IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i14p11323-d1198724.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Digital Finance Promotes Corporate ESG Performance: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Yalin Mo

    (School of Economics, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
    Guangxi Development Strategy Institute, Nanning 530004, China)

  • Yuchen Che

    (School of Economics, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China)

  • Wenqiao Ning

    (School of Economics, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China)

Abstract

Whether and how digital finance can promote corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) development has become an important issue. Based on panel data from listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2011 to 2017, this paper investigates whether and how digital finance can promote the ESG performance of Chinese companies. The empirical results indicate that digital finance not only promotes the ESG performance of Chinese companies but also indirectly facilitates it by alleviating their financing constraints. Channel tests reveal that digital finance predominantly facilitates corporate ESG development through the promotion of social performance and corporate governance performance, but it does not contribute to corporate ESG development by promoting corporate environmental performance. Further research finds that digital finance more strongly promotes ESG in enterprises in the eastern region, state-owned enterprises, small enterprises, and polluting enterprises. Finally, this article puts forward some policy recommendations for high-quality economic development in China, such as driving “ESG financial innovation” to make full use of the enabling role of digital finance in corporate ESG development, effectively bringing enterprises’ attention to environmental performance development and guiding digital finance to promote ESG development in the western region and in non-state-owned enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Yalin Mo & Yuchen Che & Wenqiao Ning, 2023. "Digital Finance Promotes Corporate ESG Performance: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-23, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11323-:d:1198724
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11323/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11323/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ebrahim Mohammed Al-Matari & Mahfoudh Hussein Mgammal & Mushari Hamdan Alosaimi & Talal Fawzi Alruwaili & Sultan Al-Bogami, 2022. "Fintech, Board of Directors and Corporate Performance in Saudi Arabia Financial Sector: Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-23, August.
    2. Zhaolin Wang & Miaochao Chen, 2022. "Digital Finance, Financing Constraint and Enterprise Financial Risk," Journal of Mathematics, Hindawi, vol. 2022, pages 1-9, March.
    3. Long Xue & Qianyu Zhang & Xuemang Zhang & Chengyu Li, 2022. "Can Digital Transformation Promote Green Technology Innovation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Shiyu Wu & Xinyi Li & Xiaosen Du & Zexin Li, 2022. "The Impact of ESG Performance on Firm Value: The Moderating Role of Ownership Structure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-22, November.
    5. Qiutong Xue & Sixian Feng & Kairan Chen & Muchen Li, 2022. "Impact of Digital Finance on Regional Carbon Emissions: An Empirical Study of Sustainable Development in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-26, July.
    6. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    7. Cortina Lorente,Juan Jose & Schmukler,Sergio L., 2018. "The Fintech Revolution: A Threat to Global Banking?," Research and Policy Briefs 125038, The World Bank.
    8. Croutzet, Alexandre & Dabbous, Amal, 2021. "Do FinTech trigger renewable energy use? Evidence from OECD countries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1608-1617.
    9. Peter Gomber & Jascha-Alexander Koch & Michael Siering, 2017. "Digital Finance and FinTech: current research and future research directions," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 537-580, July.
    10. Yu, Lili & Zhao, Duanyang & Xue, Zihao & Gao, Yang, 2020. "Research on the use of digital finance and the adoption of green control techniques by family farms in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Milton Friedman, 2007. "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits," Springer Books, in: Walther Ch Zimmerli & Markus Holzinger & Klaus Richter (ed.), Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance, pages 173-178, Springer.
    12. Decai Tang & Wenya Chen & Qian Zhang & Jianqun Zhang, 2023. "Impact of Digital Finance on Green Technology Innovation: The Mediating Effect of Financial Constraints," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, February.
    13. Abbasi, Kaleemullah & Alam, Ashraful & Du, Min (Anna) & Huynh, Toan Luu Duc, 2021. "FinTech, SME efficiency and national culture: Evidence from OECD countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Si Luo & Miaochao Chen, 2022. "Digital Finance Development and the Digital Transformation of Enterprises: Based on the Perspective of Financing Constraint and Innovation Drive," Journal of Mathematics, Hindawi, vol. 2022, pages 1-10, March.
    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. Zhengyong Zhang & Jiayi You, 2024. "Does firms' ESG information disclosure have contagion effect? Evidence from China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 3274-3296, July.
    2. Caterina Morelli & Simone Boccaletti & Paolo Maranzano & Philipp Otto, 2024. "Multidimensional spatiotemporal clustering -- An application to environmental sustainability scores in Europe," Papers 2405.20191, arXiv.org.

