企业ESG表现与债务融资成本——理论机制和经验证据

Corporate ESG Performance and Cost of Debt:Theoretical Mechanism and Empirical Evidence

在我国致力于实现“碳达峰、碳中和”目标的大背景下,企业通过提升环境、社会和公司治理(ESG)表现降低债务融资成本,对于推动企业高质量发展具有重要战略意义。本文基于2011—2020年中国沪深A股上市公司数据,实证分析企业ESG表现对债务融资成本的影响,并对ESG表现评价分歧的影响予以探讨。研究发现:企业ESG表现的提高有助于促进其债务融资成本降低,且在ESG表现的各分项中,社会表现和治理表现对债务融资成本的影响更为显著,而环境表现的影响则相对较弱。不同评级机构间的评价分歧和指标内部的分歧会对债务融资成本产生影响,而且会降低ESG表现影响债务融资成本的效果。由于本文采用离散度指标衡量评价分歧,其依托不同评级机构的观测而生,较少受到企业经营状况的影响,因此也间接为控制内生性问题提供了补充证据。异质性分析表明,在审计师来自非十大审计师事务所和处于高市场化水平地区的企业中,提高ESG表现能够更显著地降低债务融资成本。影响机制分析发现,ESG表现可以通过促进企业财务自律和提振投资者信心来降低企业债务融资成本。本文研究为充分发挥ESG作用并以此推动企业高质量发展提供了政策启示。

ESG embodies a sustainable development ideology that balances economic growth,environmental protection and social justice.It represents a new investment concept and evaluation system that seeks long-term value growth for companies.In recent years,in response to calls and advocacy from major countries and international organizations,an increasing number of financial institutions have started incorporating ESG factors into their debt financing decisions as an important supplement to measuring corporate performance.Therefore,in the current context of China's commitment to achieving the goals of “peak carbon emissions” and “carbon neutrality”,whether companies can reduce their costs of debt by improving their ESG performance holds significant strategic importance for promoting high-quality corporate development.Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2020,this paper empirically analyzes the impact of corporate ESG performance on debt financing cost,and explores the impact of divergences in ESG performance evaluation.The study found that the improvement of corporate ESG performance helps to reduce the cost of debt,and in each sub item of ESG performance,social performance and governance performance have a significant negative impact,while environmental performance has a lower significance.Evaluation divergence among different rating agencies and among indicators would have an impact on cost of debt,and would reduce the effect of ESG performance on cost of debt.Since this paper uses the dispersion measure to evaluate the divergence,it is based on the observation of different rating agencies and would not be affected by the business conditions of firms.Therefore,it also indirectly provides supplementary evidence to solve the endogeneity problem.Heterogeneity analysis showed that in firms without a top 10 auditor and in regions with high marketization levels,improving ESG performance can more significantly reduce cost of debt.The analysis of the impact mechanism found that ESG performance mainly affects the cost of debt financing through channels such as encouraging corporate financial self-discipline and boosting investor confidence.Based on these findings,the study proposes the following policy recommendations:Firstly,the government should actively recognize the positive economic effects of imp[roving corporate ESG performance and introduce a series of policies to create favorable external conditions for companies to carry out ESG transformation.Secondly,the government need to pay attention to the heterogeneity and asymmetry of the economic effects of corporate ESG transformation.Finally,the relevant department actively develop China's unique ESG evaluation standards,strengthen social responsibility governance for listed companies,and establish a scientifically standardized indicator system with Chinese characteristics based on the current stage of development and the basic national conditions while promoting the convergence of international and domestic standards.