公众环境关注与企业绿色治理——基于城市百度指数的研究

Public Environmental Concerns and Corporate Green Governance——A Study Based on Baidu Index of Cities

在多元共治的现代环境治理体系构建中,公众作为不可或缺的参与主体,发挥着利益诉讼表达、舆论信息传播以及政策执行监督等重要作用。本文以2011—2019年中国重污染上市公司为研究样本,利用百度搜索指数测度地级市公众环境关注度,应用机器学习方法和文本分析方法全面刻画企业绿色治理水平,实证考察了公众环境关注对企业绿色治理的影响及其机制。研究结果显示:公众环境关注显著提升了辖区内企业绿色治理水平。机制分析表明,公众环境关注作为一种重要的非正式制度,能够通过提高环境规制执行力度和加大环境治理财政投入,发挥环境治理作用,促进企业绿色治理行为。进一步研究发现:公众环境关注的直接影响在企业特征和地区特征层面存在着异质性,在融资约束弱、政治关联强、企业规模大以及地区法制环境好、空气质量差的分样本中,公众环境关注对企业绿色治理的提升效应更为显著。本文为互联网背景下公众环境关注的积极后果提供了经验证据,对于我国企业更好实现绿色治理具有启示意义。

In the construction of a modern environmental governance regulation with multiple subjects,the public,as an indispensable participant,plays an important role in the expression of interests in lawsuits,the dissemination of public opinion information,and the supervision of policy implementation.Using the sample of Chinese listed firms in heavily polluting industries during the period 2011-2019,employing Baidu search index to measure public environmental concern at the city level and machine learning methods and text analysis to portray the level of firm green governance,it examined the effect of public environmental concern on firm green governance.The results show that public environmental concern significantly enhances firm green governance.An examination of underlying mechanisms shows that public environmental concern,as an important informal institution,plays an environmental governance role and promotes green governance behavior of enterprises through the enforcement of government environmental regulations and the investment of financial resources.Further research reveals that this influence exhibits heterogeneity at the levels of firm characteristics and regional traits.In sub samples with weak financing constraint,strong political connection,large enterprise scale,and good regional legal environment and poor air quality,public environmental concerns has a more significant effect on improving corporate green governance.It provides empirical evidence on the positive consequences of public environmental concerns in the context of the Internet,and also provides insights for Chinese enterprises to better achieve green governance.