| Abstract [eng] |
82 pages, 20 tables, 2 figures, 70 references. The purpose of this master's thesis is to analyze green finance and sustainable development, and, based on the methodology, examine their development in Baltic Sea Region countries. The thesis consists of three main parts. In the first part, a literature review of green finance and sustainable development is presented. When analyzing green finance, definitions, green finance instruments, benefits and drawbacks, and key actors in the green financial system are discussed. The topic of sustainable development is analyzed using the VOSviewer program, which systematized 10,000 articles from Web of Science and divided them into seven main topics based on keywords. Furthermore, the main findings related to this topic in the Baltic Sea Region countries are presented. The second part describes the development of hypotheses and outlines the methodologies used to address the key research questions. The research scheme presents that panel regression, fixed-effect regression and random-effect regression models will be used to test the hypotheses. After that, Variance Inflation Factor, Breusch-Pagan Langrage Multiplier Test and Hausman Test will be performed to analyze and support results. The third part presents an empirical study along with the main results. Across the four hypotheses, the results show that green finance plays a meaningful role in supporting sustainable development outcomes in the Baltic Sea Region, particularly through its positive association with the Sustainable Development Index and renewable energy consumption. However, its direct influence on human development and institutional quality appears limited, with economic and social factors such as GDP growth, education, healthcare expenditure, and democratic governance serving as stronger predictors in these areas. To conclude, the findings suggest that while green finance contributes to environmental and developmental progress, its broader societal and institutional effects likely emerge gradually and depend on complementary structural conditions. |
