Does social security policy matter for corporate social responsibility? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Can green credit policies improve corporate ESG performance?

“…In total, there are three findings. First, GCP significantly improves ESG performance, especially for firms in green credit‐constrained industries, which is consistent with Lei et al (2023). Second, in the mechanism analysis, we have new findings that the implementation of the Guidelines promotes the enhancement of one's own ESG performance by enhancing the attention of executives of green credit‐constrained industry firms to green environmental protection, and the quality and quantity of firms' green technology innovation improvement will enhance the ESG promotion effect of the Guidelines.…”

“…Similarly Sun et al (2023) utilized the establishment of green financial policy pilot zones in 2017 and found that the impact of green financial policies on ESG performance was mainly reflected in environmental performance, while this financing constraint was more obvious in the samples of non‐state‐owned and heavily polluting firms, but it did not involve the exploration of the factors influencing the differences in ESG performance of firms between industries. While Lei et al (2023), for the first time from the industry level, found that GCP promotes the ESG performance of environmentally unfriendly firms through financing constraints, especially for firms with higher investment efficiency, but the mechanism discussion is not comprehensive, ignoring important factors, such as green technology innovation.…”

“…First, this study provides relevant theoretical and micro evidence for GCP to promote firms' ESG performance and enriches the literature related to assessing the effects of GCP policies and the impact of macro‐institutional level on firms' ESG. Xue et al (2023) and Sun et al (2023) explored the impact of green financial policies on ESG performance at the regional level, which could not explain the phenomenon of industry‐level differences in ESG performance While Lei et al (2023) analyzed the mechanism at the industry level ignored the important role of corporate executive team's green concern and green technology innovation. Therefore, this paper takes the Guidelines as an opportunity to combine the key assessment indicators of green credit implementation with the double‐difference scoring method, and finds that GCP contributes significantly to the ESG performance of firms in green credit‐constrained industries, which helps to understand the microeconomic effects of GCP and the potential motivations of firms to respond to GCP and inter‐industry ESG practices, and also effectively expands the understanding of the characteristics of heterogeneity in the effects of GCP policies.…”

“…Therefore, this paper takes the Guidelines as an opportunity to combine the key assessment indicators of green credit implementation with the double‐difference scoring method, and finds that GCP contributes significantly to the ESG performance of firms in green credit‐constrained industries, which helps to understand the microeconomic effects of GCP and the potential motivations of firms to respond to GCP and inter‐industry ESG practices, and also effectively expands the understanding of the characteristics of heterogeneity in the effects of GCP policies. Second, compared with the single empirical approach used by Lei et al (2023), this paper considers in more depth its endogeneity problem due to sample selection bias and solves it using the Heckman two‐stage methodology after taking into account the FFM problem solved by the PSM as well as a part of the endogeneity problem solved by the DID and fixed effects.…”

Carbon reduction and corporate sustainability: Evidence from low-carbon city pilot policy

“…Existing research mainly focuses on the impact of LCCP policy on technological innovation, total factor productivity and business risk [ 4 ]. Our paper is conducted from the view of corporate ESG performance, complementing this strand of literature [ 9 , 10 ]. Secondly, by exploring the intricate interplay of government environmental governance perspectives, this study deepens insights into the factors influencing corporate ESG performance.…”