Green credit and corporate energy efficiency: Enterprise pollution transfer or green transformation

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning emphasis on advancing the paradigm of energy transformation and expediting the maturation of novel energy systems in order to enhance the structural integrity of China's energy industry. Employing the 2007 "Opinions on Implementing Environmental Protection Policies and Regulations to Prevent Credit Risk" as a quasi-experimental setting, this study utilizes longitudinal panel data spanning from 2000 to 2014, encompassing Chinese industrial enterprises. Through the application of a difference-in-differences analytical framework, this research rigorously evaluates the ramifications of the Green Credit Policy (GCP) on firm-level energy-utilization efficiency (FLEE). The empirical findings proffer compelling evidence of a substantial amelioration in FLEE attributable to the enactment of the GCP. Furthermore, a nuanced investigation of heterogeneity reveals that the GCP exerts a conspicuously more pronounced influence in elevating FLEE levels within the eastern region, state-owned enterprises, entities characterized by low technological sophistication, and those operating within highly pollution-intensive sectors. Mechanism analysis underscores the pivotal role of resource allocation and the amelioration of financing constraints as indirect pathways through which the GCP bolsters FLEE.