环境规制对企业绿色投资的影响研究——基于上市公司的经验证据

Research on the impact of environmental regulation on green investment of enterprises——Empirical evidence based on listed companies

企业作为节能减排的主体,其绿色投资对于实现“双碳”目标至关重要。基于2010—2019年中国A股上市公司数据,实证检验环境规制对企业绿色投资的影响。研究结果表明:环境规制对企业绿色投资有明显的促进作用,通过工具变量、替换解释变量以及Heckman两阶段法等稳健性检验后该结论仍然成立。异质性分析发现:市场激励型环境规制工具显著促进了企业绿色投资,而命令控制型和公众参与型环境规制工具对企业绿色投资不具备显著影响;在重污染行业、东部地区以及国有企业中,环境规制会明显促进企业绿色投资;相比于自主型绿色投资,环境规制对委托型绿色投资的促进作用更加显著。严格的环境执法能够显著提升环境规制的作用效果。因此,应适当加大环境规制和环境执法的力度,加强环境执法队伍建设,综合使用不同类型的环境规制工具,逐步完善命令控制型和公众参与型环境规制工具,制定差异化的环境规制政策,以激励企业绿色投资,促进经济高质量发展。

As the main body of energy conservation and emission reduction,the green investment of enterprises is crucial for achieving the“dual carbon”goal.Based on the data of A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2019,this paper empirically tests the impact of environmental regulations on green investment in enterprises.Specifically,this paper selects the expenditure on environmental governance,pollution prevention,ecological protection and other projects disclosed in the annual reports of listed companies to measure the green investment amount of enterprises.The comprehensive index of environmental regulation is calculated based on the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste,the ratio of operating costs of industrial waste gas treatment facilities to industrial waste gas emissions,and the ratio of operating costs of industrial waste water treatment facilities to industrial waste water emissions.The intensity of environmental law enforcement is used as adjusting variable,which is measured by the ratio of the number of environmental administrative penalty cases in each province to the number of industrial enterprises above designated size.The research results indicate that environmental regulations have a significant promoting effect on green investment of enterprises,that is,green investment of enterprises increases correspondingly with the increase of environmental regulation intensity.This paper selects instrumental variables,sample tail reduction,replacement explanatory variables,and Heckman two-stage method for robustness testing,and the conclusion still holds after being tested by these methods.Heterogeneity analysis reveals that only market incentive environmental regulation tools significantly promote green investment by enterprises,while command control and public participation environmental regulation tools have no significant impact on green investment by enterprises.The reason for this is that market incentive environmental regulation tools can promote enterprises to balance costs and benefits.Green capital will reduce costs in the long run,so enterprises have the motivation to reduce pollution emissions through green investment.However,the“one size fits all”environmental standard setting of command control environmental regulation tools gives enterprises fewer choice rights and lacks sustained incentives for green investment.Public participation in environmental regulation is in its early stages in China,but the development is not yet complete.According to the classification of enterprise pollution emission intensity,it is found that environmental regulations significantly promote green investment by enterprises in heavily polluting industries,while the effect on green investment by enterprises in non-heavily polluting industries is not significant,perhaps due to the high emissions of pollutants in heavily polluting industries,which have attracted more attention from environmental law enforcement agencies and the public.Enterprises will increase green investment in order to maintain their image and corporate interests,while non-heavily polluting industries are less influenced by environmental regulations due to their low emissions of pollutants.Regional heterogeneity analysis found that environmental regulations have a significant promoting effect on green investment by enterprises in the eastern region,while green investment by enterprises in the central and western regions is not sensitive to environmental regulations.The reason is that compared to the central and western regions,the economic development in the eastern region is at a leading level,and enterprises have the consciousness and ability to make green investments.Moreover,the intensity of environmental regulations is relatively high,resulting in higher environmental costs for enterprises.The heterogeneity analysis of enterprise ownership reveals that environmental regulations significantly promote green investment in state-owned enterprises,but they have no significant impact on green investment in non-state-owned enterprises.The reasons are as follows:state-owned enterprises have sufficient funds,government financial support,the ability to allocate a portion of expenses for green investment,and they face stricter supervision and relatively strong environmental awareness.Further classification of green investment in enterprises is based on the included projects,including autonomous green investment in which enterprises actively assume environmental responsibility,and entrusted green investment in which enterprises respond to environmental regulations.The results show that environmental regulations have a more significant promoting effect on entrusted green investment in enterprises,but it has no significant impact on autonomous green investment in enterprises.The reason may be that actively increasing green investment to reduce pollutant emissions requires a large amount of financial support,while the burden of paying environmental protection fees is relatively small,leading enterprises to mainly choose entrusted green investment to cope with environmental regulations.Further analysis of the regulatory effect of environmental law enforcement efforts reveals that in regions with strict environmental law enforcement efforts,environmental regulations have a more pronounced effect on promoting green investment by enterprises.The reason is that increasing environmental law enforcement efforts is conducive to the effectiveness of various environmental regulatory policies,which will form stronger constraints on enterprises,dispel the fluke mentality of illegal pollution discharge,and“force”enterprises to increase green investment.Therefore,it is necessary to appropriately increase the intensity of environmental regulations and environmental law enforcement,encourage green investment by enterprises,formulate differentiated environmental regulation policies according to local conditions,comprehensively use different types of environmental regulation tools,and strengthen guidance for independent green investment by enterprises,to achieve green and low-carbon development of enterprises,and promote green transformation of China’s economy.