绿色信贷政策对企业环境绩效的影响

Impact of Green Credit Policy on Enterprises Environmental Performance

改革开放以来,过度追求经济增长导致污染事件频发,利用金融手段进行环境保护已成为金融领域重点关注的问题之一,绿色金融进而得以快速发展。中国金融体系的银行主导性质使绿色信贷成为用于环境保护的最普遍的金融工具,已有研究集中关注绿色信贷在宏观层面的整体效果或微观层面的经济效益,较少关注微观层面对企业环境绩效的影响及作用机制。探究绿色信贷政策与企业环境绩效之间的关系,以2012年《绿色信贷指引》的颁布作为准自然实验,选取2010年至2019年A股上市企业作为研究样本,利用双重差分法进行实证研究,探讨在面对重污染和非重污染两类企业时,绿色信贷政策的作用差异以及可能的影响机制,同时考虑企业面对的内在动机和外部压力对绿色信贷政策影响的调节效应。研究结果表明,与非重污染企业相比,实施绿色信贷政策后重污染企业环境绩效明显提升。在经过三重差分检验、替换实验组测量标准、安慰剂检验等一系列稳健性检验后,主要研究结果仍然成立,表明绿色信贷政策对企业环境绩效的影响不是由其他相关政策引起的,并且也不是由内生性问题导致的。机制检验表明,绿色信贷政策通过遵循成本效应和解决实质性环境问题改善重污染企业环境绩效。调节效应则表明绿色信贷政策对企业环境绩效的作用受到企业内在动机和外部压力的影响,绿色信贷政策的效果在面临更强融资约束和处于更激烈市场竞争环境的企业中更明显,并且在环保执法力度和公众监督积极性更强的地区,绿色信贷政策效果更加明显。研究结果揭示了绿色信贷政策对两类企业环境绩效的影响差异,在一定程度上丰富和发展了绿色信贷政策和环境绩效的研究,也为各个部门规范绿色信贷管理、改善环境绩效提供决策参考。

Since the reform and opening up,the excessive pursuit of economic growth has resulted in a surge of pollution incid-ents.Consequently,the utilization of financial instruments to protect the environment has become one of the key issues within the financial sector and green finance has experienced significant growth.Given the predominant influence of banks in China's financial system,green credit has emerged as the most prevalent financial instrument employed for environmental protection.Previous studies have primarily focused on analyzing the broad-ranging impact on green credit at a macro level or examining its economic benefits at a micro level.However,limited attention has been devoted to exploring its specific influence and operational mechanisms on the environmental performance of individual enterprises at a micro level.Considering the introduction of the“Green credit guideline”in 2012 as a quasinatural experiment,we select A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 as the research sample.We utilize the difference-in-difference(DID)method to conduct an empirical analysis that investigates the relationship between green credit policy and corporate environmental performance.Our study aims to explore how the impact of green credit policy on environmental performance differs between heavy polluting and non-heavy polluting enterprises,while also to examine potential internal mechanisms involved.Additionally,we assess how firms'intrinsic motivation and external pressures moderate the effects of green credit policy.The empirical results indicate that compared with non-heavy polluting enterprises,the implementation of green credit policy has a more obvious improvement in the environmental performance of heavy polluting enterprises.After a series of robustness tests such as triple difference test,PSM-DID,replace measurement standard,and placebo test,the main results still hold.The results of robust tests show that the impact on green credit policy on corporate environmental performance is not caused by other related policies or endogenous issues.The mechanism analysis reveals that the green credit policy improves the environmental performance by the following cost effect and solving material environmental problems.The moderating effect demonstrates that the impact of green credit policy will be affected by internal motivation and external pressure.Specifically,the effect of green credit policy is more pronounced in enterprises facing greater financing constraints and operating in a more competitive market environment.Moreover,the effect is more obvious in regions with stronger environmental protection law enforcementand higher levels ofpublic supervision.The results of the study reveal the disparity in the effects of green credit policies of green credit policy on the environmental performance of heavy polluting enterprises and non-heavy polluting enterprises.This augments and advances the existing research on green credit and environmental performance,while also offering valuable insights for decision-makers in various departments to enhance green credit management and improve environmental performance.