| Since the Reform and Opening,China’s economy has grown rapidly while also consuming a large amount of fossil fuels,which has caused a large amount of greenhouse gases and various pollutants to emit.Further,this has led to the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events and air pollution events such as haze and acid rain,as well as the aggravation of other environmental problems such as water pollution and biodiversity reduction.Environmental problems have caused serious adverse effects on people’s production and life,so they have received extensive attention from the whole society,and the public urgently hope that environmental pollution problems can be effectively treated.As the most important market entity,enterprises are also the main contributors to China’s pollution emissions.Total pollution emissions from firms have reached more than70% of the national total pollution emissions.Thus,they have become the main targets of pollution reduction and the focus of environmental governance.With the continuous strengthening of the government’s efforts in environmental governance,the implementation of more stringent environmental regulations and the continuous improvement of public awareness of environmental protection,enterprises are facing tremendous pressure on environmental governance.To achieve pollution reduction and sustainable development,enterprises need to respond by implementing a variety of green behaviors.Among them,energy efficiency improvement,pollution reduction and green innovation are the main goals and content of corporate green behaviors,and are the three most important corporate green behaviors.One of the most important obstacles to the green behaviors of enterprises is that enterprises often face severe financing constraints,and resulting in insufficient investment in green development.The financing constraints of enterprises are not only affected by the financing conditions of the enterprises themselves,but also by macro factors such as financial policies and the financial system.Improving the enterprise’s own conditions to increase the possibility of obtaining credit,the implementation of financial policies,and the development of financial system can alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises,thereby providing financial support for enterprises to carry out green behaviors.Therefore,from the perspective of different types of sources of corporate financing constraints,this article discusses the influencing factors of companies’ green behaviors,and conducts a more comprehensive analysis of their impact mechanisms in terms of financing constraints mitigation effect and cost saving effect,in order to promote corporate green Development provides relevant policy recommendations.The article is divided into six chapters,following the idea of " raising problems,empirical analysis,solving problems",to study the influencing factors of green behaviors of Chinese enterprises.The contents of each chapter are arranged as follows:The first chapter describes the severity of the current international and domestic environmental problems and the urgency to solve the problems,as well as the status quo of insufficient green investment.Further,this chapter demonstrates the importance of enterprises in environmental governance and the mutual promotion relationship of the three most important corporate green behaviors: improving energy efficiency,reducing pollution and corporate green innovation;finally,we further emphasizes the micro-environmental impact of corporate financing constraints on enterprises and the internal and external sources of corporate financing constraints.The Second chapter is the review of the domestic and foreign research literature on corporate green behaviors.First,it summarizes the theoretical basis of corporate green behaviors,and pointing out that corporate green behaviors is guided by sustainable development theory,circular economy development theory,government regulation theory,signaling theory and green finance theory,thus it has a profound theoretical foundation.Then,this chapter summarizes the influencing factors of corporate green behaviors based on three most important corporate green behaviors,namely corporate energy efficiency,corporate green innovation,and corporate environmental performance.Relevant research literature is collated from the two aspects of the company’s internal factors and external factors,so as to summarize the factors influencing the company’s green behaviors.Especially,it emphasizes the influence of financing constraints and financial factors on the implement of green behaviors of enterprises.The third chapter takes corporate pollution reduction as an example,the impact of enterprise’s own financing status on corporate green behavior from the perspective of financing constraints is discussed.Findings of empirical analysis based on the data from World Bank’s 2012 enterprise survey show that after the enterprise obtained financing credit,instead of improving its energy efficiency,it led to an increase in energy intensity.This result verified the existence of the "efficiency paradox".The mechanism analysis results show that after obtaining financing credit,companies will ignore the skill training of employees and pay less attention to cost saving,which will cause energy waste and lead to a decline in energy efficiency.In addition,access to financing has a greater positive effect on the energy intensity of companies located in areas with a worse financial market environment,the finding indicates that companies with more difficult access to credit will be more likely to invest in production activities instead of considering the issue of energy efficiency improvement after accessing to finance.However,the strengthening of environmental regulation can effectively offset the increase in energy intensity caused by financing,and when the level of environmental regulation is high enough,it can even reverse the relationship between access to finance and corporate energy intensity。The fourth chapter takes corporate green innovation as an example,the impact of changes in the financial policy on corporate green behavior from the perspective of financing constraints is discussed.Based on the data of China’s Ashare listed companies from 2014 to 2018 and take the green finance pilot policy as an example,the paper finds that the pilot policy can significantly improve the company’s green innovation level and the positive effect is mainly reflected in the promotion of green utility model innovation.In addition,compared with polluting industries,the green finance pilot policy has a greater effect on the green innovation of clean industry companies in the pilot areas.The mechanism analysis results show that the green finance pilot policy has eased the financing constraints of enterprises,allowing enterprises to increase their investment in green innovation research and development,thereby promoting the improvement of the level of green innovation of enterprises.The fifth chapter takes corporate pollution emissions reduction as an example,the impact of financial system on corporate green behavior from the perspective of financing constraints is discussed.Using matching data from 1998-2013 China’s industrial enterprise database and pollution emission database,the paper analyzes the effect of banking competition on firms’ pollution emission