    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. Minli Yu & Fu-Sheng Tsai & Hui Jin & Hejie Zhang, 2022. "Digital finance and renewable energy consumption: evidence from China," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, December.
    2. Xiuxiu Jiang & Xia Wang & Jia Ren & Zhimin Xie, 2021. "The Nexus between Digital Finance and Economic Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Li, Chengming & Wang, Yilin & Zhou, Zhihan & Wang, Zeyu & Mardani, Abbas, 2023. "Digital finance and enterprise financing constraints: Structural characteristics and mechanism identification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    4. Merello, Paloma & Barberá, Antonio & la Poza, Elena De, 2022. "Is the sustainability profile of FinTech companies a key driver of their value?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    5. Yaqoob, Tanzeela & Maqsood, Arfa, 2024. "The potency of time series outliers in volatile models: An empirical analysis of fintech, and mineral resources," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Jiayi Li & Shujun Ye & Shujuan Wang, 2023. "Spatial Network Analysis on the Coupling Coordination of Digital Finance and Technological Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-22, April.
    7. Bu, Ya & Du, Xin & Wang, Yuting & Liu, Shuyu & Tang, Min & Li, Hui, 2024. "Digital inclusive finance: A lever for SME financing?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Boqiang Lin & Yongjing Xie, 2024. "Impacts of digital transformation on corporate green technology innovation: Do board characteristics play a role?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 1741-1755, May.
    9. Liu, Fangying & Su, Chi Wei & Tao, Ran & Qin, Meng & Umar, Muhammad, 2024. "Fintech and aluminium: Strategic enablers of climate change mitigation and sustainable mineral policy," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Deli Wang & Ke Peng & Kaiye Tang & Yewei Wu, 2022. "Does Fintech Development Enhance Corporate ESG Performance? Evidence from an Emerging Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-21, December.
    11. Hossain, Mohammad Razib & Rao, Amar & Sharma, Gagan Deep & Dev, Dhairya & Kharbanda, Aeshna, 2024. "Empowering energy transition: Green innovation, digital finance, and the path to sustainable prosperity through green finance initiatives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    12. Khalid, Fahad & Irfan, Muhammad & Srivastava, Mohit, 2024. "The impact of digital inclusive finance on ESG disputes: Evidence from Chinese non-financial listed companies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    13. Yiqun Hu & Xiong Dai & Li Zhao, 2022. "Digital Finance, Environmental Regulation, and Green Technology Innovation: An Empirical Study of 278 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-17, July.
    14. Li, Guoxiang & Wu, Haoyue & Jiang, Jieshu & Zong, Qingqing, 2023. "Digital finance and the low-carbon energy transition (LCET) from the perspective of capital-biased technical progress," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    15. Fu, Yumei & He, Feng & Li, Jintian & Zan, Bingyan, 2024. "Commonality in liquidity and corporate default risk - Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    16. Mingtao Yu & Aiguo Yan, 2022. "Can Digital Finance Accelerate the Digital Transformation of Companies? From the Perspective of M&A," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-16, November.
    17. Zhaoqing Sun & Jianxu Liu & Roengchai Tansuchat, 2023. "China’s Digital Economy and Enterprise Labor Demand: The Mediating Effects of Green Technology Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-24, July.
    18. Xuan, Siyuan & Ge, Wenfeng & Yang, Ping & Zhang, Yunfeng, 2024. "Exploring digital finance, financial regulations and carbon emission nexus: New insight from resources efficiency, industrial structure and green innovation in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    19. Teng, Mingming & Shen, Minghao, 2023. "Fintech and energy efficiency: Evidence from OECD countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. Zhengke Du & Chengcheng Zhu & Yuxin Zhou, 2022. "Increasing Quantity or Improving Quality: Can Soil Pollution Control Promote Green Innovation in China’s Industrial and Mining Enterprises?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11323-:d:1198724. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.