The Reward and Penalty Effects of the Green Credit Policy on Corporate Debt Financing: An Effect Evaluation Based on a Quasi-Natural Experiment

Abstract

Abstract: The green credit policy aims to enable social capital to enter the green development domain and to promote the green transformation of the enterprises with high pollution, high-energy consumption, and excess production capacity. Based on the differences-in-differences model and taking the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2005 to 2019 as the research samples, this paper verifies the impact of the green credit policy on corporate debt financing in both rewarding and punishing ways. In terms of rewarding, if the enterprises, which not belong to those with high-pollution, high energy-consumption and excess production capacity, have established business relationship with banks involving in the green credit business, their long-term or short-term debt financing scale and their maturity structure will perform better. In terms of punishing, after the release of the green credit policy, the scale of the long-term debt financing and the maturity structure of the enterprise with high-pollution, high energy-consumption and excess production capacity have decreased significantly. Further study of the heterogeneity shows that the non-state-owned enterprises have received bigger rewards, but there is no noticeable difference in the punishments on the enterprises with high-pollution, high energy-consumption and excess production capacity though they have different ownerships. The higher the financial development level and the smaller intensity of industrial pollution in prefecture-level cities, the greater the reward of the green credit policy will be; meanwhile, the bigger the debt scale of local governments is, the smaller the punishment of the green credit policy will be. The key to improving the effect of the green credit policies is to improve the level of green information disclosure, clarify the boundaries between the market and government powers and responsibilities, and relieve the ownership preference in credit resource allocation.

Key words: green credit policy, scale of debt financing, maturity structure, quasi-natural experiment, difference-in-difference model

WU Hongyi, YIN Desheng. The Reward and Penalty Effects of the Green Credit Policy on Corporate Debt Financing: An Effect Evaluation Based on a Quasi-Natural Experiment[J]. JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY FINANCE AND ECONOMICS, 2021, 0(2): 72-89.

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