The industry spillover effect of green finance innovation policy on carbon emission: Evidence from listed companies in Pearl River Delta region

The Pilot Zone for Green Financial Reform and Innovation (PZGFRI) is pivotal in achieving China's “double carbon” objective. Using the data of listed companies in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region from 2012 to 2021 as a sample, the paper adopts a Spatial Difference-in-Differences model (SDID) to examine the industry spillover relationship and the mechanism of green finance development and corporate carbon emissions. The conclusions show that the PZGFRI policy not only directly promotes carbon emission reduction among enterprises in the same industry, but also has a significant industry spillover effect on other industries, thereby helping to accelerate the low-carbon development process of the entire region. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the industry spillover effect of the PZGFRI policy on carbon emission reduction behavior of enterprises above scale, state-owned enterprises and high social responsibility enterprises is more significant. The mechanism test shows that the PZGFRI policy effectively promotes the industry spillover effect of carbon emission reduction by optimizing the allocation of financial resources and incentivizing technological innovation of enterprises. The conclusions of the paper offer empirical support for the efficacy of financial policies in accelerating the transition to a green economic structure and provide a useful reference for future policy formulation.