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Green credit and its obstacles: Evidence from China's green credit guidelines

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  • Huang, Zhen
  • Gao, Ning
  • Jia, Ming

Abstract

How effective are green credit policies in guiding credit flows? We find a significant penalty effect of China's 2012 “Green Credit Guidelines” (GCG) on firms in pollution intensive industries. The GCG achieves cross-industry credit allocation by steering bank loans away from pollution intensive industries. Nonetheless, further analyses suggest special interests associated with political connections, local aspirations for economic growth, and banking business preferences stifle this effect. Strong environmental management at the firm level does not improve firms' access to bank credit regardless of their industries, suggesting GCG fails to attain cross-firm credit reallocation within industries. Additional analysis shows that pollution intensive firms strengthen their environmental management when they are bank dependent. When segregating overall bank credit into short-term and long-term, we find the credit penalty effect is more substantial for short-term credit, and the obstacle effects are somewhat mixed. Our evidence also suggests that pollution intensive firms substitute bank debt with debt supplied by non-bank lenders who are arguably under less compliance pressure, and GCG do not affect pollution intensive firms' real investments. Overall, we highlight the tension between environmental policies' intended consequence and the special interests embedded in the political and economic institutions typical of a large developing economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Zhen & Gao, Ning & Jia, Ming, 2023. "Green credit and its obstacles: Evidence from China's green credit guidelines," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0929119923000901
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2023.102441
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Songlin & Miao, Xuaner & Zheng, Haoqing & Chen, Weihong & Wang, Huafeng, 2024. "Spatial functional division in urban agglomerations and carbon emission intensity: New evidence from 19 urban agglomerations in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    2. Peng, Changhong & Zhang, Shuqin & Rong, Xueyun & Chen, Dongjing, 2024. "Is China's green credit policy effective? -Based on the perspective of enterprise environmental performance and economic performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
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    4. Yangjie Liao & Xiaokun Zhou, 2024. "Real green or fake green? Impact of green credit policy on corporate ESG performance," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    5. Zhang, Chunqiang & Hao, Dayu & Gao, Lu & Xia, Fan & Zhang, Linlang, 2024. "Do ESG ratings improve capital market trading activities?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 195-210.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Green credit; Credit reallocation; Pollution intensive firms; Bank loans; Special interests; Climate policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

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