The Impact of Green Credit Policy on Inefficient Investment of New Energy Enterprises —— Based on the Dual Perspectives of Resource Allocation and Debt Governance

Abstract Based on the perspectives of resource allocation and debt governance, this paper considers a sample of new energy companies from 2008 to 2019 and uses Richardson’s expected investment model to empirically test the relationship between green credit policies and inefficient investment by new energy companies. There is a significant negative relationship between the intensity of green credit policy and the inefficient investment of enterprises, which can both restrain overinvestment and alleviate underinvestment. Through the analysis of the intermediary mechanism, it is found that the green credit policy can optimize the corporate debt maturity structure and reduce agency costs, but the intermediary effect of the debt maturity structure is manifested in the aggravation of overinvestment, and the intermediary effect of agency costs is manifested in a reduction in underinvestment and then inefficient investment. The heterogeneity analysis results show that the resource allocation effect of green credit is more significant in the sample of nonstate-owned enterprises, and the debt governance effect is more significant in the sample of state-owned enterprises.