Impact of green finance pilot reforms on corporate carbon emissions: A study based on evolutionary game theory and firm-level evidence

As global efforts to combat climate change intensify, the Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot (GFRIP) policy has assumed an increasingly significant role in guiding enterprises toward low-carbon transitions and advancing sustainable development. This paper develops a dynamic evolutionary game model involving the government, enterprises, and regulatory authorities, analyzes the strategic evolution laws of behavioral subjects during policy implementation, and evaluates the emission reduction effect of the GFRIP by taking Chinese listed companies in 2006-2023 as a sample. Our research results show that GFRIP has significantly contributed to the reduction of corporate carbon emissions. Mechanism analysis shows that GFRIP can promote corporate carbon emission reduction by strengthening media supervision, easing financing constraints and raising the level of corporate environmental governance. Further investigation of heterogeneity, our study suggests the emission reduction impact of its policies is stronger in the northern region, high-pollution enterprises and enterprises with low environmental uncertainty. This study reveals the environmental governance effect of GFRIP from the perspective of micro-enterprises, and offers a theoretical foundation and practical motivation for low-carbon transformation and policy optimization for enterprises.