Fintech’s Impact on Green Total Factor Productivity of High Carbon Enterprises

Effectively improving the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of high-carbon enterprises is the key to adhering to green development and achieving the dual-carbon goal. This study examines the relationship between fintech and enterprises’ GTFP based on an SBM-undesirable model with data from eight high-carbon industries in China from 2006 to 2020, and addresses the endogeneity issue with instrumental variables and propensity matching scores. It has been discovered that for every 1% increase in the level of fintech development in a city, there will be a 1.08% increase in the GTFP of local high-carbon enterprises; fintech boosts GTFP by reducing financing constraints and promoting green technological advances to promote the green transformation of high-carbon enterprises across the board; and the role of fintech in boosting GTFP is more pronounced in the midwestern regions, non-resource cities, cities with weaker environmental regulations, and non-state-owned enterprises. Overall, the development of fintech contributes to the environment and economic growth.