Based on the sample of A-share listed companies in China's capital market from 2012 to 2021,the ESG rating deviation of five major rating agencies is used as the proxy variable of ESG rating divergence to empirically test the impact of ESG rating divergence on debt financing cost.Empirical studies have found:(1)ESG rating divergence significantly increases the cost of corporate debt financing;(2)The mechanism analysis finds that ESG rating divergence significantly increases the debt financing cost of enterprises through increasing negative media coverage;(3)Heterogeneity analysis shows that ESG rating divergence has a stronger negative impact on the debt financing cost of smaller and poorer reputation enterprises.The above research enriches ESG related literature and contributes to a scientific understanding of the impact of ESG rating divergence on corporate governance.
ESG rating divergencedebt financing costsnegative media coveragesize of the enterprisecorporate reputation
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