空气污染、金融发展与企业社会责任履行

Air pollution,financial development and the performance of corporate social responsibility

强化企业社会责任履行一直是空气污染防范治理的重要一环,但空气污染是否会反过来影响企业社会责任履行?面对严峻的空气污染,微观企业是会“知耻后勇”强化社会责任履行还是“放任自流”降低社会责任履行?迄今没有文献就上述议题做出探讨。考虑到企业履行社会责任的重要原因之一是为了缓解自身面临的融资约束,金融机构绿色金融理念的践行对于企业社会责任履行的影响巨大。那么,地方金融发展是否真正以绿色为导向呢?探讨上述议题,对于强化企业社会责任履行、推动空气污染防范治理具有重大意义。文章基于2014—2017年A股上市公司数据研究城市空气污染、金融发展与当地企业社会责任履行三者之间的关系。实证结果表明:空气污染会对上市公司社会责任履行产生显著的负向影响;在通过断点回归解决内生性问题后,该负向影响仍然显著。在分别以金融深度和金融宽度刻画城市金融发展水平的基础上,发现城市金融发展水平的边际改进在提高企业社会责任履行的资金实力的同时,会强化空气污染对于企业社会责任履行的负向影响。这意味着,城市金融发展并非绿色导向的金融发展,由此导致高污染地区的企业在履行社会责任方面更倾向于“放任自流”而非“知耻后勇”。考虑到企业融资约束差异性后,我们发现,对于融资约束越严重的企业而言,金融发展水平的调节效应更为明显。根据研究,政府需要充分认识到空气污染减少企业就社会责任方面投入进而损害企业长期价值实现的可能性,防止出现空气污染加剧和企业环保投入萎缩之间的恶性循环;在提高城市金融发展水平的同时应推动金融机构积极实践绿色金融理念,强化企业社会责任履行的正向激励机制,夯实经济高质量发展的微观基础。

Enhancing the role of corporate social responsibility in controlling air pollution has always been an integral part of policies and strategies to promote sustainable development.However,does air pollution have a corresponding effect on the performance of corporate social responsibility?When confronted with severe air pollution,will small and medium-sized enterprises become more conscious of their mismanagement and strengthen their social responsibilities or be‘laissez-faire’in the fulfillment of social responsibilities?Through rigorous literature perusal,it appears that there is no literature addressing the issues raised above.Moreover,considering that an important reason for firms to fulfill social responsibilities is to relieve their financial constraints,the implementation of the green finance concept by financial institutions significantly impacts their fulfilling social responsibilities.Nevertheless,is local financial development truly green-oriented?Investigating this subject would help to improve the firms’performance in carrying out their corporate social responsibility when it comes to addressing air pollution.Using data of A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2017,we investigated the relationship between urban air pollution,financial development and the local corporate social responsibility performance.The empirical results showed that air pollution had a significant negative impact on the listed companies’fulfillment of corporate social responsibilities,which was steady in the regression discontinuity model after accounting for endogeneity.On the basis of measuring urban financial development level by the financial depth and breadth respectively,this paper found that although the marginal improvement of urban financial development level would increase corporate social responsibility performance as a whole,it would strengthen the negative effect of air pollution on corporate social responsibility performance.This suggested that urban financial development was not green-oriented,which might result in firms in high-polluting areas more inclined to be‘laissez-faire’rather than‘conscious of mismanagement’in fulfilling their social responsibilities.Besides,we also found that the above regulation effect had a heterogeneous impact on enterprises with different financial constraints.The regulation effect was more significant in firms with more serious financial constraints.According to our research,the government should be fully aware of the possibility that air pollution would decrease firm investment in social responsibility,and prevent the vicious circle between increasing air pollution and shrinking corporate environmentally friendly investment.Besides,the government should push financial institutions to actively put the green finance concept into practice when improving the financial development level,strengthen the positive incentive mechanism for corporate social responsibility performance,and consolidate the micro foundation for high-quality economic development.