Utilizing microevaluation data on the extent to which firms advance the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided by Robeco, this paper examines the influence of corporate sustainability on stock price performance and its underlying economic mechanisms. The empirical results suggest that firms’ sustainability has a significant negative effect on excess returns, particularly the contribution of firms to the social dimension of sustainability. Firms’ SDG performance can alleviate financing constraints and reduce financial risk, but it does not significantly enhance financial performance, leading to market capital outflows from high SDG-performing firms, especially from individual investors. Furthermore, our results suggest that high SDG-performing firms are undervalued and do not increase the information content in their stock prices, which may be the main reason for the negative effect of SDG performance. We also conduct a series of heterogeneity tests, which show that firms from regions with high environmental regulatory intensity and less economic development, as well as heavily polluting firms and firms with poorer information environments, experience greater negative effects. These findings have implications for investors to properly understand corporate sustainability and for regulators to promote the development of a low-carbon economy.

This study aims to examine the causal effect of carbon regulatory risk on corporate bond yield spreads in emerging markets through empirical analysis. Exploiting China's commitment to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 as an exogenous shock to an unexpected increase in carbon regulatory risk, we perform a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) strategy. We find that exposure to carbon regulatory risk leads to an increase in bond yield spreads for carbon-intensive firms located in regions with stricter regulatory enforcement. This positive relationship is more pronounced for firms with financing constraints, belonging to more competitive industries, and located in regions with a high marketization process. We further identify that higher earnings uncertainty and increased investor attention serve as two mechanisms by which carbon regulatory risk influences the yield spreads of corporate bonds. Moreover, the spread decomposition reveals that the rise in bond yield spreads after an increase in carbon regulatory risk is primarily driven by the rise in default risk rather than the rise in liquidity risk. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of considering carbon regulatory risk exposure in financial markets, especially in developing economies like China.

This paper explores the impact of Confucian culture on the environmental management practices of firms, utilizing data from A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2022. The study reveals several significant findings: (1) Firms in regions with a stronger presence of Confucian culture are more likely to adopt environmentally responsible management practices; (2) Confucian culture enhances firms' environmental management through three channels: promoting innovation, easing financing constraints, and reducing managerial myopia, with particular emphasis on alleviating financing constraints; (3) Regional environmental regulations mitigate the positive influence of Confucian culture on firms' environmental management practices. This study contributes to the literature by elucidating the determinants of corporate environmental management and emphasizing the critical role of cultural factors, particularly in overcoming financial barriers, in corporate decision-making.

The growing significance of sustainable development has underscored the importance of integrating corporate sustainability indicators into corporate strategies. As external stakeholders increasingly emphasize corporate environmential performance, social responsibility and governance (ESG), understanding its impact on corporate value becomes essential, especially in emerging markets like China. This research aims to bridge these knowledge gaps by empirically investigating the influence of ESG ratings on firms’ value among Chinese listed firms, with a special emphasis on the mediating roles played by financial distress and financing constraints. By analyzing data from listed companies of China over the period 2018 to 2022, this research explores the correlation between firms’ value and ESG ratings. The findings indicate a positive association between firms’ value and ESG ratings. Enhanced ESG ratings directly boost market valuation and indirectly elevate firm value by mitigating financing constraints and financial distress. Further analysis reveals the positive effects of ESG ratings are more noticeable in industries that are not heavily polluting and in state-owned enterprises. This research provides valuable insights for enterprise management by systematically examining how ESG ratings contribute to corporate value through the mitigation of financial distress and constraints, while also highlighting the variations in ESG strategy implementation across different types of enterprises.

Under the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, taking environment, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG) as the important investment factor has become an action guide and standard for capital market participants. The practice of the ESG concept is not only a new way for enterprises to form new asset advantages and realize green and low-carbon transformation, but also important access for promoting high-quality and sustainable development. Based on Chinese-listed companies within the period of 2009 to 2015, we investigate the impact of ESG responsibility performance on export performance as well as its mechanism. We theorize and find out show that ESG responsibility performance can significantly and stably promote enterprises’ export performance. Mechanism analysis shows that ESG can improve export performance by reducing financing costs and easing financing constraints, and the green technology innovation effect is also an important channel for ESG to affect export performance. Therefore, government should strengthen the supervision and incentive of ESG performance, encourage enterprises to improve their environmental, social and governance performance in order to adapt to the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality and promote the high-quality development of export trade. Future research may consider combining ESG accountability with other factors such as supply chain management, intermediate imports, and transnational spillovers to more fully understand its impact on export performance, so as to create more value for society.

