环境、社会和公司治理（ESG）表现对企业绿色创新效率的影响——基于负债和寻租变化的分析

The Impact of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance on the Efficiency of Green Innovation of Enterprises: An Analysis Based on Changes in Liabilities and Rent-Seeking

摘要:

以环境、社会和公司治理（ESG）信息披露为代表的非正式环境规制具有自下而上的环境治理效应，ESG表现对企业绿色创新效率的影响日益受到社会各界关注，有关研究也能够较为真实反映ESG表现对企业绿色创新活动的影响。为此，基于A股上市公司2009－2021年的数据，实证分析了ESG表现对其绿色创新效率的影响及作用机制，并根据企业ESG表现差异和绿色创新效率类型展开异质性讨论。研究发现：ESG表现能够促进企业绿色创新效率提升，并可通过降低企业财务杠杆和减少企业寻租促进企业绿色创新效率提升；企业ESG表现对绿色创新效率的影响存在企业异质性，具体对高ESG表现企业存在负向影响，对低ESG表现企业存在正向影响；企业为提高ESG表现存在绿色创新投机行为，通过增加策略性绿色创新产出提高ESG表现，ESG表现越差策略性绿色创新效率越高。鉴于此，应重视实质性绿色创新活动，形成企业重视、社会关注、政府支持的，以实质性绿色创新为导向的绿色创新体系。

Abstract:

The informal environmental regulation, represented by environment, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure, has a bottom-up environmental governance effect. The impact of ESG performance on the efficiency of enterprises’ green innovation is attracting growing attention across various sectors of society, and relevant research is able to provide a precise understanding of how ESG performance influences the green innovation activities of enterprises. Based on the operational data of A-share listed enterprises in the Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen markets from 2009 to 2021, and the ESG rating data from Sino-Securities Index Information Service (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., this study employs a high-dimensional panel fixed-effects model to empirically analyze the impact and mechanism of ESG performance on enterprise green innovation efficiency. It also uses instrumental variables and difference-in-differences approach to mitigate the endogeneity issues in the model and utilizes various methods to test the robustness of the estimation results. Finally, a heterogeneous discussion is conducted based on the differences in enterprises’ ESG performance and types of green innovation. The findings are as follows: (1) ESG performance can enhance the efficiency of enterprises’ green innovation, and the reduction of corporate financial leverage and the decrease in enterprises’ rent-seeking behavior act as its transmission factors. (2) The impact varies across enterprises, showing a negative effect on enterprises with high ESG performance and a positive effect on those with low ESG performance. (3) Enterprises may engage in opportunistic green innovation to improve their ESG performance by increasing strategic green innovation outputs. The worse the ESG performance, the higher the efficiency of strategic green innovation. In light of this, greater emphasis should be placed on substantive green innovation activities, fostering a green innovation system driven by substantive innovation, where enterprises prioritize it, society pays attention to it, and the government provides support.