IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v127y2023ipbs0140988323005443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental tax and highly polluting firms' green transformation: Evidence from green mergers and acquisitions

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Jun
  • Fang, Qi
  • Wu, Huiying

Abstract

Taking China's Environmental Protection Tax Law, implemented in 2018, as an exogenous shock, this study investigates the effect of an environmental tax on firms' green transformation behaviors. Our baseline results show that this environmental tax policy has a positive impact on promoting highly polluting firms' green mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Heterogeneity analyses show that the effect of the environmental tax on green M&As is moderated by firm characteristics (state ownership, innovation capacity, and reputation), industry ones (competition and barriers to entry), and regional ones (legal system strength, environmental pollution severity, and pollution tax rates). Finally, we find that the capital market responds more positively to green M&As in highly polluting firms after the implementation of the environmental tax. This study has important policy implications, providing empirical evidence that may be useful for corporate green transformation.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Jun & Fang, Qi & Wu, Huiying, 2023. "Environmental tax and highly polluting firms' green transformation: Evidence from green mergers and acquisitions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pb:s0140988323005443
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988323005443
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107046?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nihat Aktas & Bodt Eric De & Jean-Gabriel Cousin, 2011. "Do financial markets care about SRI? Evidence from mergers and acquisitions," Post-Print hal-02312637, HAL.
    2. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    3. Andriosopoulos, Dimitris & Yang, Shuai, 2015. "The impact of institutional investors on mergers and acquisitions in the United Kingdom," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 547-561.
    4. Creti, Anna & Sanin, María-Eugenia, 2017. "Does environmental regulation create merger incentives?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 618-630.
    5. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    6. Paul H. Malatesta & Kathryn L. DeWenter, 2001. "State-Owned and Privately Owned Firms: An Empirical Analysis of Profitability, Leverage, and Labor Intensity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 320-334, March.
    7. Mathieu Gomes & Sylvain Marsat, 2018. "Does CSR impact premiums in M&A transactions?," Post-Print hal-01671217, HAL.
    8. Guo Biao Yang, 1998. "Barriers to Entry and Industrial Performance in China," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 39-51.
    9. Boone, Audra & Uysal, Vahap B., 2020. "Reputational concerns in the market for corporate control," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    10. Luis Gautier & Mahelet G. Fikru, 2024. "Mergers in Cournot Markets with Environmental Externality and Product Differentiation," Natural Resource Management and Policy, in: Handbook of Merger Control and Environmental Policy, chapter 0, pages 21-46, Springer.
    11. Choi, Pak-Sing & Espínola-Arredondo, Ana & Muñoz-García, Félix, 2022. "Environmental policy helping antitrust decisions: Socially excessive and insufficient merger approvals," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    12. Jiatao Li & Peixin Li & Baolian Wang, 2019. "The liability of opaqueness: State ownership and the likelihood of deal completion in international acquisitions by Chinese firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 303-327, February.
    13. Frederick L. Bereskin & Terry L. Campbell II & Po-Hsuan Hsu, 2016. "Corporate Philanthropy, Research Networks, and Collaborative Innovation," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 45(1), pages 175-206, March.
    14. Hui, Kai Wai & Klasa, Sandy & Yeung, P. Eric, 2012. "Corporate suppliers and customers and accounting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 115-135.
    15. Hu, Yichuan & Li, Chang & Qin, Cong, 2020. "The impact of regional financial depth on outbound cross-border mergers and acquisitions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    16. Lechner, Michael, 2011. "The Estimation of Causal Effects by Difference-in-Difference Methods," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-224, November.
    17. Gu, Yan & Ho, Kung-Cheng & Yan, Cheng & Gozgor, Giray, 2021. "Public environmental concern, CEO turnover, and green investment: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    18. Plaksina, Yulia & Gallagher, Liam & Dowling, Michael, 2019. "CEO social status and M&A decision making," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 282-300.
    19. Luis Gautier & Mahelet G. Fikru, 2024. "Are Big Mergers Welfare Enhancing When There Is Environmental Externality?," Natural Resource Management and Policy, in: Handbook of Merger Control and Environmental Policy, chapter 0, pages 145-173, Springer.
