Female Directors,Social Trust,and Corporate Carbon Disclosure Levels

As the main body of market economy activities,enterprises also bring climate issues that cannot be ignored while promoting economic development.Domestic "1/5 glacial melting" and "haze" issues have erupted successively,reflecting the grim reality faced by Chinese enterprises in fulfilling their carbon emission reduction responsibilities.The overall level of carbon information disclosure by listed companies in China is worrying,and the level of disclosure varies widely.The academic community is gradually beginning to explore the reasons behind this difference.In 2018,California passed legislation to require the presence of at least one female director on the board of a public company,which has parked controversy in the community about the value of female directors.When academics deepened their research on the factors affecting corporate carbon disclosure,they also began to pay attention to the role of female directors.The intersection of female directors as corporate directors' personal traits and structural diversification in corporate governance may be an important factor affecting the level of corporate carbon disclosure.As an informal institution,social trust will spontaneously produce a "joint effect",which will make people's trust in the region map to the trust of enterprises in the region.By fulfilling environmental responsibilities and improving carboninformation disclosure,companies can establish good relationships with stakeholders,improve corporate reputation,and build a trusted external environment for business operations and development,thereby reducing transaction costs and increasing market value.However,how female directors can influence the level of corporate carbon disclosure through governance of the board of directors.In the face of different levels of regional social trust,whether their disclosure of corporate carbon information will change is still in a "black box" state.Therefore,this paper explores the impact of the characteristics of female directors on the level of corporate carbon disclosure under different levels of social trust in the region.This article takes listed companies that have disclosed corporate social responsibility reports in2013-2018 as the research object,and uses Stata14.0 as the analysis tool to comprehensively use multiple regression,quantile regression and fixed effects Hypothesis testing with regression and other methods finally confirmed the following conclusions:(1)The number of female directors may not increase the level of corporate carbon information disclosure.The positive role of female directors depends on their quality.Specifically,when the number of female directors is small(1-2),the influence of female directors on the level of corporate carbon disclosure is not positive.When the percentage of female directors exceeds a certain percentage(20%),female directors The suppression of carbon information disclosurelevels will weaken and have a positive effect.(2)The average age of female directors has a weak negative correlation with the level of corporate carbon disclosure,but it is not significant.(3)The improvement of the average education of female directors has a significant promotion effect on the level of corporate carbon information disclosure.(4)A good level of social trust is conducive to the improvement of corporate carbon information disclosure.(5)The level of regional social trust has a positive regulatory effect on the relationship between the characteristics of female directors and the level of corporate carbon disclosure.