抑制还是加剧--共同机构持股对企业“ESG漂绿”行为的影响研究

Inhibition or Exacerbation?The Impact of Common Institutional Ownership on Corporate ESG Greenwashing

在“双碳”背景下,ESG投资成为企业和投资者共同追逐的热点。相较于其他投资者而言,共同机构投资者为追求投资组合的收益最大化,会避免投资企业的同质化竞争,势必会对投资企业的ESG发展产生影响。本研究从共同机构投资者的这一特质出发,分析共同机构持股对企业ESG漂绿行为的影响,并提出了抑制与加剧两种对立作用机制。通过对2011-2021年中国沪深两市全部A股上市企业数据样本研究发现:(1)现阶段,共同机构持股会加剧企业ESG漂绿行为并在缓解了内生性问题与稳健性检验后仍然成立;(2)机制分析结果表明,共同机构持股通过达成战略同盟和短期主导增加了企业ESG漂绿行为;(3)异质性分析结果表明,共同机构持股对ESG漂绿行为的加剧作用在低污染行业样本中更强,在机构投资者调研较多样本的企业中较弱。本文的研究结果为揭示ESG漂绿行为的投机形成和有效治理提供了重要的参考。

In the context of"dual carbon,"ESG investment has emerged as a prominent area of interest for both enterprises and investors.Common institutional investors,in contrast to other investors,tend to steer clear of engaging in homogeneous competition among investment enterprises to maximize the returns of their investment portfolios,a factor that inevitably influences the ESG development of these enterprises.Building upon this characteristic of mutual institutional investors,the study examines how the investment characteristics of mutual institutional holdings affect the corporate ESG greenwashing and delineates two opposing mechanisms:inhibition and exacerbation.An analysis of a dataset comprising all A-share listed firms in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen markets from 2011 to 2021 reveals that(1)common institutional ownership exacerbates firms'ESG greenwashing at this stage,and(2)the results of the mechanism analysis suggest that common institutional ownership intensifies firms'ESG greehwashing through the formation of strategic alliances and pursuit of short-term dominance;and(3)the results of the heterogeneity analysis indicate that the exacerbation of ESG greenwashing by common institutional ownership is more pronounced in the low-pollution industry sample and less significant in the sample characterized by higher levels of institutional investors'visits.The conclusions remain robust after addressing endogeneity and conducting rigorous robustness tests.The findings of this paper offer valuable insights into both the speculative formation and the effective governance of ESG greenwashing.