Impact of Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones on Regional Economic Growth

As ecological civilization becomes a key national development strategy, green finance, which aims for sustainable development, plays a significant role in fostering regional economic growth.At the same time, local governments actively respond to central policies and, in the process of exploring financial reform and innovation, need to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of these policies.This paper takes the establishment of Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the impact of this policy on regional economic growth and its underlying mechanisms.The study finds that the establishment of Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones effectively promotes regional economic growth, and the conclusion remains robust after conducting various sensitivity analyses.Further heterogeneity analysis explores the differing impacts of the policy in various regions, while considering green innovation as a positive mechanism mediating the relationship between the policy and economic growth.This study provides insights into the shift from "quantity" to "quality" in regional economic development.