The spatiotemporal dynamic and spatial spillover effect of green finance efficiency in China: analysis based on super-SBM model and spatial Durbin model

Green finance is a key institutional framework supporting China’s newly publicized “Ecological Civilization Construction” initiative, and studies have analyzed the influencing factors of green growth from multiple perspectives; there are few studies that have examined the effectiveness of China’s multidimensional green finance goals. This study analyzes panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2020 and uses the Super Slacks-Based Measure (Super-SBM) model to calculate China’s green finance efficiency (GFE) and discusses its dynamic evolution characteristics in spatiotemporal dimensions. The main conclusions are as follows: First, there is a steady upward trend in China’s overall GFE value, despite a low level of GFE in general. Second, there is a curse of “Hu Huanyong line,” with highs in the eastern region and lows in the central and western regions as the overall distribution pattern. Third, GFE has a positive spatial spillover effect, and green finance development in nearby regions is closely related.