IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v66y2021ics1043951x20301796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Motivation of Chinese commercial banks to issue green bonds: Financing costs or regulatory arbitrage?

Author

Listed:
  • Cao, Xiao
  • Jin, Cheng
  • Ma, Wenjie

Abstract

This paper analyzes the reasons for the rapid increase in the scale of green bonds issued by Chinese commercial banks in recent years from the perspective of financing costs and regulatory arbitrage. Our empirical results show that the financing cost mechanism cannot explain this increase since the financing costs of green bonds are not lower than those of non-green financial bonds. Furthermore, commercial banks with low asset liquidity engage in regulatory arbitrage to take advantage of the convenience of green bond financing permission to supplement their liquidity. Our results imply that the regulatory arbitrage mechanism is a very important motivation for commercial banks to issue green bonds. To reduce this motivation and ensure the healthy and sustainable development of the green bond market, green ratings of projects should be linked with financing costs as a way to form a positive feedback incentivizing mechanism for green project financers.

Suggested Citation

  • Cao, Xiao & Jin, Cheng & Ma, Wenjie, 2021. "Motivation of Chinese commercial banks to issue green bonds: Financing costs or regulatory arbitrage?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:66:y:2021:i:c:s1043951x20301796
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2020.101582
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X20301796
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2020.101582?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Febi, Wulandari & Schäfer, Dorothea & Stephan, Andreas & Sun, Chen, 2018. "The impact of liquidity risk on the yield spread of green bonds," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 53-59.
    2. Zerbib, Olivier David, 2019. "The effect of pro-environmental preferences on bond prices: Evidence from green bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 39-60.
    3. An, Ping & Yu, Mengxuan, 2018. "Neglected part of shadow banking in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 211-236.
    4. Buchak, Greg & Matvos, Gregor & Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2018. "Fintech, regulatory arbitrage, and the rise of shadow banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 453-483.
    5. Maria Jua Bachelet & Leonardo Becchetti & Stefano Manfredonia, 2019. "The Green Bonds Premium Puzzle: The Role of Issuer Characteristics and Third-Party Verification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-22, February.
    6. Joel F. Houston & Chen Lin & Yue Ma, 2012. "Regulatory Arbitrage and International Bank Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(5), pages 1845-1895, October.
    7. Ongena, Steven & Popov, Alexander & Udell, Gregory F., 2013. "“When the cat's away the mice will play”: Does regulation at home affect bank risk-taking abroad?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 727-750.
    8. Hachenberg, B. & Schiereck, D., 2018. "Are green bonds priced differently from conventional bonds?," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 109709, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    9. John A Mathews & Sean Kidney, 2012. "Financing climate-friendly energy development through bonds," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 337-349, June.
    10. G. Andrew Karolyi & Alvaro G. Taboada, 2015. "Regulatory Arbitrage and Cross‐Border Bank Acquisitions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2395-2450, December.
    11. Nelson, Charles R & Siegel, Andrew F, 1987. "Parsimonious Modeling of Yield Curves," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 473-489, October.
    12. Flaherty, Michael & Gevorkyan, Arkady & Radpour, Siavash & Semmler, Willi, 2017. "Financing climate policies through climate bonds – A three stage model and empirics," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 468-479.
    13. Britta Hachenberg & Dirk Schiereck, 2018. "Are green bonds priced differently from conventional bonds?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(6), pages 371-383, October.
    14. Olivier David Zerbib, 2019. "The effect of pro-environmental preferences on bond prices: Evidence from green bonds," Post-Print halshs-02008641, HAL.
    15. Huang, Ji, 2018. "Banking and shadow banking," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 124-152.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chang, Lei & Moldir, Mukan & Zhang, Yuan & Nazar, Raima, 2023. "Asymmetric impact of green bonds on energy efficiency: Fresh evidence from quantile estimation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Su, Chi-Wei & Mirza, Nawazish & Umar, Muhammad & Chang, Tsangyao & Albu, Lucian Liviu, 2022. "Resource extraction, greenhouse emissions, and banking performance," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Tsagkanos, Athanasios & Argyropoulou, Despoina & Androulakis, Georgios, 2022. "Asymmetric economic effects via the dependence structure of green bonds and financial stress index," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    4. Lin, Boqiang & Su, Tong, 2022. "Green bond vs conventional bond: Outline the rationale behind issuance choices in China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Ren, Xiaohang & Li, Yiying & yan, Cheng & Wen, Fenghua & Lu, Zudi, 2022. "The interrelationship between the carbon market and the green bonds market: Evidence from wavelet quantile-on-quantile method," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Zenno, Yoshihiro & Aruga, Kentaka, 2023. "Investing the factors affecting green bond investments in China: Cases for Beijing and Shenzhen," MPRA Paper 116203, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Li, Yanxi & Yu, Conghui & Shi, Jinyan & Liu, Yuanyuan, 2023. "How does green bond issuance affect total factor productivity? Evidence from Chinese listed enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    8. Li, Quan & Zhang, Kai & Wang, Li, 2022. "Where's the green bond premium? Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    9. Marc Ringel & Saranda Mjekic, 2023. "Analyzing the Role of Banks in Providing Green Finance for Retail Customers: The Case of Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-24, May.
