IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i22p10141-d1525375.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Green Finance, Economic Policy Uncertainty, and Corporate ESG Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Chuanhao Liu

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Peng Cui

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China)

  • Hongxia Zhao

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Zhanzhen Zhang

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Yanshuo Zhu

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China)

  • Huijiao Liu

    (School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, 99 Songling Road, Qingdao 266061, China)

Abstract

Given the increasing prevalence of global warming and the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events and other challenges, countries are increasingly recognizing the importance of green and sustainable development. This paper uses the multi-period double difference and PSM-DID method to test the impact of green finance policies on the ESG performance of Chinese listed companies. Research has shown that implementing pilot zone policies can improve corporate ESG performance, especially for enterprises with low business reputations, fierce industry competition, severe information asymmetry, and state-owned attributes. The GFPZ policy drives companies to improve their ESG performance through two paths: promoting environmental innovation and strengthening restrictions on corporate financing. In addition, the increase in economic policy uncertainty hinders the positive impact of GFPZ policies on improving corporate ESG performance. This study enriches the existing micro-research on green finance policies from the perspective of enterprises. It provides empirical evidence and research insights to support the further improvement of pilot zone policies, the promotion of green sustainable development, and the improvement of corporate ESG performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Chuanhao Liu & Peng Cui & Hongxia Zhao & Zhanzhen Zhang & Yanshuo Zhu & Huijiao Liu, 2024. "Green Finance, Economic Policy Uncertainty, and Corporate ESG Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:22:p:10141-:d:1525375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/22/10141/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/22/10141/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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).
    2. Heeney, Luke & Yang, Shanelle & Chowdhury, Hasibul & Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng, 2023. "Corporate cash holdings through economic policy uncertainty: An Australian study," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Wang, Yun & Sun, Xiaohua & Guo, Xu, 2019. "Environmental regulation and green productivity growth: Empirical evidence on the Porter Hypothesis from OECD industrial sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 611-619.
    4. Zhang, Wei & Ke, Jinjun & Ding, Yougang & Chen, Sicen, 2024. "Greening through finance: Green finance policies and firms' green investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    5. Zhou, Xiaoxiao & Dai, Mengsi & Ma, Xiaowei & Charles, Vincent & Shahzad, Umer & Zhao, Xin, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and the inhibitory effect of firms' green technology innovation," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    6. Zhou, Bingjun & Huang, Yan & Gao, Ke & Luo, Chunyang, 2024. "How geopolitical risk and economic policy uncertainty impact coal, natural gas, and oil rent? Evidence from China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Zhang, Zeyi & Luo, Xuehua & Du, Jiating & Xu, Baoliang, 2024. "Substantive or strategic: Government R&D subsidies and green innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    8. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    9. Liu, Xiaojun & Ma, Yong & Xu, Zhongyue, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty, risk perception and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 865-876.
    10. Ma, Dan & He, Yuhang & Zeng, Linggang, 2024. "Can green finance improve the ESG performance? Evidence from green credit policy in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    11. Xie, Yi & Jiang, Jinwen & Wang, Dong, 2024. "Green finance policy and labor demand: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    12. Apergis, Nicholas & Poufinas, Thomas & Antonopoulos, Alexandros, 2022. "ESG scores and cost of debt," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim & Lauterbach, Beni, 1997. "Market microstructure and securities values: Evidence from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 365-390, September.
    14. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    15. Kim, Taehyun & Kim, Yongjun, 2024. "Does corporate environmental responsibility create value?: The role of investors’ ESG preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    16. Shu, Ying & Zhuang, Xiaobin & Xu, Guanghua & Zhang, Shanfei & Ying, Rui, 2024. "Peer effects, environmental regulation and environmental financial integration—Empirical evidence from listed companies in heavily polluting industries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1446-1458.
    17. Li, Cong & Wang, Yiming & Sun, Weiguo & Yu, Yue & Ding, Yuzhen, 2024. "Green credit policy and corporate deleveraging: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    18. Chen, Di & Hu, Haiqing & Wang, Ning & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2024. "The impact of green finance on transformation to green energy: Evidence from industrial enterprises in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    19. Cheng, Hua & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2023. "How green finance can bridge the energy poverty gap: Policies to mitigate socioeconomic and environmental consequences," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    20. Zheng, Yu & Zheng, Mingnan & Zhang, Juan, 2024. "Executive educational background, corporate governance and corporate default risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PB).
