Corporate social responsibility, green credit, and corporate performance: an empirical analysis based on the mining, power, and steel industries of China

From the perspective of corporate social responsibility and environmental risk management, green credit will have an important impact on corporate performance. The influence of green credit policy on enterprises can be reflected by the borrowing ability and financing cost of the enterprises, which represent the support strength and price preference of green credit policy. Based on this, this paper considers data on long-term borrowing capacity, short-term borrowing capacity, corporate social responsibility report score, and assets’ return rate of 119 listed enterprises of mining, power, and steel industries in China, from 2010 to 2016, and uses a panel data model to estimates the general relationship between the corporate social responsibility, green credit, and corporate performance. We find that: First, taking the social responsibility can promote the enterprises’ long-term borrowing ability and reduce their financing cost, but it can inhibit their short-term borrowing ability. With a 1% improvement in corporate social responsibility score, the long-term borrowing ability of enterprises in three industries will be increased by 0.0867, 0.2688, and 0.0510%, respectively. Second, the positive undertaking of corporate social responsibility will promote the improvement in enterprise performance. The result of enterprise performance improvement for the sample industry is 0.05, 0.03, and 0.07%. Third, the long-term borrowing ability of enterprise green credit has a small promoting effect on the enterprises’ performance, with the coefficients being 0.1266, 0.0539, and 0.0306, respectively. This paper can be used as a reference to promote both implementation of green credit policy and corporate performance.