IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v52y2023ics1544612322007565.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Power of the Imperial Envoy: The Impact of Central Government Onsite Environmental Supervision Policy on Corporate Green Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yulei
  • Hu, Shiyang
  • Zhang, Shu
  • Xue, Rui

Abstract

Focusing on a new policy which features onsite environmental monitoring conducted by central government, we investigate the impact of the National Environmental Protection Supervision (NEPS) policy on Chinese listed firms’ substantive versus symbolic green innovation. The results indicate that substantive green innovations are significantly promoted after the NEPS implementation, while the effect for symbolic ones is not observed. Moreover, the positive impact on substantive green innovation is stronger for firms with low financial constraints and those located in developed regions. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of the process-monitoring environmental policy, providing practical references for environmental policymaking and corporate sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yulei & Hu, Shiyang & Zhang, Shu & Xue, Rui, 2023. "The Power of the Imperial Envoy: The Impact of Central Government Onsite Environmental Supervision Policy on Corporate Green Innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:52:y:2023:i:c:s1544612322007565
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2022.103580
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612322007565
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2022.103580?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. Tao, Hu & Zhuang, Shan & Xue, Rui & Cao, Wei & Tian, Jinfang & Shan, Yuli, 2022. "Environmental Finance: An Interdisciplinary Review," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Kang, Jijun & Yu, Chenyang & Xue, Rui & Yang, Dong & Shan, Yuli, 2022. "Can regional integration narrow city-level energy efficiency gap in China?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    3. Fu, Yishu, 2019. "Independent directors, CEO career concerns, and firm innovation: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    4. Kong, Dongmin & Zhao, Ying & Liu, Shasha, 2021. "Trust and innovation: Evidence from CEOs' early-life experience," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Yu, Chin-Hsien & Wu, Xiuqin & Zhang, Dayong & Chen, Shi & Zhao, Jinsong, 2021. "Demand for green finance: Resolving financing constraints on green innovation in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    6. Siqi Zheng & Matthew E. Kahn, 2013. "Understanding China's Urban Pollution Dynamics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 731-772, September.
    7. Dayuan Li & Min Huang & Shenggang Ren & Xiaohong Chen & Lutao Ning, 2018. "Environmental Legitimacy, Green Innovation, and Corporate Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from CDP China 100," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(4), pages 1089-1104, July.
    8. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    9. Kent Walker & Fang Wan, 2012. "The Harm of Symbolic Actions and Green-Washing: Corporate Actions and Communications on Environmental Performance and Their Financial Implications," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 109(2), pages 227-242, August.
    10. Zhang, Qi & Yu, Zhi & Kong, Dongmin, 2019. "The real effect of legal institutions: Environmental courts and firm environmental protection expenditure," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    11. Zhi Li & Peigang Wang, 2013. "Comprehensive Evaluation of the Objective Quality of Life of Chinese Residents: 2006 to 2009," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1075-1090, September.
    12. Wegener, Christoph & Kruse, Robinson & Basse, Tobias, 2019. "The walking debt crisis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 382-402.
    13. Claudio Nuber & Patrick Velte & Jacob Hörisch, 2020. "The curvilinear and time‐lagging impact of sustainability performance on financial performance: Evidence from Germany," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 232-243, January.
    14. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Monika Schnitzer, 2013. "Financial Constraints And Innovation: Why Poor Countries Don'T Catch Up," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1115-1152, October.
    15. Joshua S. Gans & David H. Hsu & Scott Stern, 2008. "The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market for Ideas: Evidence from Patent Grant Delays," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(5), pages 982-997, May.
    16. Liu, Prof Haiyue & Wang, Yile & Xue, Dr Rui & Linnenluecke, Prof Martina & Cai, Dr Cynthia Weiyi, 2022. "Green Commitment and Stock Prick Crash Risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    17. Brown, James R. & Martinsson, Gustav & Petersen, Bruce C., 2012. "Do financing constraints matter for R&D?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1512-1529.
    18. Frederik Dahlmann & Layla Branicki & Stephen Brammer, 2019. "Managing Carbon Aspirations: The Influence of Corporate Climate Change Targets on Environmental Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 1-24, August.
    19. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    20. Kruse, Robinson & Wegener, Christoph, 2020. "Time-varying persistence in real oil prices and its determinant," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    21. Wu, Mingqin & Cao, Xun, 2021. "Greening the career incentive structure for local officials in China: Does less pollution increase the chances of promotion for Chinese local leaders?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    22. Shi, Qiaoling & Shan, Yuli & Zhong, Chao & Cao, Ye & Xue, Rui, 2022. "How would GVCs participation affect carbon intensity in the “Belt and Road Initiative” countries?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    23. Daniel Bradley & Incheol Kim & Xuan Tian, 2017. "Do Unions Affect Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2251-2271, July.
    24. Junming Zhu & Yichun Fan & Xinghua Deng & Lan Xue, 2019. "Low-carbon innovation induced by emissions trading in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8, December.
    25. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    26. Xin Su & Shengshi Zhou & Rui Xue & Jinfang Tian, 2020. "Does economic policy uncertainty raise corporate precautionary cash holdings? Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(5), pages 4567-4592, December.
    27. Bronwyn H. Hall & Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Sandro Montresor & Antonio Vezzani, 2016. "Financing constraints, R&D investments and innovative performances: new empirical evidence at the firm level for Europe," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 183-196, April.
