Can local governments'environmental governance target constraints improve corpo-rate ESG quality?empirical evidence based on textual analysis
Achieving comprehensive and high-quality regional development has set higher standards for local governments'endeavors in environmental governance.As the core driving force behind this development,how enterprises implement environmental emission re-duction measures,assume social responsibilities,and improve governance has become a key factor in regional development.This study sorted out the annual work reports of 275 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2020.Through text mining methods,it has con-structed binding indicators for environmental governance target of local governments,and identified two different types of environmental governance target constraints:'rule-oriente'and'principle-oriented'.Empirical analysis found that:Compared with principle-oriented approach,rule-oriented environmental governance was more effective in enhancing the ESG quality of enterprises within the region,and this result remains robust after a series of robustness t ests such as changing explanatory variables and dependent variables,placebo tests,instrumental variable methods,propensity score matching,exogenous event shocks,etc.Key mechanisms behind this included government green subsidies,public environmental awareness,the quality of corporate information disclosure,commitment to social re-sponsibility,and the capability for green technological innovation.This indicates that the process of improving the ESG quality of enter-prises within the region requires the joint efforts and enabling of the government,the public,and enterprises.Further research showed that in highly marketized regions levels,among state-owned enterprises,and among enterprises that highly respond to policies,rule-ori-ented environmental governance target constraint had a more pronounced effect.Specifically,rule-oriented governance significantly ad-vanced all three ESG dimensions,namely,environmental(E),social(S),and governance(G)dimensions,with the environmental aspect being especially prominent.This provides empirical evidence for achieving pollution reduction and carbon emission reduction and sus-tainable development.
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
