Proactive Government And Green Development Of Enterprise

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has developed rapidly and made remarkable achievements.At the same time,however,environmental pollution,resource depletion,ecological damage and other problems are becoming increasingly serious.As pointed out in the report of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China,China is still facing a tough task of protecting the ecological environment in the face of tightening resource and environmental constraints,environmental pollution and other prominent problems.The related environmental problems have seriously hindered the healthy development of China’s economy and had a serious impact on the social life of residents.To this end,the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC)in 2012 raised the construction of ecological civilization to an unprecedented strategic height,and pointed out that we should build a five-in-one overall layout including the construction of ecological civilization.In 2022,the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC)again proposed to strengthen ecological environment protection in an all-round,regional and whole process manner,establish a more sound ecological civilization system,accelerate the green transformation of the development mode,and further promote the prevention and control of environmental pollution.It can be seen that how to effectively protect natural resources and ecological environment is an important issue to promote the sustainable development of China’s social economy,and also an important topic of common concern for the theoretical and practical circles.As an important spectator in social and economic activities,enterprises play an important role in promoting economic development.But at the same time,enterprises are also the most important manufacturers of environmental pollution.Enterprises should bear the main responsibility of environmental pollution control and environmental protection,and promote the coordinated development of economy and environment.However,due to the public goods attribute of environmental resources and the negative externality of environmental pollution,as well as the long investment cycle and low economic benefits of enterprise environmental governance activities,most enterprises are difficult to actively participate in environmental governance activities.For this reason,in 2003,China successively implemented market incentive environmental regulations such as emission charges,emission trading,environmental protection taxes,aiming to internalize the cost of enterprises’ pollution behavior through the effective market.However,after the implementation of the above market incentive environmental regulation,Chinese enterprises have not actively participated in environmental governance.The government,as an important part of the top-level design in China,is also required to take effective actions when the market fails.In 2022,the 20 th CPC National Congress also pointed out that the government should play a better role.Therefore,exploring the influence of promising government on the green development of enterprises is not only of great guiding significance for promoting the green development of enterprises in China,but also provides an empirical basis for further understanding and playing the role of promising government.This paper uses the revision and implementation of the Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2015 as the research scenario,starting from the "words" and "actions" of enterprises,to explore the impact and mechanism of the promising government on enterprise environmental information disclosure,environmental protection expenditure and green innovation.In general,the relevant research of this paper not only improves the relevant literature on promising government and environmental regulation,but also expands the relevant literature on the influencing factors of corporate environmental governance behavior from the perspectives of corporate environmental information disclosure,environmental expenditure,green innovation,etc.Specifically,this paper first explores the impact of Promising government on enterprise environmental risk.This paper finds that after the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law for the government,the environmental risks faced by enterprises have increased.Specifically,after the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law,the number of administrative penalties imposed on environmental pollution by environmental protection departments at the provincial level each year,and the number of letters from the public on environmental issues received by environmental protection departments at the provincial level have significantly increased.This shows that environmental risk is one of the channels for the government to influence the environmental governance behavior of enterprises.Secondly,from the "words" of enterprises,this paper explores the influence of Promising government on enterprise environmental information disclosure,that is,whether enterprises will disclose more complete environmental information to reduce the impact of environmental risks on enterprises.This paper finds that after the government has promulgated and implemented the new Environmental Protection Law,compared with the enterprises not listed in the key pollutant discharge units,the enterprises listed in the key pollutant discharge units will disclose more complete environmental information.At the same time,the above effects are more significant when the central government has stronger supervision and the local government has stronger law enforcement.Compared with state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises,the above effects are more significant in non-state-owned enterprises and small-scale enterprises.Further research has confirmed that the promulgation and implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law has significantly improved the financing constraints faced by enterprises listed as key pollutant discharge units,and the effective disclosure of enterprise environmental information can effectively mitigate the impact of the new