    10. Yoshihiro Zenno & Kentaka Aruga, 2023. "Investigating Factors Affecting Institutional Investors’ Green Bond Investments: Cases for Beijing and Shenzhen," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-16, March.
    11. Danilo Liberati & Giuseppe Marinelli, 2022. "Everything you always wanted to know about green bonds (but were afraid to ask)," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Statistics for Sustainable Finance, volume 56, Bank for International Settlements.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary & Naoyuki Yoshino & Han Phoumin, 2021. "Analyzing the Characteristics of Green Bond Markets to Facilitate Green Finance in the Post-COVID-19 World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-24, May.
    2. Reboredo, Juan C. & Ugolini, Andrea & Aiube, Fernando Antonio Lucena, 2020. "Network connectedness of green bonds and asset classes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Joao Leitao & Joaquim Ferreira & Ernesto Santibanez‐Gonzalez, 2021. "Green bonds, sustainable development and environmental policy in the European Union carbon market," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 2077-2090, May.
    4. Juan Camilo Mejía-Escobar & Juan David González-Ruiz & Giovanni Franco-Sepúlveda, 2021. "Current State and Development of Green Bonds Market in the Latin America and the Caribbean," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-25, September.
    5. Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Ajmi, Ahdi Noomen & Mokni, Khaled, 2020. "Relationship between green bonds and financial and environmental variables: A novel time-varying causality," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    6. Eftichios S. Sartzetakis, 2021. "Green bonds as an instrument to finance low carbon transition," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 755-779, August.
    7. Ana-Belén Alonso-Conde & Javier Rojo-Suárez, 2020. "On the Effect of Green Bonds on the Profitability and Credit Quality of Project Financing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-19, August.
    8. Arif, Muhammad & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Farid, Saqib & Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2022. "Diversifier or more? Hedge and safe haven properties of green bonds during COVID-19," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    9. Vasundhara Saravade & Olaf Weber, 2020. "An Institutional Pressure and Adaptive Capacity Framework for Green Bonds: Insights from India’s Emerging Green Bond Market," World, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-25, November.
    10. Richter, Sylvia & Heyde, Frank & Horsch, Andreas & Wünsche, Andreas, 2021. "Determinants of project bond prices – Insights into infrastructure and energy capital markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Tan, Xiujie & Dong, Hanmin & Liu, Yishuang & Su, Xin & Li, Zixian, 2022. "Green bonds and corporate performance: A potential way to achieve green recovery," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 59-68.
    12. Braga, Joao Paulo & Semmler, Willi & Grass, Dieter, 2021. "De-risking of green investments through a green bond market – Empirics and a dynamic model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    13. Koziol, Christian & Proelss, Juliane & Roßmann, Philipp & Schweizer, Denis, 2022. "The price of being green," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    14. Roy Kouwenberg & Chenglong Zheng, 2023. "A Review of the Global Climate Finance Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-32, January.
    15. Pham, Linh & Nguyen, Canh Phuc, 2022. "How do stock, oil, and economic policy uncertainty influence the green bond market?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    16. Kocaarslan, Baris & Soytas, Ugur, 2023. "The role of major markets in predicting the U.S. municipal green bond market performance: New evidence from machine learning models," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    17. Gregor Dorfleitner & Sebastian Utz & Rongxin Zhang, 2022. "The pricing of green bonds: external reviews and the shades of green," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 797-834, April.
    18. Wu, Yue, 2022. "Are green bonds priced lower than their conventional peers?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    19. Hyun, Suk & Park, Donghyun & Tian, Shu, 2021. "Pricing of Green Labeling: A Comparison of Labeled and Unlabeled Green Bonds," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    20. Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Farid, Saqib & Ferrer, Román & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2021. "Comparative efficiency of green and conventional bonds pre- and during COVID-19: An asymmetric multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Green bonds; Financing cost; Regulatory arbitrage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:66:y:2021:i:c:s1043951x20301796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.