Green finance, environmental regulation, and regional economic growth: from the perspective of low-carbon technological progress

This paper constructs the calculation method of total factor efficiency and low-carbon technology progress indicators based on the undesirable SBM model and Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index model, and this empirically analyzes the relationship between green credit, environmental regulation, and total factor efficiency or low-carbon technology progress by using the panel data of 30 regions in China from 2009 to 2018. The study results show that the carbon emission efficiency evaluation results of each region vary greatly; the largest gap reaches 400%. China’s overall carbon emission efficiency has 35–40% room for improvement, and it is increasing year by year at the rate of 0.96% mainly depends on the improvement of technological progress. The improvement of China’s carbon emission efficiency should focus on the central and western areas. The relationship between the green credit level and the total factor efficiency and low-carbon technical progress is significant “U-shaped” curve, while the relationship between the environmental regulation intensity and the total factor efficiency and low-carbon technical progress is significant “inverted U-shaped” curve. The proportion of tertiary industry, ownership structure and average scale of industrial enterprises have significant positive, negative and negative effects on regional total factor efficiency and low-carbon technical progress.