Does ESG Rating Promote Corporate Green Technology Innovation:Micro Evidence From Chinese Listed Companies
Green technology innovation is a key driving force to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.How to make good use of ESG(Environment,Social and Governance)to improve the level of corporate green technology innovation is a hot topic at present.In this context,does ESG rating,which has the dual responsibility of"environmental mission"and"transformation responsibility",promote corporate green technology innovation?Through which mechanism does ESG rating affect corporate green technology?At present,the academic circles have deeply studied the impact of ESG rating on enter-prise value,financial performance,investment efficiency,financing cost,but few scholars have paid attention to how ESG rat-ing affects corporate green technology innovation,and there is a lack of empirical evidence in many emerging market coun-tries,including China.Therefore,this paper explores the impact of ESG rating on corporate green technology innovation,which is conducive to promoting the popularization of ESG concept.Based on the quasi natural experiment of ESG rating event of listed companies first published by SynTao Green Finance,this paper takes A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010 to 2020 as samples,and uses the multi-peri-od difference-in-differences method to empirically test the impact of ESG rating on corporate green technology innovation.The research conclusions are as follows:On the whole,ESG rating events can significantly improve the quantity and quality of corporate green technology innovation,and this result is still valid after the parallel trend test,dynamic test,endogenous dis-cussion,and a series of the robustness analysis.At the same time,the higher the ESG rating scores,the higher the level of cor-porate green technology innovation,but with the increase of the uncertainty degree of ESG rating scores,its impact of improv-ing the level of corporate green technology innovation is also weakened.Through heterogeneity exploration,we find that ESG rating is more able to induce green technology innovation in polluting industries and corporates in growth and decline stages.For corporates located in regions with stronger environmental regulation and higher degree of marketization,the marginal ef-fect of ESG rating on corporate green technology innovation is greater.According to the results of mechanism analysis,ESG rating improves the level of corporate green technology innovation by reducing agency cost,alleviating financing constraints and improving the environmental awareness of the management.The possible novelties of this paper are as follows:First,by analyzing the relationship between ESG and corporate green technology innovation,this paper makes a useful supplement to the relevant research on the economic consequences of ESG.Second,different from previous studies on corporate green technology innovation from the perspective of environmental regula-tions,this paper further expands the research on the influencing factors of corporate green technology innovation from the per-spective of informal environmental regulation.Third,existing literature has preliminarily discussed the impact mechanism of ESG rating on corporate green technology innovation from the perspective of agency cost and financing constraints.This paper also focuses on the promotion of corporate green technology innovation by ESG rating through improving management's envi-ronmental awareness.The conclusion of this paper provides a new perspective for the impact of third-party rating agencies in promoting corporate green technology innovation in theory,and provides an empirical basis for listed companies to take the initiative to conduct ESG rating,investors to use ESG rating to make decisions,and government departments to improve the ESG rating system in practice.
ESGCorporate Green Technology InnovationDifference-Indifference Model
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