绿色信贷与低碳转型:资本整合还是技术创新?——来自准自然实验的证据

Green Credit and Low-carbon Transformation:Capital Consolidation or Technology Innovation

作为绿色金融重要组成部分的绿色信贷政策,能否通过信贷资源配置推动高污染、高能耗企业实现绿色低碳转型?转型路径是资本整合还是技术创新?是高质量发展需要回答的重要问题。本文以《绿色信贷指引》实施为准自然实验,基于企业微观数据考察绿色信贷政策对高污染、高能耗企业低碳转型的影响。研究发现,该政策显著促进了高污染、高能耗企业全要素生产率的提升,但减污降碳效应尚未显现。地方财政压力较小、环境执法力度较强地区与议价能力较弱企业的全要素生产率明显上升。该政策促进了企业全要素生产率提升,主要是诱发了清洁并购行为,而绿色创新提升并不显著。这意味着高污染、高能耗企业低碳转型的内生动力不足,更多依赖于资本整合。本文为进一步完善绿色信贷政策提供了重要的经验证据。

The report of the 20th Party Congress proposes that“A green and low-carbon economy and society are crucial to high-quality development.”Green finance,which aims to make financing activities more environmentally friendly by reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and raising the efficiency of energy use,is vital for realizing the“dual-carbon”goal.As an important part of the green financial system,green credit policy is a typical market-based environmental regulation,which is of great significance in guiding the flow of resources to green and low-carbon areas,promoting the lowcarbon transformation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises,and realizing green development.Can the green credit policy promote the low-carbon transformation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises through credit resource allocation?Is the path of low-carbon transformation capital consolidation or technology innovation?There is no answer in the existing literature.As green growth is now part of China's development strategy,it is very important to study the impact of green finance policies on the low-carbon transformation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises and explore their low-carbon transformation path.The Green Credit Guidelines were released in 2012 to promote the investment of credit funds in environmental protection and low-carbon areas and strictly control loans to heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises.Considered a“milestone”in China's green credit policy,the Green Credit Guidelines overcame the shortcomings of the previous policy.After the implementation of the Green Credit Guidelines,heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises had to undergo stricter scrutiny to obtain loans,and the availability of bank loans for these enterprises shrank,whereas other enterprises still followed the general process to obtain loans.Using a difference-in-differences(DID)framework,we estimate the effects of the Green Credit Guidelines on the low-carbon transformation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises by taking advantage of variations across industries(i.e.,pollution-intensive sectors vs.non-pollutionintensive sectors)and across years(i.e.,before and after the policy).Analyzing data on Chinese listed companies,we draw three conclusions.First,the policy significantly promotes the total factor productivity of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises,but the effect of pollution and carbon reduction has not yet appeared.Second,the total factor productivity of firms in regions with less fiscal pressure,stronger environmental enforcement,and weaker bargaining power has increased significantly.Third,the policy promotes the total factor productivity of enterprises,mainly stimulating clean mergers and acquisitions(M&As)of polluting firms,and the enterprises'green innovation is not significant.This means that the endogenous motivation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises for lowcarbon transformation is relatively insufficient,mainly relying more on capital integration.This study provides important empirical evidence for further improvement of the green credit policy.Compared with existing studies,this empirical study makes several contributions.First,it estimates the impact of the Green Credit Guidelines on the low-carbon transformation of heavily polluting and energy-intensive enterprises,thus providing new and reliable micro evidence for the green credit policy in developing countries and deepening our understanding of the impact of green credit policy on the green and low-carbon transition of enterprises.Second,this study investigates the mechanism of the Green Credit Guidelines on the low-carbon transformation of industrial enterprises by using relatively new micro-data of clean M&As and provides a new perspective for evaluating green finance policy.It is found that despite the unique and important functions of the capital market in resource allocation,capital integration has not yet truly advanced the low-carbon transformation of industrial enterprises.Finally,this study examines the heterogeneous behavior of low-carbon transformation in industrial enterprises.It provides important empirical evidence for advancing the improvement of green finance systems in developing countries.