    21. Zhang, Dongyang, 2023. "Does green finance really inhibit extreme hypocritical ESG risk? A greenwashing perspective exploration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    22. Wang, Hai & Chen, Hui & Ye, Shuai & Yin, Junya, 2024. "The impact of green finance on companies’ overcapacity: Evidence from green financial reform and innovation policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1320-1336.
    23. Jia, Junsheng & He, Xiaoyu & Zhu, Taiyu & Zhang, Eryu, 2023. "Does green finance reform promote corporate green innovation? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    24. Jun, Xiao & Huang, Wenwei & Guo, Yiting & Cao, Yuqiang & Lu, Meiting, 2023. "Why does economic policy uncertainty increase firm-level pollutant emission?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    25. Lei, Ni & Miao, Qin & Yao, Xin, 2023. "Does the implementation of green credit policy improve the ESG performance of enterprises? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    26. Montes, Gabriel Caldas & do Nascimento Valladares, Matheus, 2024. "The effects of economic uncertainty and economic policy uncertainty on banks’ loan loss provision in Brazil," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    27. Zhang, Zhenhua & Wang, Jing & Feng, Chao & Chen, Xi, 2023. "Do pilot zones for green finance reform and innovation promote energy savings? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zhang, Ke & Zhang, Xujun & Xiong, Lingyun & Rao, Bin, 2024. "The stabilizing effect of government guarantees in real economy investment: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 219-240.
    2. Li, Yunzhong & Zhao, Yu & Ye, Chengfang & Li, Xiaofan & Tao, Yunqing, 2024. "ESG ratings and the cost of equity capital in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    3. Zhang, Dongyang & Bai, Dingchuan & Chen, Xingyu, 2024. "Can crude oil futures market volatility motivate peer firms in competing ESG performance? An exploration of Shanghai International Energy Exchange," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Juzhang Feng & Sha Tang & Junhao Zhong, 2024. "Can corporate environmental, social, and governance performance influence foreign institutional investors to hold shares? Evidence from China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 4310-4330, July.
    5. Ho, Kung-Cheng & Yan, Cheng & Kong, Xiaoran, 2024. "The impact of climate change on credit cycles: Evidence from China's bond market," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    6. Croce, M.M. & Nguyen, Thien T. & Raymond, S. & Schmid, L., 2019. "Government debt and the returns to innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 205-225.
    7. Nektarios Aslanidis & Charlotte Christiansen & Neophytos Lambertides & Christos S. Savva, 2019. "Idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: influence of macro-finance factors," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 381-401, February.
    8. Wang, Fengrong & Mbanyele, William & Muchenje, Linda, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock liquidity: The mitigating effect of information disclosure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    9. Lischewski, Judith & Voronkova, Svitlana, 2012. "Size, value and liquidity. Do They Really Matter on an Emerging Stock Market?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 8-25.
    10. Da Gao & Xiaotian Zhou & Jing Wan, 2024. "Unlocking sustainability potential: The impact of green finance reform on corporate ESG performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 4211-4226, September.
    11. Karstanje, Dennis & Sojli, Elvira & Tham, Wing Wah & van der Wel, Michel, 2013. "Economic valuation of liquidity timing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5073-5087.
    12. Xuan Liu & Xuexi Huo, 2024. "Green Finance, Land Transfer and China’s Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, December.
    13. Ren, Xiaohang & Zeng, Gudian & Zhao, Yang, 2023. "Digital finance and corporate ESG performance: Empirical evidence from listed companies in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Nagano, Mamoru, 2018. "What promotes/prevents firm bond issuance in emerging economies: Bank–firm relationship or information asymmetry?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 161-177.
    15. Yu, Haixu & Liang, Chuanyu & Liu, Zhaohua & Wang, He, 2023. "News-based ESG sentiment and stock price crash risk," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    16. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Bai, Hengyu & Wu, Ji, 2020. "Investor sentiment and the economic policy uncertainty premium," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    17. Anolick, Nina & Batten, Jonathan A. & Kinateder, Harald & Wagner, Niklas, 2021. "Time for gift giving: Abnormal share repurchase returns and uncertainty," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    18. Li, WeiWei & Padmanabhan, Prasad & Huang, Chia-Hsing, 2024. "ESG and debt structure: Is the nature of this relationship nonlinear?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Umar Farooq & Mohammad Mahtab Alam & Bilal Haider Subhani & Mosab I. Tabash & Zilola Shamansurova, 2024. "Non-Linear Effects of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Green Innovation: Evidence from BRICS Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-21, November.
    20. Allard, Anne-Florence & Iania, Leonardo & Smedts, Kristien, 2020. "Stock-bond return correlations: Moving away from “one-frequency-fits-all” by extending the DCC-MIDAS approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    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:16:y:2024:i:22:p:10141-:d:1525375. 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.