Research On The Influence Of Green Credit Policy On The Financial Performance Of Heavily Polluting Enterprises

Over the past 40 years of China’s reform and opening up,China’s economic level has made a qualitative leap.The total economic scale remains at the forefront of the world,and the achievements have attracted worldwide attention.However,behind the brilliant achievements,it has brought crises to the society,such as environmental deterioration,depletion of resources and environment,sharp decline of biodiversity,global warming and so on.In recent years,with more supply side structural reforms and the promulgation of laws and regulations related to green development,it shows that China has regarded sustainable development and the establishment of ecological civilization as an important prerequisite for China’s future economic development.In order to improve environmental problems,The former China Banking Regulatory Commission issued the "Green Credit Guidelines" in 2012,requiring banks and other financial institutions to incorporate corporate environmental performance into credit review standards,implement differential loans,raise the threshold for enterprises to raise funds,and implement punitive high interest rate loans for heavily polluting enterprises,This method is used to curb the environmental problems caused by heavily polluting enterprises.Bank credit accounts account for a relatively high proportion of the corporate capital chain,which will have an impact on the production,operation and investment development of enterprises due to the strict control of credit.Whether it will bring changes in the financial performance of heavily polluting enterprises is worth further discussion.Therefore,based on the promulgation of the green credit guidelines,this paper designs a quasi-natural experiment,using the double-difference model to study the impact of green credit policies on the financial performance of heavily polluting enterprises,and analyzes the transmission mechanism of this impact.At the same time,this paper analyzes the different effects of green credit guidelines on the financial performance of heavily polluting enterprises when the nature of ownership,the proportion of institutional investors and the scale of enterprises are different.Firstly,based on the theory of sustainable development,this paper expounds why the green credit policy is implemented,and then discusses the mechanism of green credit policy affecting the behavior and financial performance of high polluting enterprises from the perspective of environmental risk management theory,signal theory and stakeholder theory,and puts forward theoretical assumptions;Secondly,using the data of China’s A-share listed companies from 2002 to 2018,this paper constructs a did model for quasi natural experiments to empirically test the impact of green credit policy on enterprise financial performance,and obtains the following conclusions:first,the implementation of green credit policy significantly reduces enterprise financial performance.This conclusion is still valid after robustness tests such as propensity score matching,changing explained variables,adding control variables and changing sample intervals;Second,green credit policy imposes credit constraints on high polluting enterprises,resulting in credit punishment effect,which affects the financial performance of enterprises;Third,in the case of stateowned enterprises,large-scale enterprises and large shareholding proportion of institutional investors,the impact of green credit policy on reducing enterprise financial performance is greater.Based on the above research results,proposals are presented from the perspective of government,financial institutions and companies:First,the government should continue to improve the green credit policy system and use market-oriented means to constrain enterprises,promote their awareness of environmental responsibility and realize transformation and upgrading;Second,banks should constantly innovate green credit products,strive to promote financial supply side reform,and achieve the goal of financial services to the real economy;Third,enterprises should comply with the policy trend,seize the development opportunity,carry out green transformation,and realize the mutual promotion between green credit policy and their own development.