The growing emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, particularly in corporate sectors, shapes investment trends and operational strategies, whose shift is supported by the increasing role of media in monitoring and influencing corporate ESG performance, thereby driving the energy innovation. Therefore, based on reported events from Baidu News and patent text information of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2022, this study innovatively applied machine learning and text analysis to measure ESG news sentiment and corporate energy innovation indicators. Combing with reputation, stakeholder, and agency theories, we find that a good reputation conveyed by positive ESG textual sentiments in the media significantly promotes corporate energy innovation, and the effect is mainly realized through alleviating financing constraints and agency problems and promoting green investment. Further analysis shows that ESG news sentiment promotes corporate energy innovation mainly among private firms, non-growth-stage firms, high-energy-consuming firms, and regions with better green finance development and higher ESG governance intensity. From the perspective of ESG news content and information content, greater ESG news attention can also exert an energy innovation incentive effect, in which the incentive effect exerted by positive media sentiment in the environmental (E) and social (S) dimensions, as well as excellent attention, is more robust. This study provides new insights for promoting green and low-carbon development and understanding the external governance role of media in corporate ESG development.

Existing literature has demonstrated the aggregation and allocation effects of the corporate holding financial institutions on financial resources, but there is little literature to discuss whether it will further affect corporate employment. Therefore, this paper uses data from China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021 to examine whether holding financial institutions can affect corporate employment, thus serving the real economy. Empirical results show that holding financial institutions significantly expands corporate employment, which is pronounced in periods of tight monetary policy, in financially underdeveloped areas, and for enterprises with high financing constraints, weak external supervision, and high labor intensity. The conclusion still holds after conducting a series of robustness tests. Mechanism tests show that holding financial institutions can expand corporate employment by alleviating liquidity constraints and inhibiting the dissipation of internal funds caused by agency problems. Further discussion also shows that holding financial institutions has significantly improved corporate operating performance and increased the salary levels of executives and ordinary employees, which means that there is no “executive plunder” after profit increases; Meanwhile, holding financial institutions generates spillover effects along the supply chain, expanding corporate employment among major suppliers and customers. This paper has important implications for taking measures related to “finance serves for the real economy” to achieve high-quality economic development.

Utilizing data from Chinese A-share listed companies, this study investigates the effects of digital transformation (DT) on total factor productivity (TFP) and the moderating function of ESG performance. The results indicate that DT boosts TFP, but ESG performance negatively moderates this effect, revealing the green paradox. A dynamic model of factor allocation efficiency shows that DT improves capital allocation by reducing financing constraints, information asymmetry, and enhancing operational capacity. However, ESG weakens the positive link between DT and operational capacity, thus diminishing its impact on TFP. Similarly, DT increases labor productivity, but ESG undermines this effect by weakening the link between DT and labor efficiency. The positive impact of DT is stronger when firms focus on ‘Practical Application Technologies’ rather than ‘Underlying Technologies’. This effect is especially evident in smaller, asset-intensive, non-state-owned firms, and those located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Additionally, ESG’s negative moderation is more pronounced where DT exerts a stronger positive influence. A notable distinction emerges: asset-intensive firms gain more from DT in terms of TFP, whereas ESG’s adverse effect is stronger in labour-intensive firms. This study offers a novel perspective on the interplay between DT, ESG performance, and productivity. It provides valuable insights for firms seeking to align digital strategies with ESG goals, thereby fostering technological innovation alongside sustainable development.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure and corporate financialization. The findings reveal that key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure can provide incremental information value, thereby impeding corporate financialization in China. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced in the samples with low media attention, low shareholding of institutional investors, and non-state-owned enterprises. Further research indicates that reducing managerial myopia and easing financing constraints serve as key channels through which key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure affects corporate financialization. This study provides empirical evidence on efficiently preventing excessive financialization of enterprises, as well as some insights for mitigating systemic financial risks from the key audit matters (KAMs) disclosure perspective.

Enterprise digital transformation has become an inevitable trend in the digital economy era that can significantly impact enterprises. This paper takes the data of A-share listed companies from 2006 to 2022 as a sample to explore the effect of enterprise digital transformation on listed companies' corporate social responsibility and the mechanism of its role. It was found that corporate digital transformation can significantly enhance Csr(Corporate social responsibility), and enterprise digital transformation has a noticeable enabling effect on Csr, which can dramatically improve Csr. The relationship between the two still holds after the robustness test. It has been found that digital transformation can affect Csr by enhancing the green innovation capability of enterprises, the fairness of internal compensation distribution, and the sustainable development capability of enterprises. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that corporate digital transformation's impact on Csr fulfillment performance is more significant for non-state-owned firms and firms in the central and eastern regions. In addition, corporate financing constraints and government innovation subsidies influence Csr.