Public Environmental Concerns and Corporate Green Governance——A Study Based on Baidu Index of Cities
In the construction of a modern environmental governance regulation with multiple subjects,the public,as an indispensable participant,plays an important role in the expression of interests in lawsuits,the dissemination of public opinion information,and the supervision of policy implementation.Using the sample of Chinese listed firms in heavily polluting industries during the period 2011-2019,employing Baidu search index to measure public environmental concern at the city level and machine learning methods and text analysis to portray the level of firm green governance,it examined the effect of public environmental concern on firm green governance.The results show that public environmental concern significantly enhances firm green governance.An examination of underlying mechanisms shows that public environmental concern,as an important informal institution,plays an environmental governance role and promotes green governance behavior of enterprises through the enforcement of government environmental regulations and the investment of financial resources.Further research reveals that this influence exhibits heterogeneity at the levels of firm characteristics and regional traits.In sub samples with weak financing constraint,strong political connection,large enterprise scale,and good regional legal environment and poor air quality,public environmental concerns has a more significant effect on improving corporate green governance.It provides empirical evidence on the positive consequences of public environmental concerns in the context of the Internet,and also provides insights for Chinese enterprises to better achieve green governance.
public environmental concernfirm green governanceinformal institutionsenvironmental regulation
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
