政治关联与企业环境违规处罚:庇护还是监督——来自IPE数据库的证据

Political Connection and Firm’s Environmental Violation Punishment: Sheltering or Monitoring——Evidence from IPE Database

以公众环境研究中心(IPE)提供的环境违规记录数据以及手工收集的企业政治关联数据,研究政治关联对企业环境违规处罚产生的是'庇护效应'还是'监督效应'。研究发现,政治关联能够降低企业因环境违规而受到的罚款金额、处罚次数和处罚严厉程度。这表明,政治关联对企业环境违规处罚产生了'庇护效应'而非'监督效应'。进一步研究发现,国有产权性质加剧了政治关联对企业环境违规处罚的'庇护效应',而地区市场化水平较高的经营环境、较高程度的产品市场竞争能够抑制政治关联对企业环境违规处罚的'庇护效应'。

Based on the environmental violation logging data collected by IPE and manually collected enterprise political connection data,this paper explored how political connection has exerted an influence on firms’environmental violation punishment,sheltering effect or monitoring effect.The results show that political connection has definitely decreased the financial fines,punishment frequency and severity degree caused by environmental violation,which suggests that political connection exerts a sheltering effect rather than a monitoring effect on firms’environmental violation punishment.Further investigation reveals that,sheltering effect is more pronounced for state-owned enterprises.However,business environment with higher marketization level or higher level of product market competition would restrain the sheltering effect of political connection on firms’environmental violation punishment.