Financialization and an emerging green investor state: Examining China's use of state-backed funds for green transition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Beck, Kasper Ingeman; Larsen, Mathias
• 署名单位: Copenhagen Business School; Brown University
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.12625
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 349-369
• 关键词: POLITICAL-ECONOMY; environment

摘要

China is simultaneously enacting a state-led financialization of governance and a prioritization of environmental objectives. Resultingly, dedicated state-backed green funds have grown in scale beyond US$70 billion. Drawing on interviews, policies, and financial databases, we examine these funds through policy document analysis, descriptive statistics, and three case studies. Tying together the literature on financialization and the green state we show how China's market-driven, government-guided type of state-led financialization enhances the country's green state investment capacity. This is distinct from other countries' experience of diminishing capacities resulting from financialization of the state. We introduce the concept of a green investor state to capture China's approach and argue that the approach is difficult to replicate beyond state-capitalist economies. However, the gradual return of industrial policy elsewhere makes the use of similar funds increasingly feasible globally, warranting further research on the use of green funds under none-state-led types of financialization.