The impact of big data tax administration on corporate ESG—A quasi-natural experiment based on Golden Tax Project Ⅲ

Environmental,social and governance(ESG)practices are pivotal to global sustainability yet face challenges.Based on the implementation of Golden Tax Project Ⅲ,we find that big data tax administration decreases corporate ESG performance.Mechanism tests indicate that Golden Tax Project Ⅲ can reduce tax avoidance,cash flow and green innovation,thereby inhibiting ESG through the“taxation effect.”Conversely,the project can reduce agency costs and improve information transparency,thus promoting ESG performance through the“governance effect.”Overall,however,the project inhibits corporate ESG performance.According to further analysis,the negative effect on ESG performance mainly impacts the environmental responsibility(E)element.This paper provides insights relevant to advancing China’s“dual carbon”policy and formulating a“Chinese approach”to global sustainable development.

How does smog affect firms' investment behavior? A natural experiment based on a sudden surge in the PM2.5 index

This study examines the effect of environmental regulations on the investment behavior of high-polluting enterprises.Our data are from A-share listed ?rms in China from 2006 to 2014.We use a sudden surge in the PM2.5 index as an exogenous event to conduct a natural experiment.We?nd that after the event with a series of regulatory policies introduced,investment expenditure declines signi?cantly in local state-owned enterprises(SOEs)and non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs),whereas investment opportunity declines signi?cantly in non-SOEs compared with SOEs.However,there are no signi?cant changes in central SOEs’investment expenditure and investment opportunity.Further analysis shows that investment expenditure and investment opportunity decline for high-polluting enterprises located in East China but increase for those located in West China.Our study is the?rst to investigate the effect of smog on enterprises’investment behavior.Our?ndings reveal that environmental regulation has in?uence on the investment behavior of enterprises with different property rights and regional differences.

Governance or reputation?Flexible tax enforcement and excess goodwill:Evidence from the taxpaying credit rating system in China

This study investigates the effect of flexible tax enforcement on firms’excess goodwill using unique manually collected data on taxpaying credit rating in China from 2014 to 2021.We document that A-rated taxpayer firms have less excess goodwill;A-rated firms reduce excess goodwill by 0.005 vis-a-vis non-Arated firms,which accounts for 100%of the mean value of excess goodwill.This finding holds after multiple robustness tests and an endogeneity analysis.Moreover,this negative effect is more pronounced in firms with low information transparency,that are non-state-owned and that are located in regions with low tax enforcement intensity.The channel test results suggest that taxpaying credit rating system as flexible tax enforcement reduces firms’excess goodwill through a reputation-based effect and not a governance-based effect.This study reveals that the taxpaying credit rating system in China as flexible tax enforcement can bring halo effect to A rating firms,thereby limiting irrational M&As and breaking goodwill bubble.