Green credit, renewable energy investment and green economy development: Empirical analysis based on 150 listed companies of China

By building a green economy development index to measure the level of green economy development, taking 150 renewable energy listed companies of China for example, this paper constructs a threshold effect model to investigate the non-linear relationship between renewable energy investment and the green economy development index from the perspective of green credit. Results mainly show that: firstly, the impact of renewable energy investment on the green economy development index includes dual threshold effects from green-credit, the effect is divided into three stages: promoting, restraining and promoting successively. Secondly, for large-sized companies, the impact of renewable energy investment on the green economy development index includes one threshold from green-credit, with the effect coefficients at each stage being 0.1034 and 0.0113, successively. However, for medium, small, and micro sized enterprises, the impact of renewable energy investment on the green economy development index includes dual threshold effects from green credit, with the effect coefficients at each stage being 0.1310, 0.0033, and 0.0244, successively, and the inhibition effect not being significant. Thirdly, our results also find that improving expenditure on environmental pollution control and adjusting industry structure are conducive to increasing the green economy development index. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.