Spillover Effect of Green Credit Policies:a Perspective on Audit Pricing Decisions
Green credit has played an important role in improving corporate environmental governance behavior and promoting green eco-nomic and social development.This study investigates the spillover effect brought about by green credit policies from the perspective of audit pricing.By considering the issuance of the Green Credit Guidelines in 2012 as a natural experiment,this study builds a difference-in-differ-ence model to examine the impact of this policy's implementation on the audit fees of firms restricted by green credit.The results show that the green credit policy significantly reduces the audit fees of affected firms.Mechanism tests indicate that this policy affects pricing decisions of auditors by promoting the green transformation of enterprises,reducing their risk of environmental violations,and reducing agency costs in environmental governance.The tests of firm-level heterogeneity illustrate that the positive effect of green credit in reducing audit fees is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises,firms with lower capacity utilization,and lower information quality.Regional heterogeneity tests demonstrate that the positive effects of green credit policies are more significant in regions with a more competitive banking sector,higher marketization,and stronger environmental regulations by the government.This paper not only enriches the literature on the economic conse-quences of implementing green credit policies but also expands the research on factors affecting audit fees from the perspective of regional environmental regulation.Furthermore,our empirical evidence provides valuable insights for future revisions and improvements to green fi-nance policies.
green financecredit policyaudit feesspillover effectenvironment riskagency costsgreen transformation
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
