Do the Green Credit Guidelines Affect Renewable Energy Investment? Empirical Research from China

How to promote renewable energy investment is central to energy transformation and green development. To take China’s “green credit guidelines” policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the impacts of green credit policy on renewable energy investment. Using the samples of 1021 Chinese listed enterprises during 2007–2017, we find that: Firstly, the introduction of the green credit guidelines has promoted renewable energy investment. Secondly, short-term debts play a mediating role in the impacts of green credit guidelines on renewable energy investment, while long-term debts play a masking role, and financing constraints do not play a significant role. Thirdly, the heterogeneous impacts on renewable energy investment are reflected in different ownerships and enterprise scales, with significant impacts on the state-owned enterprises and small ones