This study analyzes the impact of air pollution on the city in which customers are located on the trade credit strategy of their suppliers. Following the framework of environmental stress theory, we hypothesize that suppliers change their trade credit strategy to grant less trade credit to their customers located in cities with severe air pollution. Our findings are consistent with our hypothesis. We find that the adverse effects of air pollution occur through financial constraints, operating risk, and customers’ default risk, corroborating the underlying logic of our proposed hypothesis. Additional analyses suggest that changes in a supplier’s trade credit are more pronounced when a customer is in a polluting industry, has low total factor productivity, receives fewer government subsidies, has fewer bank loans, is far from its suppliers, and has poor inventory management.

这项研究分析了空气污染对客户所在城市的影响及其供应商的贸易信贷策略。遵循环境压力理论的框架，我们假设供应商改变了贸易信贷策略，以向位于空气污染严重城市的客户提供较少的贸易信贷。我们的发现与我们的假设相符。我们发现，空气污染的不利影响是通过财务约束，运营风险和客户的违约风险产生的，从而证实了我们提出的假设的基本逻辑。进一步的分析表明，当客户处于污染行业，全要素生产率低，获得的政府补贴较少，银行贷款较少，与供应商相距甚远时，供应商的贸易信用的变化会更加明显，