Abstract: This paper uses China’s city commercial banks’ operating data from 2008 to 2015 as sample to explore the impact of government intervention on the allocation of bank credit funds in the context of the transformation of the government performance evaluation system. The results show that the pressure on local environmental protection can compel city commercial banks to grant loans for environmental proection, and the proportion of local government ownership can positively moderate the relationship between the pressure and the loan granting. The government environmental performance evaluation system strengthens the impact of local environmental pressure on bank environmental lending. There is no evidence that the pressure of economic growth will affect the role of local government intervention in promoting bank environmental loans. Further analysis shows that the impact of local environmental protection pressure only exists in banks with high government intervention, which is related to the fact that environmental loans cannot increase the economic performance of city commercial banks. This paper provides evidence of how local governments affect the allocation of bank credit funds under the environmental performance evaluation system, and shows that the environmental performance evaluation system has begun to play a role.

Key words: local environmental protection pressure, state ownership, city commercial bank, credit allocation