Accountability Audit Of Natural Resources And Corporate Green Investment Behavior Choice

General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed many times that "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,and improving the ecological environment means developing productive forces".In an era when the Party and the state attach great importance to ecological and environmental protection,the third Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee in2013 proposed for the first time the implementation of accountability audit of natural resources,and in 2014,some cities were included in the first batch of pilot areas of accountability audit of natural resources.In order to further implement this policy,the General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council issued the Pilot Program for Accountability Audit of Natural Resources(hereinafter referred to as the Program)in November 2015.The "Program" points out that the mainly audit object is to guarantee the government leader to optimize natural resource management and ecological environmental protection.And then it can promote save natural resources exploitation and ecological environment security and promote the construction of ecological civilization,etc.According to the theory of ecological civilization construction,promoting ecological civilization construction is to adhere to the road of green development and promote the green transformation development of cities and key industries and other fields.As the main body of resource utilization and pollutant production,corporate green investment behavior will largely determine the effect of green transformation of corporate and cities.Therefore,when accountability audit of natural resources increases the pressure of environmental resource assessment of local governments,the corporate under the jurisdiction,especially the heavily polluting corporate,become the main object of local government attention,which undoubtedly increases the external pressure of the heavily polluting corporate.Under the joint action of government and market,such external pressure not only makes corporate face institutional pressure from government compulsory supervision or normative guidance,but also may face market pressure from market participants’ negative prediction of corporate future development.In order to relieve external pressure,corporate need to actively adopt green investment to meet the different legitimacy expectations of government and market participants and other stakeholders.Then,how will the institutional pressure and market pressure generated by accountability audit of natural resources be transmitted to corporate and affect their choice of green investment behavior?To solve the above problems,this thesis takes 2011-2019 as the research sample.According to political promotion tournament theory,government audit theory,signal transmission theory and organizational legitimacy theory,this thesis analyzes the influence of accountability audit of natural resources on corporate green investment behavior choice and its consequences under the supervised pressure transfer and incentive pressure transfer from the perspective of pressure transmission,and uses the DID model to conduct corresponding empirical tests,and draws the following conclusions:First,under the supervised pressure transfer,the pilot implementation of accountability audit of natural resources will promote corporate to implement green M&A.Specifically,under given conditions,on the one hand,accountability audit of natural resources can promote local governments to strengthen regional environmental supervision,increase the external environmental supervision pressure of corporate,and promote corporate to implement green M&A to meet the short-term interests of local governments.On the other hand,accountability audit of natural resources can be considered as a signal to urge market investors(supervisors)to negatively evaluate the future development of heavily polluting corporate in pilot areas,which leads to the underestimation of the market stock prices of corporate(especially those committed to green development).In order to curb the continuous decline of stock prices,the corporate will implement green M&A.Further research find that the implementation of accountability audit of natural resources makes both state-owned corporate and non-stateowned corporate increase their green M&A investment.But compared with non-state-owned corporate,the implementation of accountability audit of natural resources still has a more obvious impact on state-owned corporate green M&A investment behavior.At the same time,compared with cities with a low level of economic development and a high degree of dependence on natural resources,the impact of accountability audit of natural resources on corporate green M&A is more obvious in cities with a high level of economic development and low dependence on natural resources.In addition,this thesis also examines the effect of external social pressure and internal risk compensation.The results show that compared with low social media pressure and social public pressure,corporate with high social media pressure and social public pressure are more likely to implement green M&A under the accountability audit of natural resources.And compared with low internal risk compensation,corporate with high internal risk compensation are more likely to implement green M&A under the accountability audit of natural resources.Second,under the incentive pressure transfer,the pilot implementation of the accountability audit of natural resources will promote corporate to implement green innovation.Specifically,under given conditions,on the one hand,local governments will be through the provision of government subsidies and preferential tax policies after the accountability audit of natural resources,to reduce the financing constraints in the process of green transformation and development of corporate,thereby promoting green innovation of corporate.On the other hand,accountability audit of natural resources will improve the market green competitive advantages,to encourage corporate to actively develop green products and increase green innovation investment.Further research finds that under the accountability audit of natural resources,stateowned corporate will bear more responsibility for green innovation and perform better than non-state-owned corporate.At the same time,compared with cities with a low level of economic development and a high degree of dependence on natural resources,the impact of accountability audit of natural resources on corporate green innovation investment behavior is more obvious in cities with a high level of economic development and low dependence on natural resources.In addition,this thesis also examines the effects of corporates from external social pressure and internal risk compensation,and the results show that the short-term nature of the negative media pressure cannot effectively affect the positive relationship between