Exploring the Relationship Between Green Finance and Carbon Productivity: The Mediating Role of Technological Progress Bias

In the context of global climate change, achieving a green and low-carbon economic transition is essential for sustainable development. This study constructs a model using data from 30 provinces collected between 2006 and 2020 to investigate how green finance influences China’s carbon productivity and the transmission mechanism mediated by factor-biased technological progress. The findings reveal the following: (1) The Moran’s index test for carbon productivity across Chinese provinces demonstrates significant spatial clustering. (2) Green finance exhibits substantial spillover effects on carbon productivity in surrounding regions. (3) Capital-biased and energy-biased technological progress significantly mediate the relationship between green finance and carbon productivity, indicating that green finance enhances carbon productivity by optimizing the allocation of capital, labor, and energy factors. (4) Regional heterogeneity analysis indicates that capital-technology-biased and energy-factor-technology-biased approaches can significantly enhance carbon productivity in Central and Northeastern China. Notably, energy-factor innovation delivers far greater environmental efficiency gains in these regions than in Eastern and Western China.