政府环境信息披露提升环境治理成效

Improved Government Environmental Information Disclosure Favors the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance

本文基于2010—2020年污染物排放数据,采用多重差分模型,实证检验政府披露环境信息对微观主体环境治理的影响。研究发现:政府提高环境信息披露强度会激励企业开展环境整治行动,降低污染物排放总量,提升环境治理成效。政府环境信息披露发挥治理效应主要通过加大地区环保执法力度和强化公共环境监督两种途径实现。受政府环境信息披露的影响,企业改善环境治理成效的同时会提升创新能力、经营效率和财务绩效。

This study leverages the implementation of the“Environmental Air Quality Standards”,designed to augment environmental information transparency,as a quasi-natural experiment.The research draws upon the pool of publicly listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges spanning from 2010 to 2020 as the focal sample and employs a multiple difference model to empirically scrutinize the impact of macro-level regional environmental information disclosure on micro-level corporate environmental governance.The findings of this study are as follows:First,the study reveals that an increase in governmental pressure for firms to disclose environmental information servess as an incentive for companies to adopt environmental governance measures,consequently leading to a reduction in corporate pollutant emissions.The empirical model employed in this study satisfies the parallel trend assumption,justifying the use of a difference-in-differences model for empirical testing.Furthermore,the placebo test method is applied to confirm the non-randomness of the research findings.Additionally,instrumental variable methods,Heckman models,and PSM-DID techniques are utilized to address potential endogeneity concerns,while robustness tests support the reliability of the primary regression results.Second,mechanism analysis illustrates that government-mandated environmental information disclosure enhances corporate environmental governancet thlrough two channels:strengthening regional environmental law enforcement constraints and reinforcing public environmental supervision.Third,the effectiveness of government environmental information disclosure in promoting governance is shown to be weakened in regions facing significant fiscal pressure but strengthened when firms receive government environmental subsidies.Lastly,further investigation indicates that firms'response to government environmental information disclosure constraints significantly enhances their innovation capacity,quality,operational efficiency,and financial performance,ultimately achieving a“win-win”outcome.In conclusion,this study enriches and expands the theoretical research in the field of institutional economics,particularly concerning macropolicies and micro-level firm behavior.It provides valuable insights that support the institutional foundations hypothesis proposed by Acemoglu et al.(2005)and offers beneficial references for stimulating firms'enthusiasm towards environmental governance and facilitating the transition to a green,low-carbon,and efficient development model.