How does green finance affect the innovation performance of enterprises? Evidence from China

“green” + “innovation” has become a new concept of development. The integration of the two can bring win-win for the environment and economy. This paper selects the annual data of 14309 A-share companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2020 as the research sample. And it uses the two-way fixed effect model to empirically test the impact of green finance on enterprise innovation performance. The study found that the development of green finance can promote the improvement of enterprise innovation performance. The analysis of influence mechanism shows that the development of green finance can reduce the financing constraints of enterprises, and then improve the innovation performance of enterprises; the development of green finance can increase the R&D investment of enterprises, and then improve the innovation performance of enterprises; green finance development can increase corporate investment in environmental protection, which in turn can improve corporate innovation performance. The results of heterogeneity test analysis show that compared with the western region, private enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and high energy consumption and high pollution enterprises, the development of green finance in the central and eastern regions, state-owned enterprises, large enterprises, and non double high enterprises has more obvious role in promoting enterprise innovation performance. Therefore, the government should issue relevant policies and actively promote green finance policies that can help improve environmental and economic issues.