional Economic Development Level and AQI—Evidence from Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

To explore the impact of green financial policy on the regional economic development level and the Air Quality Index (AQI), this paper selected two pilot regions of green financial reform policy to construct a quasi-experiment in Zhejiang Province. The results show that green finance reform can reduce AQI and pass the parallel trend test and placebo test, showing strong stability. Mechanism analysis shows that green finance reform can improve environmental quality mainly by increasing urban expenditure on science and technology, the level of urban innovation, and the number of urban enterprise innovations. Then, from a more general perspective, this paper discusses the internal relationship between green finance policy, environmental pollution and its control, and enterprise development and puts forward suggestions for future green finance policy formulation and policy implementation.