IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i3p2056-d1043525.html

Green Finance Assists Agricultural Sustainable Development: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Yalin Mo

    (School of Economics, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
    Guangxi Development Strategy Institute, Nanning 530004, China)

  • Dinghai Sun

    (School of Economics, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China)

  • Yu Zhang

    (International Business School, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian 116012, China)

Abstract

Whether green finance can promote agriculture to achieve carbon emission reduction is an important issue in agricultural sustainable development. Based on panel data on 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper established a mediation effect framework and employed stepwise regression and bootstrapping to study whether and how green finance can promote carbon emission reduction in China’s agricultural sector. The empirical research results indicate that the development of green finance can significantly reduce China’s agricultural carbon emission intensity. Using instrumental variables for robustness regression tests, the empirical results were also found to be robust. Further research found that green finance can not only directly promote agricultural carbon emission reduction but also indirectly facilitate it by optimizing the agricultural industrial structure and guiding agricultural technological progress. Finally, this article puts forward a number of policy recommendations to actively develop green finance, optimize the structure of the agricultural industry, and promote the progress of agricultural technology with the overarching aim of promoting the sustainable development of China’s agriculture through green finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Yalin Mo & Dinghai Sun & Yu Zhang, 2023. "Green Finance Assists Agricultural Sustainable Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2056-:d:1043525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2056/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2056/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rongyan Liu & Deqing Wang & Li Zhang & Lihong Zhang, 2019. "Can green financial development promote regional ecological efficiency? A case study of China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 95(1), pages 325-341, January.
    2. Madaleno, Mara & Dogan, Eyup & Taskin, Dilvin, 2022. "A step forward on sustainability: The nexus of environmental responsibility, green technology, clean energy and green finance," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    3. He, Lingyun & Liu, Rongyan & Zhong, Zhangqi & Wang, Deqing & Xia, Yufei, 2019. "Can green financial development promote renewable energy investment efficiency? A consideration of bank credit," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 974-984.
    4. Cai Chen & Yingli Zhang & Yun Bai & Wenrui Li, 2021. "The impact of green credit on economic growth—The mediating effect of environment on labor supply," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-21, September.
    5. Sadorsky, Perry, 2011. "Financial development and energy consumption in Central and Eastern European frontier economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 999-1006, February.
    6. Lee, Chi-Chuan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "How does green finance affect green total factor productivity? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    7. Tamazian, Artur & Chousa, Juan Piñeiro & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2009. "Does higher economic and financial development lead to environmental degradation: Evidence from BRIC countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 246-253, January.
    8. Guang-Wen Zheng & Abu Bakkar Siddik & Mohammad Masukujjaman & Nazneen Fatema, 2021. "Factors Affecting the Sustainability Performance of Financial Institutions in Bangladesh: The Role of Green Finance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-27, September.
    9. Li Li & Di Liu & Jian Hou & Dandan Xu & Wenbo Chao, 2019. "The Study of the Impact of Carbon Finance Effect on Carbon Emissions in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region—Based on Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index Decomposition Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-12, March.
    10. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Solarin, Sakiru Adebola & Mahmood, Haider & Arouri, Mohamed, 2013. "Does financial development reduce CO2 emissions in Malaysian economy? A time series analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 145-152.
    11. Xiuping Li & Ye Yang, 2022. "Does Green Finance Contribute to Corporate Technological Innovation? The Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, May.
    12. Hu, Guoqiang & Wang, Xiaoqi & Wang, Yu, 2021. "Can the green credit policy stimulate green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chuanjian Yi & Bo Xu & Kejun Lin, 2025. "Exploring the Impact of Green Finance on Sustainable Rural Development: Evidence From 283 Cities in China," Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2025(1).
    2. Omri, Henda & Jarraya, Bilel & Kahia, Montassar, 2025. "Green finance for achieving environmental sustainability in G7 countries: Effects and transmission channels," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Xu, Aiting & Dai, Yujie & Hu, Zhiyuan & Qiu, Keyang, 2025. "Can green finance policy promote inclusive green growth?- Based on the quasi-natural experiment of China's green finance reform and innovation pilot zone," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Feng Zhou & Chunhui Wen, 2023. "Research on the Level of Agricultural Green Development, Regional Disparities, and Dynamic Distribution Evolution in China from the Perspective of Sustainable Development," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-47, July.
    5. Yu, Zhiming & Yao, Ruikuan & Wu, Haitao & Wang, Zeyu, 2025. "Green finance and agricultural carbon emissions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PE).
    6. Zhang, Daopan & Zhao, Ningru & Yang, Zhihui, 2025. "The impact of green finance on rural green development: Theory and evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Nan Chen, 2025. "The Impact of Agricultural Green Development on Farmers’ Income Quality in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-50, September.
