Summary:
The green economy is a major avenue of current research and an important foundation for the long-term development of society, especially as the rapid development of China's economy in the past decades has caused problems such as pollution and ecological damage. Unfortunately, rapid economic development often causes deterioration of the natural environment, as such development is focused on achieving a certain quantity of economic growth without also being focused on achieving a certain quality of economic growth. Thus, the growth is unsustainable. To address this need to reconcile the goals of long-term economic growth with those of green construction, and thereby achieve the dual benefits of sustainable economic growth and environmentally aware governance, the former China Banking Regulatory Commission issued the “Green Credit Guidelines” policy (hereinafter, green credit policy) in 2012. This policy aims to use financial market resources to reduce environmental pollution caused by firms' production and operation, and to improve the system of credit resource allocation such that it favors environmentally friendly firms; thus, the policy has generated great changes throughout the financing environment. However, although exporting is an important aspect of China's economic growth, many Chinese exporters continue to face significant financing constraints, such that their export growth is limited by their ability to acquire of external credit. Chinese exporters consequently face problems in identifying new financing channels. These problems have been addressed by the implementation of the green credit policy, which has promoted the development of a green finance channel from which exporters can obtain external financing, further contributing to the growth of China's exports. The green economy concept is thus increasingly shaping the developmental direction of China's export patterns. This study analyzes the potential effect of green finance on China's trade sector by studying the impact of green finance development on export growth, from the implementation of the “Green Credit Guidelines” policy onwards. Therefore, this study delineates a feasible path China can follow to achieve export growth while minimizing carbon emissions. This study also discusses technical solutions for global green construction, to which China could make significant contributions. The green credit policy provides a new “signal display” mechanism for exporters to obtain financing, which eases the acquisition of external financing for vulnerable exporters in an environment featuring information friction. That is, the policy requires banks to issue green credit resources based on the direct signal of an exporter's pollution level rather than the exporter's “hard information,” thereby enabling exporters with poor hard information on their assets but relatively environmentally friendly production to obtain financing. Thus, as many SME exporters have low production scales and emit low levels of pollution, they have an obvious signaling advantage for obtaining green credit. This policy alleviates the financing constraints that SME exporters face from being unable to obtain traditional forms of credit, and may ultimately increase the scale of exports. This study uses the difference-in-differences estimation method to analyze the role of green finance development in China's export growth and thereby identify the underlying causal relationship. It is found that the development of green finance since the implementation of the green credit policy has significantly promoted China's export expansion, increased the binary margin of exports, and optimized the volume and price structure of exports. These effects have obvious heterogeneity. The channel test shows that the alleviation of financing constraints is the core mechanism by which green finance promotes export growth. A series of robustness tests show that the export-promotion effect of green finance is robust to alternative explanations. Overall, these findings imply that green finance is an important factor that supports China's export growth and can bring generate win-win situation marrying pollution control with trade growth.
金祥义, 张文菲, 施炳展. 绿色金融促进了中国出口贸易发展吗?[J]. 金融研究, 2022, 503(5): 38-56.
JIN Xiangyi, ZHANG Wenfei, SHI Bingzhan. Does Green Finance Promote Exports from China?. Journal of Financial Research, 2022, 503(5): 38-56.
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