随着监管部门与社会各界对于企业的ESG表现日益关注，本文考察拟上市企业（特别是IPO预期成功率较低的企业）是否有动机通过强化其ESG表现，从而增强其IPO成功概率。本文基于大语言模型对拟上市公司招股说明书所呈现的ESG绩效进行量化评估，并系统考察企业IPO预期成功率、招股说明书ESG绩效与IPO最终成功率之间的互动关系。研究发现：（1）企业IPO预期成功率越低，该企业越可能在其招股说明书中展现出较佳的ESG绩效；（2）企业的ESG绩效强化行为显著提升了其IPO通过概率。这一效应在证券监管部门更为关注企业社会责任时以及在高污染行业中更为显著。进一步分析表明，对于IPO预期成功率较低的企业，其招股说明书中的ESG表现无法有效预测其上市后的ESG绩效，这表明监管部门仍需警惕此类企业“漂绿”上市的风险。本文研究结论对于证券监管部门和投资者都具有重要的决策参考价值。

在全球可持续投资理念日益强化的背景下，ESG披露逐步成为影响资本配置的重要因素。私募股权机构作为非公开市场的重要中介，其ESG披露行为是否会影响募资表现？本文以2010-2023年中国资产管理规模领先的961家私募股权机构为研究样本，研究其ESG披露对募资表现的影响及作用机制。研究发现，私募股权机构披露ESG报告可显著提升募资成功率与募资规模，该作用主要通过“声誉补偿”与“资本适配”机制实现。此外，开展全球化业务与公众环境关注度较高地区的机构，ESG披露的募资促进效应更为显著。进一步分析表明，正式的ESG报告披露相比于非正式ESG信息提及对募资表现推动作用更强。同时，项目层面结果表明，ESG披露不仅提升募资能力，也对应着更优的投资项目退出表现。本研究为评估ESG披露在非公开市场的有效性提供了经验证据，并为私募股权行业ESG规范化与绿色金融发展提供参考。

This paper examines the impact of Chinese local government hidden debt on corporate ESG greenwashing. Extending fraud theory, we reveal that hidden debt shifts the boundary between government and market that drives the factors behind ESG greenwashing. Using the ESG greenwashing indicator of listed firms in the A-share market and the hidden debt-to-GDP ratio of 31 provinces from 2012 to 2023, we find that local government hidden debt is positively correlated with corporate ESG greenwashing. The impact is more significant for firms that are state-owned, without active primary-level Party organizations, or not on China’s key pollution supervisory list. Mechanism analysis indicates that expansion of local government hidden debt brings firms with higher LGFVs’ share-holding for the SOEs, heavier environmental tax burden, and less social responsibility preference, all of which are related with ESG greenwashing. Reducing local government special debt and improving tax compliance can help alleviate this impact. These findings highlight the necessity of fiscal risk management in achieving genuinely sustainable corporate development.

We empirically examine how institutional investors react to adjustments in environmental policies in China. We observe a seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon: when environmental policies intensify, fund managers do not increase their holdings in high ESG-rated firms as might typically be expected; instead, they significantly divest from these firms. This behavior stems from the fact that, under stringent environmental policies, maintaining a high level of ESG investing leads to financial losses and fund outflows, especially in the short term, which impair fund managers’ compensation and raise career concerns. Further, within the context of environmental policy adjustments, our heterogeneity analysis tries to disentangle the true motivations behind institutional investors' ESG adoptions. We demonstrate that both pro-social preferences and financial incentives play pivotal roles, and that fund managers do not tolerate unlimited financial losses when ESG investing underperform. Our findings reveal the economic impact of environmental policies on institutional investors and shed light on the contentious and complex nature of the ESG concepts.

This study investigates the influence of smart supply chain management on the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance of Chinese manufacturing firms spanning from 2009 to 2022. Our findings reveal a positive association between smart supply chain management and enhanced ESG performance, a relationship consistently upheld across various analytical methodologies. Additionally, we uncover that smart supply chain practices stimulate corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, contributing to heightened transparency and subsequently bolstering ESG metrics within firms. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that the positive effect of smart supply chain management on ESG outcomes is particularly pronounced among firms that are operating in less competitive and more environmentally impactful industries, receiving heightened media scrutiny, and influenced by Confucian principles. This research provides actionable insights for firms seeking to advance their ESG initiatives.

The relationship between ESG factors and corporate performance is contentious, partly due to the literature's neglect of organizational demographic differences. Using data from 5,127 Chinese companies (2009-2022), we empirically analyze ESG's impact on corporate performance, factoring in the demographic heterogeneity of executive teams. Our findings indicate that although ESG indeed enhances corporate performance, its conversion effect is significantly influenced by the vertical dyads of gender and education within the top management teams (TMT). Additionally, our extended analysis reveals that these two types of vertical dyads exhibit distinct structural characteristics.

We conducted a nationwide field experiment with 4,800+ Chinese-listed companies, randomly raising ESG concerns to their management teams via high-visibility and high-stakes online platforms. Tracking the full impact-generating process, we find that companies respond to our concerns by providing high-quality answers, publishing ESG reports, and making commitments to investors. Over time, Environmental (E) inquiries boost stock valuations, while Governance (G) concerns prompt skepticism. Productive and opaque firms are more likely to respond, consistent with a signaling model where costly ESG actions signal firm quality under information asymmetry. Overall, ESG actions are likely driven by profit-oriented signaling rather than values-based motives.

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.

The role of institutional investors in the development of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria lacks consensus in the academic community. This study utilizes a quasi-natural experiment involving Chinese mutual funds that have signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) to investigate whether institutional Investors’ ESG investment commitments can significantly reduce ESG rating disagreement among the companies in their portfolios. We first find that companies held by ESG commitment institutional Investors exhibit less disagreement in ESG rating compared to those held by Non-ESG commitment institutional Investors. we then show that institutional Investor’ ESG investment commitment influence ESG rating disagreement by enhancing the quality of ESG disclosure and attracting external ESG attention. We further discover that institutional investors’ ESG investment commitments significantly mitigates the ESG rating disagreement among domestic ESG rating agencies and firms with a higher level of corporate governance.

Green bonds have emerged as a novel funding mechanism specifically aimed at addressing environmental challenges. Focusing on A-share listed companies in China that went public with bond issues domestically from 2012 to 2021, we reveal that companies with higher energy usage and better environmental disclosure quality are the most inclined to issue green bonds. Such issuance is identified as a pathway towards real green transformation, markedly boosting the green transformation index, green innovation efficiency, and ESG performance. Further analysis indicates that the effect of substantial transformation is particularly pronounced among companies in the eastern regions of China.