    8. Xuan Wang & Yanhua Li & Tingyu Zhang, 2025. "Dual-Wheel Drive and Agricultural Green Development: The Co-Evolution and Impact of Digital Inclusive Finance and Green Finance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Yuan, Xiao & Zhang, Jinlong & Shi, Jing & Wang, Jiachen, 2024. "What can green finance do for high-quality agricultural development? Fresh insights from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Jelena Vapa Tankosić & Nemanja Lekić & Miroslav Čavlin & Vinko Burnać & Milovan Mirkov & Radivoj Prodanović & Gordana Bejatović & Nedeljko Prdić & Borjana Mirjanić, 2025. "Employee Perceptions of ESG Policy Implementation in Urban and Rural Financial Institutions," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-23, August.
    11. Tran Thi Kim Oanh, 2024. "Sustainable development: Driving force from the relationship between finance inclusion, green finance and green growth," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 2811-2829, June.
    12. Dinh Le Quoc & Oanh Tran Thi Kim & Ha Nguyen Thi Hong, 2025. "Enhancing Green Growth: Exploring the Influence of Fiscal Spending and Green Finance," Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series, Sciendo, vol. 35(3), pages 69-91.
    13. Jianhua Liu & Yingying Zhang & Lingyu Pu & Liangchao Huang & Huiyang Wang & Muddassar Sarfraz, 2023. "Research on the Impact of Energy Efficiency on Green Development: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-19, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dogan, Eyup & Madaleno, Mara & Taskin, Dilvin & Tzeremes, Panayiotis, 2022. "Investigating the spillovers and connectedness between green finance and renewable energy sources," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 709-722.
    2. Wang, Kai-Hua & Zhao, Yan-Xin & Jiang, Cui-Feng & Li, Zheng-Zheng, 2022. "Does green finance inspire sustainable development? Evidence from a global perspective," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 412-426.
    3. Zhu, Chenliang & Qi, Jiajun & Feng, Lingbing & Wang, Xinyi, 2025. "Source control or end-of-pipe treatment: How green finance policy impacts enterprise carbon intensity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    4. Bakry, Walid & Mallik, Girijasankar & Nghiem, Xuan-Hoa & Sinha, Avik & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2023. "Is green finance really “green”? Examining the long-run relationship between green finance, renewable energy and environmental performance in developing countries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 341-355.
    5. Wang, Yajun & Yuan, Zheng & Luo, Hanyu & Zeng, Hui & Huang, Junbing & Li, Yulin, 2024. "Promoting low-carbon energy transition through green finance: New evidence from a demand-supply perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    6. Hou, Mengyang & Xie, Yalin & Lu, Weinan & Cui, Xuehua & Xi, Zenglei & Han, Yuxin, 2025. "Green finance drives the synergy of pollution control and carbon reduction in China: Dual perspective of effect and efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 330(C).
    7. Acheampong, Alex O., 2019. "Modelling for insight: Does financial development improve environmental quality?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 156-179.
    8. Li Chen & Fujia Li & Haonan Zhang & Hao Cheng, 2025. "Can Green Finance Policy Achieve Collaborative Governance of Air Pollution? Evidence from Prefecture-Level Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-20, August.
    9. Zhang, Lixia & Sun, Huaping & Pu, Tianlong & Sun, Hui & Chen, Zhenling, 2024. "Do green finance and hi-tech innovation facilitate sustainable development? Evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1430-1442.
    10. Liu, Yang & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2023. "How does natural resource abundance affect green total factor productivity in the era of green finance? Global evidence," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Zhang, Wei & Liu, Xuemeng & Zhao, Shikuan & Tang, Tian, 2024. "Does green finance agglomeration improve carbon emission performance in China? A perspective of spatial spillover," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 358(C).
    12. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Roubaud, David, 2018. "Environmental degradation in France: The effects of FDI, financial development, and energy innovations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 843-857.
    13. Khan, Muhammad Tariq Iqbal & Yaseen, Muhammad Rizwan & Ali, Qamar, 2019. "Nexus between financial development, tourism, renewable energy, and greenhouse gas emission in high-income countries: A continent-wise analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 293-310.
    14. Lee, Chi-Chuan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "How does green finance affect green total factor productivity? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    15. Yayun Ren & Jian Yu & Shuhua Xu & Jiaomei Tang & Chang Zhang, 2023. "Green Finance and Industrial Low-Carbon Transition: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Mirza Md Moyen Uddin, 2020. "Does financial development stimulate environmental sustainability? Evidence from a panel study of 115 countries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2871-2889, September.
    17. Paramati, Sudharshan Reddy & Ummalla, Mallesh & Apergis, Nicholas, 2016. "The effect of foreign direct investment and stock market growth on clean energy use across a panel of emerging market economies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 29-41.
    18. Li, Jun & Xu, Chong & Li, Jiajia, 2025. "Capital flows consequences of local green finance policies in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1544-1565.
    19. Guo, Rui & Zhang, Yujie & Chen, Kaihua & Wang, Yufei & Ning, Lutao, 2025. "Heterogeneous impact of green finance instruments on firms' green innovation novelty: Policy mix or mess?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    20. Lu, Yuchen & Gao, Yuqiang & Zhang, Yu & Wang, Junrong, 2022. "Can the green finance policy force the green transformation of high-polluting enterprises? A quasi-natural experiment based on “Green Credit Guidelines”," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2056-:d:1043525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.