共同机构持股与企业ESG表现

Common Institutional Ownership and Corporate ESG Performance

企业的环境、社会与公司治理(ESG)表现正在成为全球主流投资策略,然而其背后的投资机理尚未形成共识。本文将企业ESG投入引入生产决策模型,从共同机构持股的微观视角提出可能存在企业协同治理和合谋舞弊两种对立的机制,利用2007—2019年中国A股2371家上市企业的数据对上述机制进行了验证。结果表明,共同机构持股会显著降低企业的ESG表现,从而支持合谋舞弊的观点,其背后的原因是共同机构持股会提升企业市场垄断地位,减弱企业ESG投入的内生动力和压力。研究还发现,共同机构持股对企业ESG的负向影响主要由主动型机构投资者中的基金驱动,而长期机构投资者对企业ESG表现无显著影响。最后,共同机构持股对ESG表现的负面效应主要通过环境、公司治理以及产品三个维度呈现。本文不仅为ESG投资提供了一个理论框架,也同时在反垄断与资本市场如何助力企业可持续发展方面具有重要的政策参考意义。

Corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance(ESG) investment nowadays has become increasingly mainstream in investment strategy worldwide. Improving ESG performance has also become an important measure to encourage low-carbon transition and cope with climate crisis. Although ESG information disclosure has become a popular direction of development in many capital markets, how to incentivize corporate engage in improving ESG performance remains unclear. A large number of studies have shown that capital market forces, represented by institutional investors, play an important role in affecting corporate ESG performance. However, there is still no consensus on the direction or underlying mechanism of this influence. Most of these studies are based on the implicit assumption that the behavior of firms in an investor's portfolio is independent and does not interfere with each other. Therefore, the ESG decisions of each firm are not affected by the behavior of other firms in the same portfolio. However, this assumption overlooks the possibility that the existence of institutional investors may affect the behavior of firms through common ownership. Given that common ownership has become increasingly normal in recent years and has significant impacts on firm behavior, it is of great theroatical importance to understand how common ownership affects corporate ESG performance. The phenomena of common institutional ownership is especially relevance for the Chinese capital market. Examining its role on corporate ESG performance and uncovering the mechanism have also great practical significance. Evidence found here can help form and improve policies to promote low-carbon and high quality development in China.There are heated debates in the literature about the effect of common ownership on corporate behavior. On one hand, the “collusive fraud” hypothesis suggests that common ownership may reduce competition among portfolio firms, leading to market monopolies and distorting market price mechanisms. As the consequence, firms may have less incentive to engage in ESG activities, and thus lowering ESG performance. On the other hand, the “collaborative governance” hypothesis states that common institutional investors have a positive impact on improving corporate governance structures and promoting corporate information sharing and cooperation. By reducing information asymmetry, introducing better governance, allowing long-term coorperations between corporations, common institutional ownership can enhance corporate ESG performance. This paper first introduces a simple theoretical model integrating corporate ESG investment into the production decision-making process, and then proposes two opposing mechanisms on how common institutional ownership may affect corporate ESG performance. Furthermore, it empirically verifies these mechanisms using data from 2371 Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2019. The results suggest that common ownership has a significant negative effect on corporate ESG performance, supporting the hypothesis of collusive fraud. The underlying reason for this is that common ownership enhances corporate market monopoly position, weakening the endogenous motivation for corporate ESG investment, leading to a significant reduction in corporate long-term ESG investment.Overall, this paper makes important contributions to the literature. It first proposes a theroratical model, which provides a general framework potentially applicable to other ESG relevant studies. Second, this paper examines the impact of common institutional investors on corporate decision-making, contributing to the literature on the determinants of ESG performance of Chinese firms. In addition, the findings in this study provide insights into the role of common ownership in shaping corporate behavior towards ESG practices, which has significant implications for the sustainable development of the Chinese economy. The paper also has important policy implications, including whether to restrict common ownership, and the need for relevant regulatory measures to accelerate the construction of a nationwide unified market. It also provides theoretical and empirical supports for incentivizing capital markets to participate in green and sustainable development. Realizing the increasingly important role of institutional investors in the Chinese capital markets, policymakers need to pay more attention in guiding institutional investors to be more proactive in supporting corporate sustainable development and green transformation.