Regional Financial Development and Corporate Green Technological Innovation: Incentive or Inhibition?

Based on the annual data of manufacturing enterprises and city-level data in China from 2009 to 2020, this paper employs the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method and the Markov chain method to conduct a detailed analysis of regional differences and the distribution characteristics of regional financial development (RFD) in China. It then examines the impact of the imbalance in the RFD structure on the green technology innovation (GTI) of manufacturing enterprises and its underlying mechanism. The study finds that China’s RFD exhibits a serious phenomenon of “strong-strong agglomeration” and “weak-weak agglomeration.” The imbalance in RFD structure exerts an inhibitory effect on the GTI of enterprises. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this inhibitory effect is less pronounced for state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises, as well as for regions with strong intellectual property protection and stringent environmental regulations. Mechanism analysis indicates that the imbalance in RFD structure hinders GTI by causing excessive corporate debt. This study provides new empirical evidence on the imbalance of economic development and financial structure in China.