Abstract:

A difference-in-differences model is developed to examine the impact of China’s green credit policies on corporate social responsibility （CSR） performance. The results indicate that China’s green credit policies have significantly differentiated impacts on companies with different risk levels. After the implementation of the 2012 Green Credit Guidelines， the overall CSR performance of high-risk companies experienced a temporary decline， while clean companies showed a positive but insignificant change. Mechanism analysis reveals that these results stem from resource reallocation behavior constrained by green credit policies. High-risk companies prioritize resource allocation in environmental governance and social compliance-related areas during the initial transformation phase， thus creating a crowding-out effect on CSR performance in the short term， and this effect varies significantly under different compliance cost conditions. Furthermore， green credit policies， by tightening credit and increasing financing costs， exacerbate corporate funding constraints， providing a transmission path for resource reallocation behavior. The phased characteristics of the role of green credit policies are revealed from the perspective of corporate transformation， providing new empirical evidence for objectively assessing its micro-governance effects.

Key words: green credit, corporate social responsibility, financing constraints, resource reallocation