intensity.The findings show the strengthening of competition in the banking industry will contribute to the improvement of corporate environmental performance,and environmental regulation will enhance this effect.The results of mechanism analysis show the reduction of corporate pollution emission intensity caused by the competition in the banking industry is achieved through the effect of financing constraints mitigation,the effect of financial cost reduction,the effect of cost saving,and the effect of intra-industry competition.In addition,the impact of banking competition on corporate environmental performance will vary with the characteristics of different companies,regions and industries.The inhibitory effect of banking competition on corporate pollution emissions intensity is more significant among non-state-owned enterprises,small and medium sized enterprises,enterprises in industries with high pollution intensity,and enterprises in areas with low levels of marketization.Furthermore,this paper considers the effect of banking competition on the other types green behaviors of enterprises,and finds that banking competition will also increase the level of green innovation of enterprises and reduce their energy consumption.Therefore,in order to promote the green development of enterprises,it is necessary to increase support for the green development of enterprises and promote clean production and sustainable development of enterprises through financial development.It is also very important that the government and financial departments must play a role in environmental supervision of enterprises to ensure that enterprises use green credit to support the development of green development activities.The sixth chapter summarizes the research content and empirical results of the article,explores the policy implications based on these conclusions,and looking forward to future research.The main research conclusions of the article can be summarized in the following three aspects: Firstly,financing constraint is an important obstacle to the development of corporate green behaviors.The existence of financing constraints will make companies reduce their motivation for environmental protection,thereby reducing financial support for corporate green behaviors.Therefore,it is necessary for enterprises,banks and government departments to effectively cooperate to expand the financing channels of enterprises and meet the financing needs of enterprises.Secondly,enterprises have weak motivations for green development,and it is uncertain whether they will transition to green development after financing constraints are eased.However,the existence of government environmental regulations will force companies to increase financial support for green development activities.Therefore,while alleviating corporate financing constraints,government departments must strengthen their environmental supervision and management role.Thirdly,changes in the financial market structure will have an important impact on the green development of enterprises.The development of green finance aimed at environmental protection and the strengthening of internal competition in the financial market will be beneficial to the improvement of corporate financing and the development of green development activities.Therefore,in the green development and transformation of Chinese enterprises,it is necessary to speed up the construction of financial markets,pay attention to the role of financial entities in environmental protection,and encourage financial resources to tilt toward supporting the green development of enterprises.The innovations of this article as follow.Firstly,based on the perspective of financing constraints,the influence of financing constraints from different sources on the green behavior of enterprises is considered.Existing empirical studies on financing constraints and green behaviors of Chinese companies mainly focus on the impact of the overall financing constraints of companies,without considering the role of financing constraints from different sources.Corporate financing constraints are not only derived from the financing status of the company itself,but also affected by macro-financial factors,that is,financial policies and the financial system will lead to changes in the status of corporate financing constraints.This paper further expands related research,empirically analyzes the relationship between financing constraints and green behaviors of Chinese companies from three dimensions of corporate financing status,green finance policies,and financial sector competition.In addition,the paper discusses the heterogeneous effects of financing constraints on different types of enterprises and its influence mechanisms.This enriches the related research on financing constraints and corporate green behavior,and expands further research directions.The qualitative effect and its influence mechanism are analyzed.This enriches the related research on financing constraints and corporate green behavior,and expands further research directions.Secondly,this research focuses on the impact of changes in the financial system on corporate financing constraints and green behavior from the perspective of changes in the financial market structure.In the existing research on financial development and corporate green behaviors,the relevant literature pays more attention to the impact of financial scale.Different from the previous literature,this research focuses on the structural changes of the financial market,analyzes the role of the structural changes of the banking industry in alleviating corporate financing constraints and the impact on the development of corporate green behaviors.In addition,the paper further reveals the heterogeneous impacts of changes in the financial market structure.These studies have opened a new perspective for exploring the relationship between financial market and corporate green behaviors,and also provided policy support for promoting corporate green behaviors.Thirdly,the study considers the effect of environmental regulation on the relationship between financial development,financing constraints and corporate green behaviors.This research not only verifies the existence of the "efficiency paradox" problem,but also discovered the heterogeneous role of the different intensity of environmental regulations in influencing the green behaviors of enterprises.It is difficult for companies to obtain benefits from green behaviors in the short term,which makes the motivation of companies with the goal of maximizing benefits to carry out green behaviors weak,which is not conducive to the development of corporate green behaviors.With the improvement of the level of environmental regulation,it will put greater pressure on enterprises for environmental governance,forcing enterprises to increase investment to promote green development.This means that in the process of promoting the green development of enterprises by increasing financial support to enterprises,the supervisory role of government departments cannot be ignored.Relevant research not only enriches and expands existing researches in the fields of institutional environment and corporate green behaviors,but also provides a policy reference for our country’s transition to green development,and has important practical significance. |
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