Green Credit Policy and Financing Costs in China's New Energy Vehicle Supply Chain

Against the backdrop of China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, green credit has become an important policy instrument for directing financial resources toward low-carbon industries. This study examines financing-cost patterns among 15 Chinese A-share listed firms in the new energy vehicle (NEV) supply chain from 2015 to 2022. Using 115 firm-year observations, the analysis combines descriptive statistics, period comparison, pooled OLS regression, and two-way fixed-effects estimation. The results show that average financing costs are lower in 2019-2022 than in 2015-2018, but the difference is not statistically significant. In the pooled OLS model, firm size is negatively associated with financing cost, whereas the later-period indicators, profitability, and debt-to-equity ratio, are statistically insignificant. After controlling for firm and year fixed effects, the association between firm size and financing cost weakens substantially, and none of the examined firm characteristics remains statistically significant. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for firm heterogeneity and time effects when examining financing-cost patterns in China's NEV supply chain.