    20. El-Khatib, Rwan & Fogel, Kathy & Jandik, Tomas, 2015. "CEO network centrality and merger performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 349-382.
    21. Zhaobin Fan & Ruohan Zhang, 2017. "Financial Inclusion, Entry Barriers, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-21, February.
    22. Jie Gao & Huiying Wu & Jiaxing You & Meg Smith, 2021. "Migrant entrepreneurs and firm innovation," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(5), pages 6069-6112, December.
    23. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    24. Wei Shi & Yan Zhang & Robert E. Hoskisson, 2017. "Ripple Effects of CEO Awards: Investigating the Acquisition Activities of Superstar CEOs' Competitors," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 2080-2102, October.
    25. Anja Trichterborn & Dodo Zu Knyphausen-Aufseß & Lars Schweizer, 2016. "How to improve acquisition performance: The role of a dedicated M&A function, M&A learning process, and M&A capability," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 763-773, April.
    26. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "Does Overconfidence Affect Corporate Investment? CEO Overconfidence Measures Revisited," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(5), pages 649-659, November.
    27. Stephen A. Rhoades, 1993. "The Herfindahl-Hirschman index," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Mar, pages 188-189.
    28. Cassiman, Bruno & Colombo, Massimo G. & Garrone, Paola & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2005. "The impact of M&A on the R&D process: An empirical analysis of the role of technological- and market-relatedness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 195-220, March.
    29. David Hirshleifer & Angie Low & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1457-1498, August.
    30. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    31. Peng, Jiaying & Xie, Rui & Ma, Chunbo & Fu, Yang, 2021. "Market-based environmental regulation and total factor productivity: Evidence from Chinese enterprises," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 394-407.
    32. Aobdia, Daniel & Cheng, Lin, 2018. "Unionization, product market competition, and strategic disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 331-357.
    33. Bin Li & Lei Xu & Ron McIver & Qian Wu & Ailing Pan, 2020. "Green M&A, legitimacy and risk‐taking: evidence from China’s heavy polluters," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(1), pages 97-127, March.
    34. Ariella Kahn-Lang & Kevin Lang, 2020. "The Promise and Pitfalls of Differences-in-Differences: Reflections on 16 and Pregnant and Other Applications," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 613-620, July.
    35. Rui Gong & Yong-Qiu Wu & Feng-Wen Chen & Tai-Hua Yan, 2020. "Labor Costs, Market Environment and Green Technological Innovation: Evidence from High-Pollution Firms," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-20, January.
    36. Liu, Qigui & Luo, Tianpei & Tian, Gary, 2016. "Political connections with corrupt government bureaucrats and corporate M&A decisions: A natural experiment from the anti-corruption cases in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 52-80.
    37. Cai, Ye & Kim, Yongtae & Park, Jong Chool & White, Hal D., 2016. "Common auditors in M&A transactions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 77-99.
    38. Gomes, Mathieu & Marsat, Sylvain, 2018. "Does CSR impact premiums in M&A transactions?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 71-80.
    39. Yi Quan & Huiying Wu & Sihai Li & Sammy Xiaoyan Ying, 2018. "Firm sustainable development and stakeholder engagement: The role of government support," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1145-1158, December.
    40. Liu, Guangqiang & Yang, Zhiqing & Zhang, Fan & Zhang, Nan, 2022. "Environmental tax reform and environmental investment: A quasi-natural experiment based on China's Environmental Protection Tax Law," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    41. Guangrui Liu & Qianqian Wu & Hongyong Zhou & Yunsong Wang, 2023. "The Catering Effect of Green Mergers and Acquisitions in Heavy Pollution Industries," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(6), pages 1865-1881, May.
    42. Liu, Qing & Lu, Yi, 2015. "Firm investment and exporting: Evidence from China's value-added tax reform," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 392-403.
    43. Liu, Zheng & Shen, Hongtao & Welker, Michael & Zhang, Ning & Zhao, Yang, 2021. "Gone with the wind: An externality of earnings pressure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1).
    44. XiaoGang Bi & Danni Wang, 2018. "External sources of political connections: Financial advisors and Chinese acquisitions," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 705-722, October.
