Economic Growth Goals of Local Governments and Corporate ESG Performance:The Effects of Racing-to-the-top and Racing-to-the-bottom Competitions
In the promotion tournament,local governments compete for growth,thus how the"quantitative pressure"brought about can counteract the"quality improvement"is a practical issue worth exploring.This article uses panel data from prefecture level cities from 2005 to 2018 and micro data from listed companies from 2009 to 2018 to test how competitive behavior towards economic growth targets affects corporate ESG performance.The following conclusions are drawn:Firstly,the setting of economic growth goals by local governments exhibits benchmark competition characteristics,with both racing-to-the-top competition and racing-to-the-bottom competition motivations.Secondly,the benchmark competition set by economic growth goals will affect the ESG performance of enterprises from different directions.Racing-to-the-top competition of economic growth goals significantly reduces corporate ESG,while racing-to-the-bottom competition significantly improves it.Thirdly,mechanism analysis shows that the spatial competition motivation of economic growth goals affects the ESG performance of enterprises by influencing local environmental regulations.Racing-to-the-top competition will reduce environmental regulations,while racing-to-the-bottom competition will increase it.This article explores how local government behavior can be transmitted to corporate behavior,revealing the economic growth pressure and its consequences brought about by competition in economic growth goals.It also points out improvement directions for optimizing local government performance and promoting high-quality development in the future.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
