Green Credit Policy and Enterprise Green M&As: An Empirical Test from China

Green credit is an important financial tool to coordinate the relationship between economic development and environmental protection. The Green Credit Guidelines (GCGs) issued in 2012 comprise the first formal, dedicated green credit policy. To test the effectiveness of the GCGs in green governance, in this study, we use the differences-in-differences (DID) method to test the impact of the implementation of the GCGs on enterprise green mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and further examine the performance of green M&As. The results show that the implementation of the GCGs have significantly promoted the green M&A activities of heavily polluting enterprises, and the promotion effect is more significant in enterprises with poor green innovation ability and enterprises with low financial marketization levels. Further research reveals that green M&As can improve the green innovation performance of enterprises. From the perspective of green M&As, in this paper, we expand the research on the effect of green credit policy, providing a decision-making reference for the promotion and improvement of subsequent green credit policy.