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• This paper analyzes the impact of digital finance on green technology innovation. • Digital finance significantly promotes green technology innovation. • Manufacturing and non-state economic development help to better exploit the green technology innovation effect of digital finance. • As the level of environmental decentralization increases, digital finance strongly promotes green technology innovation. Financial development is an important driving force for promoting green technology innovation. However, traditional finance faces obstacles in supporting these innovations, and it is unclear how this dilemma can be solved. This paper seeks new solutions using digital finance to solve this dilemma. Using panel data on listed companies and cities in China, this paper analyzes the impact of digital finance on green technology innovation. The results show that (1) digital finance significantly promotes green technology innovation, and this finding holds even through serial robustness tests. The promotion effects are attributed to a reduction in corporate financing constraints, industrial structure upgrading and manufacturing development. (2) Digital financial development has a greater positive effect on green technology innovation in small-scale enterprises. Digital financial development can better promote green technology innovation in regions with higher pollutant emission intensity and where local government has stronger governance capacity. In addition, manufacturing and nonstate economic development help to better exploit the green technology innovation effect of digital finance. (3) With the improvement of environmental decentralization, digital finance strongly promotes green technology innovation, indicating that the downward trend of environmental responsibility will better alleviate the mismatch between the supply and demand of green innovation investments. In order to strengthen enterprises' green technology innovation capacity and solve serious environmental pollution problems, it is suggested that traditional financial institutions should actively embrace this digital trend. Meanwhile, government should develop differentiated innovation incentive policies to increase the technological innovation investment of manufacturing and private enterprises while also promoting the reform of the environmental decentralization system and strengthening supervision of central environmental protections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deconstructs industrial green transformation into two aspects, industrial efficiency green transformation and industrial structure green transformation. We examine the impact of digital finance development on industrial green transformation using data from Chinese cities and listed companies. The results showed that: (1) digital finance can contribute to the green transformation of industrial structure distinctly but has an inhibiting effect on the green transformation of industrial efficiency. (2) Digital finance can promote capital-using technological progress and support industrial green transformation with its price effect and scale effect. (3) Higher government environmental preferences and governance capacity can strengthen the green transformation effect of digital finance. Strengthening financial supervision and narrowing the digital divide will help digital finance better support industrial green transformation. Digital finance development can more effectively promote the industrial green transformation of non-SOEs and enterprises with high financing constraints and high financial dependence. (4) Considering the financial attributes and highly polluting characteristics of real estate, digital finance exacerbates the pollution of the real estate industry. This study helps clarify the mechanism of digital finance supporting green development and provides some ideas for China's digital finance development and green economy transformation. • Deconstructing the industry green transformation (IGT) into EFFI and STRU. • Analyzing the synergistic effects of digital finance on the EFFI and STRU of the industry green transformation. • The positive impact of digital finance on the industry green transformation is statistically significant and robust. • The green transformation incentive effect of digital finance has significant heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of digital finance has profoundly changed the pattern of economic and social development, which is of great significance for the realization of the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature and for the promotion of sustainable development. This study measures the state of China's provincial ecological footprint from 2011 to 2019, combines the characteristics of digital financial development, and explores whether such development can promote sustainable development from an ecological footprint perspective. The results show that (1) China's provincial ecological footprint per capita, which was continuously aggravated, increased by an average of 29.15% during the sample period. Digital financial development is shown to be able to effectively suppress the ecological footprint, and an environmental inclusion effect is also observed, which helps achieve a win‒win solution for economic development and ecological conservation while promoting environmental equality. Endogeneity tests and other robustness tests indicate that causality holds. (2) Bridging the digital divide, the improvement of environmental constraints and government digital governance capacity can help amplify the marginal effects of digital finance and mitigate the ecological footprint. (3) Green technological innovation and green finance are critical paths to achieve sustainable development. Digital financial development can facilitate green-biased technological innovation and increase the scale of green credit effectiveness, thereby reducing the ecological footprint. In the future, digital technology should be used to achieve the precise sinking of financial resources, while the government's role in guiding sustainable development should be enhanced, the digital divide should be narrowed, and the role of digital finance in supporting sustainable development should be strengthened. • Using the latest improved methodology, this paper measures the provincial ecological footprint in China. • This paper investigates the impact of digital finance development on the ecological footprint. • Digital finance development can effectively mitigate the ecological footprint and has an environmentally inclusive effect. • The reasons for this are the green bias push of digital finance towards technological innovation and the increase in the scale of green credit effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of digital finance has profoundly changed the pattern of economic and social development, which is of great significance for the realization of the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature and for the promotion of sustainable development. This study measures the state of China's provincial ecological footprint from 2011 to 2019, combines the characteristics of digital financial development, and explores whether such development can promote sustainable development from an ecological footprint perspective. The results show that (1) China's provincial ecological footprint per capita, which was continuously aggravated, increased by an average of 29.15% during the sample period. Digital financial development is shown to be able to effectively suppress the ecological footprint, and an environmental inclusion effect is also observed, which helps achieve a win‒win solution for economic development and ecological conservation while promoting environmental equality. Endogeneity tests and other robustness tests indicate that causality holds. (2) Bridging the digital divide, the improvement of environmental constraints and government digital governance capacity can help amplify the marginal effects of digital finance and mitigate the ecological footprint. (3) Green technological innovation and green finance are critical paths to achieve sustainable development. Digital financial development can facilitate green-biased technological innovation and increase the scale of green credit effectiveness, thereby reducing the ecological footprint. In the future, digital technology should be used to achieve the precise sinking of financial resources, while the government's role in guiding sustainable development should be enhanced, the digital divide should be narrowed, and the role of digital finance in supporting sustainable development should be strengthened. • Using the latest improved methodology, this paper measures the provincial ecological footprint in China. • This paper investigates the impact of digital finance development on the ecological footprint. • Digital finance development can effectively mitigate the ecological footprint and has an environmentally inclusive effect. • The reasons for this are the green bias push of digital finance towards technological innovation and the increase in the scale of green credit effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]