Topic: Finance and Pollution: Do Credit Conditions Affect Toxic Emissions?
Speaker: Chen Lin, Chair of Finance and Stelux Professor in Finance, The University of Hong Kong
Date: June 5, 2019 (Wednesday)
Time: 10:00am-11:30am
Location: 4-102, Building 4
Language: English
Abstract:
We evaluate the impact of credit conditions on firms’ emissions of toxic pollutants. While tightening credit might restrict firm production and reduce toxic emissions (production channel), the abatement channel stresses that tightening credit will induce firms to economize on noncore business functions, such as pollution abatement, increasing toxic emissions. Using four identification strategies, we find evidence that the abatement channel dominates: using three sets of identification strategies. The first strategy exploits shale oil discoveries that generate liquidity windfalls at local bank branches. We measure the degree to which banks in non-shale counties receive liquidity shocks through their branches in shale counties and develop indicators of shocks to firm credit conditions. The second strategy exploits heterogeneity in firm debt maturity and the global financial crisis to identify shocks to firm credit conditions. The third strategy exploits variations in bank holdings of private-label MBS before the crisis. We measure the degree to which banks in a county receive MBS-induced liquidity shocks during the crisis and construct indicators of negative shocks to firm credit conditions. We discover that tightening (loosening) (looser) credit conditions are associated with material increases (reductions) increases (decreases) plants pollution toxic emissions.
About the speaker:
Professor Chen LIN is Chair of Finance and Stelux Professor in Finance at the Faculty of Business and Economics in the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He also serves as Associate Dean (Research and Knowledge Exchange), Director of Centre for Financial Innovation and Development and Director for DBA program. Before joining HKU, he was a Full Professor in Finance and the Choh-Ming Li Professorship in Finance at the Department of Finance in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also a current Currency Board Committee member of the Hong Kong Exchange Fund Advisory Committee and an Advisory Council member and a research fellow at HKIMR of Hong Kong Monetary Authority. He is selected as Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor in Finance by the Ministry of Education in China in 2012, and is recipient of the foreign and HK, Macau scholar collaborative research fund (the original Distinguished Young Scholar Fund for scholars abroad) of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He is National Committee Member of the All-China Financial Youth Federation since 2013. He has more than 30 papers published or forthcoming in top finance, accounting, management and law journals, such as Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Management Science, Journal of Law & Economics, Journal of Public Economics. His papers are also received various awards such as the Jensen Prize (First Price) for the Best Papers Published in the Journal of Financial Economics in the Areas of Corporate Finance and Organizations in 2011, Best Paper Award in 2018 Australian Banking and Finance Conference, the Hong Kong Asian Capital Market Research Prize awarded by CFA Institute and HKSFA in 2014, the Chicago Quantitative Alliance Asian Academic Competition Research Paper Award, two Best Paper Awards at the 9th International Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Markets in 2014 and others.