    28. Liu, Haiyue & Jiang, Jie & Xue, Rui & Meng, Xiaofan & Hu, Shiyang, 2022. "Corporate environmental governance scheme and investment efficiency over the course of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    29. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    30. Francis, Jennifer & Smith, Abbie, 1995. "Agency costs and innovation some empirical evidence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 383-409, April.
    31. Wan, Daoxia & Xue, Rui & Linnenluecke, Martina & Tian, Jinfang & Shan, Yuli, 2021. "The impact of investor attention during COVID-19 on investment in clean energy versus fossil fuel firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    32. Tian, Jinfang & Yu, Longguang & Xue, Rui & Zhuang, Shan & Shan, Yuli, 2022. "Global low-carbon energy transition in the post-COVID-19 era," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    33. Qiezeng Yuan, 2021. "How to Restrain Regulatory Capture and Promote Green Innovation in China. An Analysis Based on Evolutionary Game Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-20, August.
    34. Du, Kerui & Li, Pengzhen & Yan, Zheming, 2019. "Do green technology innovations contribute to carbon dioxide emission reduction? Empirical evidence from patent data," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 297-303.
    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. Du, Yanan & Guo, Qunna, 2023. "Green credit policy and green innovation in green industries: Does climate policy uncertainty matter?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PC).
    2. Gao, Yihong & Gao, Jiayan, 2023. "Low-carbon transformation and corporate cash holdings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    3. Jie Zhou & Shanyue Jin, 2023. "Corporate Environmental Protection Behavior and Sustainable Development: The Moderating Role of Green Investors and Green Executive Cognition," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Wei Cao & Martina Linnenluecke & Jinfang Tian & Rui Xue & Huan Yang, 2023. "How does investor attention affect energy firms' managerial opportunistic behavior? New evidence from China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 5025-5043, November.
    5. Zhang, Zhongqingyang & Mao, Ruixiang & Zhou, Zhongbao & Zeng, Zhijian, 2023. "How does digital finance affect green innovation? City-level evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    6. Pei Xu & Penghao Ye & Atif Jahanger & Siwei Huang & Fan Zhao, 2023. "Can green credit policy reduce corporate carbon emission intensity: Evidence from China's listed firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2623-2638, September.
    7. Tian, Jinfang & Sun, Siyang & Cao, Wei & Bu, Di & Xue, Rui, 2024. "Make every dollar count: The impact of green credit regulation on corporate green investment efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    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. Tian, Jinfang & Sun, Siyang & Cao, Wei & Bu, Di & Xue, Rui, 2024. "Make every dollar count: The impact of green credit regulation on corporate green investment efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    2. Tao, Hu & Zhuang, Shan & Xue, Rui & Cao, Wei & Tian, Jinfang & Shan, Yuli, 2022. "Environmental Finance: An Interdisciplinary Review," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    3. Carlo Altomonte & Domenico Favoino & Monica Morlacco & Tommaso Sonno, 2021. "Markups, intangible capital and heterogeneous financial frictions," CEP Discussion Papers dp1740, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Zhou, Tao & Li, Zhongfei & Bai, Hengrui & Du, Zhidi & Huang, Jinbo & Ding, Zengcai, 2024. "Does unconventional monetary policy improve credit support for the industry chain? The mechanism of trade credit," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 180-192.
    5. Wang, Juxian & Ma, Mengdi & Dong, Tianyi & Zhang, Zheyuan, 2023. "Do ESG ratings promote corporate green innovation? A quasi-natural experiment based on SynTao Green Finance's ESG ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Yang, Bao & Chou, Hsin-I. & Zhao, Jing, 2020. "Innovation or dividend payout: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 180-203.
    7. Da Gao & Chang Liu & Xinyan Wei & Yang Liu, 2023. "Can River Chief System Policy Improve Enterprises’ Energy Efficiency? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-17, February.
    8. Yang, Jingyi & Shi, Daqian & Yang, Wenbo, 2022. "Stringent environmental regulation and capital structure: The effect of NEPL on deleveraging the high polluting firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 643-656.
    9. Siddique, Md Abubakar & Akhtaruzzaman, Md & Rashid, Afzalur & Hammami, Helmi, 2021. "Carbon disclosure, carbon performance and financial performance: International evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Bostan, Ibrahim & Spatareanu, Mariana, 2018. "Financing innovation through minority acquisitions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 418-432.
    11. Abdin, Joynal & Sharma, Abhijit & Trivedi, Rohit & Wang, Chengang, 2024. "Financing constraints, intellectual property rights protection and incremental innovation: Evidence from transition economy firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    12. Anne Beck & Sebastian Doerr, 2023. "The financial origins of regional inequality," BIS Working Papers 1151, Bank for International Settlements.
    13. He, Weimin & Wang, Bin, 2024. "Environmental jurisdiction and energy efficiency: Evidence from China's establishment of environmental courts," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    14. Yue Hua & Mark Partridge & Weizeng Sun, 2023. "Pollution effects of place‐based policy: Evidence from China's development‐zone program," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 703-727, June.
    15. Chien, Chih-Chung & Chen, Shikuan & Chang, Ming-Jen, 2023. "Financial constraints on credit ratings and cash-flow sensitivity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    16. Chen, Feng-Wen & Xu, Jingwei & Wang, Jiang & Li, Zhilong & Wu, Yongqiu, 2023. "Do rising labour costs promote technology upgrading? A novel theoretical hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 327-341.
    17. Han, Haozhe & Wang, Xingjian, 2023. "Monetary policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    18. Zhou, Kuo & Luo, Haotian & Qu, Zhi, 2023. "What can the environmental rule of law do for environmental innovation? Evidence from environmental tribunals in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    19. Kong, Dongmin & Liu, Chenhao & Ye, Wenxu, 2023. "Randomized inspection and firm's government subsidies: A natural experiment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. (Grace) Qing Hao & Keming Li, 2016. "The Bright Side of Discretionary Accruals: Evidence from Finance and Innovation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(4), pages 540-575, September.

    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:finlet:v:52:y:2023:i:c:s1544612322007565. 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/frl .

    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.