Environmental Protection Law on enterprise financing constraints.Thirdly,this paper starts from the "line" of enterprises,and explores the impact of the promising government on the environmental protection expenditure of enterprises.This paper finds that after the government has promulgated and implemented the new Environmental Protection Law,compared with the enterprises not listed in the key pollutant discharge units,the enterprises listed in the key pollutant discharge units will pay more for environmental protection.At the same time,the above impact effect is more significant in areas with stronger central government supervision and stronger local government enforcement,as well as in enterprises with lower equity concentration and less conflict of interest.Further research shows that the promulgation and implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law has changed the internal resource allocation of enterprises,enabling enterprises to transfer existing resources from other projects to environmental protection expenditure,thus leading to an increase in environmental protection expenditure.Finally,from the perspective of long-term investment of enterprises,this paper explores the impact of promising government on green innovation of enterprises.This paper finds that after the government has promulgated and implemented the new Environmental Protection Law,compared with the enterprises not listed in the key pollutant discharge units,the enterprises listed in the key pollutant discharge units will carry out more green innovation to promote the green transformation of enterprises.Cross sectional test shows that the above impact effect is more significant when the central government has stronger supervision and the local government has stronger enforcement.At the same time,compared with enterprises with higher equity concentration and greater conflict of interest,this effect is more significant for enterprises with lower equity concentration and less conflict of interest.Further research shows that the promotion of the new Environmental Protection Law on green innovation of enterprises is not to further increase the overall R&D investment of enterprises,but to transfer the R&D resources of other projects to green innovation by adjusting the allocation of internal R&D resources of enterprises,which leads to the increase of green innovation of enterprises.In addition,this paper also finds that Promising government can significantly improve the comprehensive environmental performance of enterprises by promulgating and implementing the new Environmental Protection Law.It is shown that,with the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law,compared with the enterprises not listed in the key pollutant discharge units,the ESG rating of the enterprises listed in the key pollutant discharge units and the probability of reaching the standard of pollutants are significantly improved.The research of this paper has important theoretical value.First of all,as an important part of China’s top-level design,the relevant research on Promising government mainly focuses on how to combine Promising government and effective market to promote regional economic development.In the field of promising government and environmental governance,the existing research mainly discusses the motivation of local government environmental governance from the perspective of regional environmental governance.However,the research on the micro green behavior of Promising government and enterprises is relatively few.From the perspective of Promising government,this paper explores the impact of the new "Environmental Protection Law" on the green development of enterprises.It not only supplements the relevant documents of Promising government from the perspective of micro enterprise behavior.It also examines environmental governance from the perspective of new structural economics,further enriching relevant literature in the field of promising government and environmental governance.Secondly,in the relevant research of environmental regulation,the existing research mainly discusses the impact of environmental regulation on corporate financial behavior and financial performance.And from the perspective of effective markets such as pollution charges and environmental protection taxes,this paper explores the impact of market incentive environmental regulation on corporate environmental governance behavior.This paper discusses how Promising government can make up for the failure of the effective market and improve the enthusiasm of enterprise environmental governance,which can effectively improve the relevant theories of environmental regulation.Finally,in terms of relevant research on corporate environmental governance behavior,this paper effectively supplements the relevant literature on corporate environmental information disclosure,environmental protection expenditure and factors affecting green innovation by discussing the impact of the new Environmental Protection Law on corporate environmental information disclosure,environmental protection expenditure and green innovation.This study also has important practical significance.On the one hand,the new Environmental Protection Law,as a comprehensive law and regulation issued in recent years in China,is a concrete manifestation of the promising government in terms of environment.This comprehensive exploration of the effects and mechanisms of the new Environmental Protection Law and China’s enterprises’ environmental behavior will help fully judge the implementation effects of the new Environmental Protection Law,and provide empirical evidence from micro enterprises for the legislation and enforcement of policy making departments and relevant regulatory departments.On the other hand,the research on the impact of multi party game behavior on the role of promising governments in China’s environmental governance system will also help to further understand the importance of the central government and local governments in environmental governance,and will have important reference significance for the subsequent central government to formulate environmental policies and strengthen supervision.