How can green credit decrease social health costs? The mediating effect of the environment

Abstract

Green credit plays an important role in environmental protection and residents' health. This paper discusses the impact path of green credit on social health costs with the help of a quantile regression. The implementation of a green credit policy can decrease social health costs in China, and green credit works best in the economically developed Eastern region. As the quantile increases, so gradually does the absolute value of the green credit coefficient. This result proves that for provinces with rich per capita financial health expenditures, green credit plays a greater role in decreasing social costs, a conclusion also supported by our robustness test. In addition, we find that environmental pollution plays a mediating role in the path of green credit affecting health, and this finding is verified in the green credit and health general equilibrium model. Based on these findings, the government should encourage the active innovation of green credit products, and the banking industry should develop personalized green credit products for specific pollutant types or industries while decreasing government pressure.