僵尸企业对正常企业环保投资的影响

Influence of zombie firms on normal corporate environmental investment

随着中国碳中和目标的提出,环境治理问题日益受到关注。环保监管部门在加强企业污染源监管的同时,往往忽视僵尸企业对正常企业环保投资的影响。该研究以2010—2019年中国A股上市企业为研究样本,手动收集并整理企业环保投资数据,运用固定效应模型深入研究行业僵尸企业占比对正常企业环保投资的影响、异质性及作用机制。研究表明:行业僵尸企业占比对同行业正常企业环保投资具有显著负面影响。其内在机理在于:首先,僵尸企业占比的提高会使正常企业融资约束增加,造成正常企业筹措资金困难,进而导致环保投资下降。融资约束的中介效应占比为13.97%。其次,僵尸企业的存在扭曲了市场公平竞争,引发恶性价格竞争,使正常企业盈利能力下降,进而导致正常企业环保投资减少。盈利能力的中介效应占比为14.26%。进一步研究发现,在非国有企业、社会责任较低的企业及重污染企业样本中,僵尸企业占比对正常企业环保投资的负面作用更为明显。采用不同层面、不同僵尸企业识别方法和企业环保投资衡量方式,均证明回归结果稳健。其中,省份僵尸企业占比对同省份正常企业环保投资回归负向显著,说明此负面影响不仅存在行业层面,还存在于省份层面。因此,政府应重视僵尸企业的存在对正常企业环境投资的负面影响,坚持环境监管中立原则并建立多层次、多元化的金融系统,消除僵尸企业赖以生存的政策环境,逐步形成经济稳步增长和环境日益完善的新格局。该研究从处置僵尸企业的角度,为提高正常企业的环保投资提供政策建议。

Since China put forward its carbon neutrality goal, the issue of environmental governance has attracted increasing attention.When strengthening the supervision of enterprise pollution sources, environmental regulators often ignore the impact of zombie enterprises on environmental investment by normal enterprises. Taking China’s A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 as research samples, this paper collected and analyzed the data of their environmental investment, and used the fixed effect model to explore the impact of the proportion of zombie companies in the industry on the environmental investment of normal companies and such impact’s heterogeneity and mechanism. The results of this study showed that the proportion of zombie enterprises in the industry delivered a significant negative impact on the environmental investment of normal enterprises in the same industry by the following internal mechanism: Firstly, a higher proportion of zombie enterprises would exacerbate the financing constraints faced by normal enterprises and result in difficulties with their fund-raising, finally leading to the decline in environmental investment. The mediating effect of financing constraints was 13.97%. Secondly, the existence of zombie enterprises would distort the fair competition in the market, lead to vicious price competition and lower the profitability of normal enterprises, thus thwarting the environmental protection investment by normal enterprises.The mediating effect of profitability was 14.26%. Further research demonstrated that in the sample of non-state-owned enterprises, lowsocial-responsibility enterprises and heavily polluting enterprises, the negative effects of zombie enterprises on normal corporate environmental investment were more obvious. In the robustness test, the regression results were proved to be robust by different levels, different zombie enterprise identification methods and the measurement methods of enterprise environmental protection investment.Among them, the proportion of zombie enterprises in an individual province had a significant negative effect on the environmental investment of normal enterprises in the same province, showing that such negative impact existed not only at the industrial level, but also at the provincial level. Therefore, governments should pay attention to the negative impact of the existence of zombie enterprises on the environmental investment of normal enterprises, adhere to the principle of environmental regulation neutrality and establish a multi-level and diversified financial system. This approach can eliminate the policy environment on which zombie enterprises rely in their survival and gradually form a new pattern for steady economic growth and an increasingly perfect environment. From the perspective of dealing with zombie enterprises, this study provides some policy suggestions on improving environmental protection investment by normal enterprises.