The Impact Of Green Credit Policy On Debt Financing Behavior Of Enterprises

In recent years,China’s extensive economic development mode is faced with two major problems,energy shortage and environmental pollution,the transformation of economic development mode is imminent,industrial structure transformation and upgrading is imperative.To this end,General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed to the 19 th CPC National Congress that we should promote the harmonious development between man and nature and implement the basic state policy of environmental protection.At the same time,China has introduced a series of environmental policies to promote green development.For example,the Green Credit Guidelines issued by the former China Banking Regulatory Commission in 2012 clearly requires banks and other financial institutions to effectively carry out green credit and provide lower credit rates and more credit lines for green enterprises encouraged by the government.Heavy polluting enterprises that are not supported or even restricted by the government will be provided with higher interest rates and less credit resources,so that funds will flow from "two-high" enterprises to green enterprises,and further development of green industries and projects will be promoted.Therefore,in theory,green credit policy has a certain impact on the debt financing activities of enterprises.However,when implementing the green credit policy,financial institutions may be unable to put the green credit policy in place due to their own interests or imperfect policies and regulations.Therefore,after the promulgation of green credit policy,whether it has an expected impact on corporate debt financing behavior is debatable.Based on this,this paper combines the Equator Principle,sustainable development theory,stakeholder theory and information asymmetry theory,and on the basis of analyzing the development and implementation of green credit policy,studies the impact of green credit policy on the debt financing scale,cost and maturity of green enterprises and "two-high" enterprises.This paper takes 2009-2019 as the research period and identifies green enterprises according to the CSI 300 Green Leading Stock Index.According to the six high-energy consuming industries specified in the Statistical Bulletin of the National Bureau of Statistics,the Listed Companies Environmental Protection Verification Industry Classification Management List released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in2008,and the Listed Companies Industry Classification Guidelines issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2012,75 green enterprises and 459 "two-high" enterprises were identified.The fixed effect model is used to conduct empirical research on the two groups of data,and then the heterogeneity analysis is carried out according to the nature of enterprise property rights and regional sample regression.Finally,the robustness is tested by replacing the dependent variables.After a series of empirical analysis,the following conclusions are drawn :(1)The green credit policy has a significant negative correlation with the debt financing scale of "two-high" enterprises,and a significant positive correlation with the debt financing scale of green enterprises;(2)The green credit policy has a significant positive correlation with the debt financing cost of "two high" enterprises,and a significant negative correlation with the debt financing cost of green enterprises;(3)The green credit policy has a significant negative correlation with the debt financing maturity of "two high" enterprises,and a significant positive correlation with the debt financing maturity of green enterprises;(4)Compared with non-state-owned green enterprises,the implementation effect of green credit policy is more significant for state-owned green enterprises;Compared with non-state-owned "two-high" enterprises,the implementation effect of green credit policy is more significant for state-owned "two-high" enterprises.(5)Compared with the green enterprises in the central and western regions,the implementation effect of green credit policy is more significant for the green enterprises in the eastern region;Compared with the "two-high" enterprises in the central and western regions,the implementation effect of green credit policy is more significant for the "two high" enterprises in the eastern region.From the above conclusions,the green credit policy in our country of green enterprise debt financing has remarkable positive feedback effect,the "two-high" enterprises debt financing has a significant effect of punishment,but there are obvious differences in the effect of green credit policy in different property rights and different regions,which indicates that there are some limitations in green credit policy.Therefore,in view of the problems of green credit policy,the following policy suggestions are given in this paper:first,improve the operation of the green credit mechanism,such as a sound system of laws,to establish green credit guidance catalogue,and improve the mechanism of information communication and disclosure;Second,to build an effective incentive and restraint mechanism for green credit,such as the establishment of supporting fiscal and tax systems,and the establishment of performance evaluation system;Third,create a good environment for the implementation of green credit,such as strengthening the publicity of green environmental protection,improving the public participation,and enhancing the social responsibility of banks.