School of Economics and Management, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710064, China.
Department of Science and Technology, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710064, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jan 29;17(3):831. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17030831.
This study seeks to investigate the endogenous relationship between financial leverage, economic growth and environmental degradation in China by employing a the generalized moments method (GMM) panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) approach with a panel of data from China's 30 provinces over the period 1997-2016. Three key results arise. First, financial leverage can significantly lessen economic growth, while economic growth decreases financial leverage. Second, economic growth provides an important impetus to boost carbon emissions. Finally, carbon emissions have inversely pushed up financial leverage. These results reflect to some extent China's impressive rate of economic growth, which has been attained via continuously supporting inefficient state-owned enterprises and heavy and polluting industries through bank loans. The results are further supported by the variance decomposition. The findings provide valuable policy implications for deepening financial supply-side structure reform to transform and upgrade China's real economy. These policy implications are conductive to developing a low-carbon economy.
本研究运用广义矩法（GMM）面板向量自回归（PVAR）方法，以 1997-2016 年中国 30 个省份的面板数据为样本，考察了金融杠杆、经济增长和环境恶化之间的内在关系。研究得出了三个主要结果。首先，金融杠杆显著降低经济增长，而经济增长则降低金融杠杆。其次，经济增长为促进碳排放提供了重要动力。最后，碳排放对金融杠杆产生了反向推动作用。这些结果在一定程度上反映了中国令人瞩目的经济增长率，这是通过银行贷款不断支持低效国有企业和重污染产业实现的。方差分解进一步支持了这些结果。研究结果为深化金融供给侧结构性改革、推动中国实体经济转型升级提供了有价值的政策启示，有利于发展低碳经济。
