Abstract: Based on panel data from 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1998 to 2017, a super-efficiency DDF-DEA model considering environmental constraints is constructed to measure the efficiency of green finance in the region. Furthermore, a social network analysis method is used to construct a green finance development network in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, analyzing the network’s relational structure and driving factors. The research results show that there is common overflow relationship on green finance among provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, characterized with a gradual increase of interconnectedness, a more compact network; an increase of inter-regional interaction, but polarization in the distribution of network relation; and an obvious conduction path of gradient overflow among four major network plates. It is found in this study that regional development model, social resource endowment, green development environment and geographical adjacency influence the relationship network pattern of green finance to some extent. Furthermore, this study points out that the key to realizing green and coordinated development among provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is to grasp the spatial structure and relationship overflow path of the green finance development as a whole, not merely from the perspective of local attributes, meanwhile, to put regional development in “a chess game” of overall development and position its own relationship network.

Key words: green finance development, spatial correlation, social network, Yangtze River Economic Belt