Green Credit,Industrial Structure Upgrading And Energy Efficiency

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19 th CPC Central Committee stated that we(Chinese people)should implement Xi Jinping’s thoughts on ecological civilization,fully implement the new development concept,and adhere to the principle of giving priority to green development and ecology.During the four decades of China’s Reform and Opening-up,our country has experienced unprecedented rapid urbanization and industrialization.This,in turn,has resulted in serious environmental and ecological issues.Up to now,the problem of environmental pollution has remained serious in every region of our country;one of the major challenges in this regard has been balancing economic development and environmental protection in the Chinese economy.China has abundant reserves of energy resources,but the utilization rate is not high and the consumption structure is not reasonable.Therefore,it has become critical to find ways to improve energy efficiency,which would,in turn,solve the problem of environmental pollution.From a practical viewpoint,guiding industrial production to be green through green credit policies and promoting the improvement of energy efficiency through industrial structure upgrading are the key policies of the Chinese government.In this light,it is of great practical significance to make an inquiry about following research questions: How to determine the path of upgrading industrial structure to promote energy efficiency? How to improve China’s green credit policy?Firstly,this dissertation sorts out the credit rationing theory,the industrial structure upgrading theory and the energy economy theory,and mainly adopts the game theory method to theoretically explore the relationship between green credit,industrial structure upgrading and energy efficiency.Second,based on the theoretical analysis,this study develops various models and employs Chinese provincial data from 2008 to 2018.With green credit as the source element,and to explain why industrial structure upgrading improves energy efficiency and to analyze the optimal path of industrial structure upgrading to promote energy efficiency,this study employs a variety of panel approaches,including multiple linear regression model,mediation effect model,and threshold effect model.This study further uses robustness test to validate the basic research findings.The study reached to following main empirical findings:(1)Multiple linear regression demonstrates that green credit would increase energy efficiency.(2)The mediating effect demonstrates that the mediating variable,which is industrial structure upgrading,plays a significant role in improving energy efficiency,and green credit can affect energy efficiency through the upgradation of industrial structure.(3)The threshold effect demonstrates that if the proportion of green credit scale is in an appropriate range,it will promote energy efficiency improvement to a greater extent,whereas promotion of energy efficiency will be minimal in other ranges.(4)This study uses green credit as a policy dummy variable for robustness checks,and confirms that green credit can positively promote energy efficiency improvement.Subsequently,the GMM test results validate the robustness of the empirical results.Based on the research presented above,this dissertation makes the following recommendations for the implementation of green credit policy,optimization of industrial structure and the development of the energy industry:(1)Improve the top-level design and constraint incentive mechanism,as well as develop a comprehensive green credit policy system.(2)Improve the management of the green credit process and accelerate the development of green financial products.(3)Enhance information disclosure management and establish a sound energy efficiency monitoring system;(4)Create differentiated industrial policies to increase support for the new energy industry;(5)Optimize factor allocation among industries and promote industry development toward green and advanced development.