    45. Wang, Qian & Wong, T.J. & Xia, Lijun, 2008. "State ownership, the institutional environment, and auditor choice: Evidence from China," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 112-134, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Bing-bing & Wang, Yuan & Chen, Yue & Zhou, Junting, 2024. "Digital transformation by firms and the cleanliness of China's export products," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Wuxin Zhang & Haiying Pan, 2024. "Pursuing Cleaner Skies: A Study on the Impact of China’s Environmental Protection Tax Law on Haze Pollution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-23, December.
    3. HIGASHIDA Keisaku & OKOSHI Hirofumi, 2024. "Together or Apart? Eco-friendly location under fiscal competition," Discussion papers 24086, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barros, Victor & Verga Matos, Pedro & Miranda Sarmento, Joaquim & Rino Vieira, Pedro, 2022. "M&A activity as a driver for better ESG performance," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    2. Altunbaş, Yener & Khan, Atiqur & Thornton, John, 2023. "Do M&As impact firm carbon intensity?11The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the institutions with which they are affiliated.," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    3. Luis Costa & Vivek F. Farias & Patricio Foncea & Jingyuan (Donna) Gan & Ayush Garg & Ivo Rosa Montenegro & Kumarjit Pathak & Tianyi Peng & Dusan Popovic, 2023. "Generalized Synthetic Control for TestOps at ABI: Models, Algorithms, and Infrastructure," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 53(5), pages 336-349, September.
    4. D'Souza, Reagan & Ho, Choy Yeing (Chloe) & Yang, Joey W., 2024. "The cost of corporate social irresponsibility for acquirers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Leye Li & Louise Yi Lu & Dongyue Wang, 2022. "External labour market competitions and stock price crash risk: evidence from exposures to competitor CEOs’ award‐winning events," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1421-1460, April.
    6. Lee, Eugenia Y. & Ha, Wonsuk & Park, Sunyoung, 2023. "Auditor specialization in R&D and clients’ R&D investment-q sensitivity," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2).
    7. Zhang, Lu & Peng, Fei & Shan, Yuan George & Chen, Yiping, 2023. "CEO social capital and litigation risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    8. Arouri, Mohamed & Gomes, Mathieu & Pukthuanthong, Kuntara, 2019. "Corporate social responsibility and M&A uncertainty," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 176-198.
    9. Wang, Weilong & Wang, Jianlong & Wu, Haitao, 2024. "The impact of energy-consuming rights trading on green total factor productivity in the context of digital economy: Evidence from listed firms in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Jost, Sébastien & Erben, Saskia & Ottenstein, Philipp & Zülch, Henning, 2022. "Does corporate social responsibility impact mergers & acquisition premia? New international evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    11. Darendeli, Alper & Fiechter, Peter & Hitz, Jörg-Markus & Lehmann, Nico, 2022. "The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information in supply-chain contracting: Evidence from the expansion of CSR rating coverage," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2).
    12. I-Ju Chen & Shin-Hung Lin, 2013. "Managerial Optimism, Investment Efficiency, and Firm Valuation," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 17(3-4), pages 295-340, September.
    13. Gu, Guangtong & Zheng, Haorong & Tong, Lingyun & Dai, Yaxian, 2022. "Does carbon financial market as an environmental regulation policy tool promote regional energy conservation and emission reduction? Empirical evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens, 2017. "The State of Applied Econometrics: Causality and Policy Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 3-32, Spring.
    15. Victoria Baudisch & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2023. "Costly, but (Relatively) Ineffective? An Assessment of Germany’s Temporary VAT Rate Reduction During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Research Papers in Economics 2023-04, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    16. Thiess Büttner & Carolin Holzmann, 2019. "Switching from Worldwide to Territorial Taxation: Empirical Evidence of FDI Effects," CESifo Working Paper Series 7462, CESifo.
    17. Ulrike Malmendier, 2018. "Behavioral Corporate Finance," NBER Working Papers 25162, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Wei-Fong Pan, 2019. "Geopolitical Risk and R&D investment," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2019-11, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    19. Yi‐Ting Chen, 2020. "A distributional synthetic control method for policy evaluation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 505-525, August.
    20. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Susan Athey & David A. Hirshberg & Guido W. Imbens & Stefan Wager, 2021. "Synthetic Difference-in-Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(12), pages 4088-4118, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pb:s0140988323005443. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.