Research on Innovative Mechanisms of Financial Agglomeration Enabling Green Coordinated Development in the Yangtze River Delta of China

Based on panel data from 41 cities in China's Yangtze River Delta region from 2003 to 2019, this article empirically has conducted an in-depth study of the impact of financial agglomeration on the level of urban economic green coordinated development and the intermediary role of innovation. The results show that financial agglomeration can drive green technology innovation to have a positive impact on the coordinated development of 'production greening - social optimization - deepening of environmental protection' in the Yangtze River Delta. In addition, financial agglomeration can have a positive effect on neighboring areas through innovative spatial connections between cities, and the spillover effect decreases with distance and the maximum impact range is at a critical point of 240km. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the intermediate mechanism of green technology innovation performs well in areas with high-level financial agglomeration and the Banking and securities industry are the leading factors of capital agglomeration. Low-level financial agglomeration and financial personnel agglomeration cannot play the role of 'driving green' of innovation mechanism