the accountability audit of natural resources and the corporate green innovation.And different social and public pressures have significant differences in the incentive effect of accountability audit of natural resources on corporate to implement green innovation.That is,compared with low social public pressure,corporate with high social public pressure is more likely to implement green innovation.And internal risk compensation is also conducive to promoting corporates to implement green innovation under the accountability audit of natural resources.That is,compared with low salary compensation and low equity compensation,corporates with high salary compensation and high equity compensation are more likely to promote the effect of green innovation under the accountability audit of natural resources.Third,under the accountability audit of natural resources,there are significant differences between green M&A and green innovation in promoting green transformation and development of corporate,improving social environmental benefits and encouraging the promotion of officials.Specifically,in terms of green transformation and development of corporate,compared with green M&A,green innovation is more conducive to corporate improvement of energy use efficiency,reduction of "three wastes" emissions and promotion of green transformation and development.In terms of environmental benefits,compared with green M&A,green innovation investment is more conducive to improving social benefits and urban air quality.In terms of the incentive effect of official promotion,compared with green M&A,green innovation is more conducive to the incentive effect of official promotion.In other words,the accountability audit of natural resources has lifelong accountability system,which further restrains the investment behavior of officials focusing on green short-term effect.Further research found that the above-mentioned consequences of green innovation are mainly concentrated in state-owned corporate,that is,at this stage,state-owned corporate are the main force to promote the realization of the goal of the accountability audit of natural resources.At the same time,under accountability audit of natural resources,since the effect of green innovation is better,why should corporate choose green M&A and green innovation investment behavior? This thesis finds that internal financing constraints are the key internal factors for corporate to choose green investment behaviors.Due to limited funds,it is difficult for corporate to achieve green M&A and green innovation "both hands",but to meet the legitimate expectations of different stakeholders to implement green investment behavior choice.In addition,the research also found that there is a synergistic effect between green M&A and green innovation.That is,part of the purpose of green M&A is to obtain the green production technology of the target company.This is another reason for corporate to implement green M&A when the green innovation effect is good.But due to financial constraints,it is difficult for most companies to implement green M&A and green independent innovation at the same time.Compared with the existing literature,the possible marginal contribution of this thesis is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:First,this thesis analyzes and tests the micro-green governance effect of accountability audit of natural resources based on institutional objectives,complementing the research on key implementation effects of accountability audit of natural resources.The existing literature mainly focuses on the normative theory research of the accountability audit of natural resources.Although a few scholars have discussed the impact of this institution on micro corporate financing costs and earnings management and other corporate behaviors,these economic consequences are biased towards the key institutional goal of ecological civilization construction of accountability audit of natural resources,and it is difficult to fundamentally verify whether accountability audit of natural resources can achieve the expected goal.This thesis examines the policy effect of o accountability audit of natural resources in promoting green transformation and development of cities and corporate from macro and micro levels,which makes up for the deficiency of existing literature on the implementation effect of accountability audit of natural resources.Second,from the perspective of pressure transmission,this thesis discusses the choice of corporate green investment behavior under the different pressure transmission mechanisms in the accountability audit of natural resources from the dual dimensions of supervision and incentive,enriching the theoretical explanation that the government plays a leading role in promoting the construction of ecological civilization in China.Existing literature about the influence factor of corporate green investment behavior research,mainly from the perspective of government temporary environmental monitoring research the influence of different environmental regulation to the corporate green investment behavior.From the perspective of government audit,based on the innovative audit system with normal and legal characteristics of accountability audit of natural resources,this thesis discusses how will the institution continue to play a supervisory and incentive role,so as to urge and guide corporate to increase green investment and change the current economic development model when the environmental resource protection performance of government officials is included in the routine audit category of audit law,local government officials can relieve the pressure of environmental resource protection and protect their promotion interests.The conclusion provides a new feasible theoretical explanation and realization path for alleviating corporate short-term environmental management speculation,increasing the authority of government’s environmental pollution control,and accelerating the construction of ecological civilization.Third,this thesis explains how the government and the market can effectively cooperate to promote corporate to actively implement green investment,and compares the implementation effects of green M&A and green innovation investment behavior based on institutional objectives,and further discusses the differences and synergies between the two,expanding the relevant theories on the influencing factors and results of corporate green investment.Existing research mainly focus on environmental regulation under the corporate is willing to perform environmental responsibility,as well as the surrounding potter hypothesis to study the effect of environmental regulation on corporate green innovation behavior.This thesis focuses on the perspective of audit,combines the government and the market functions,to explore corporate green investment behavior choice under accountability audit of natural resources,making incremental contributions to enriching the theoretical research on green investment.