Research On Environmental Information Disclosure?Media Attention And Cost Of Equity Capital

Nowadays,with the rapid development of the economy,many heavily polluting enterprises pursue profits at the expense of the environment.In their opinions,the protection of the environment has impeded economic development.However,as we all know,they are all important.Then environment information disclosure plays an important role to solve the contradiction.When outsiders can't understand the internal environmental imanagement of the company and the environmental risks they face,whether or not it can gain competitiveness in the capital market if companies disclose environmental information voluntarily.And how?These issues must be explored.Based on signal transmission theory,information asymmetry theory,external pressure theory and decision-making usefulness theory,this article will focus on heavily polluting listed companies in china,build a index system with content method to obtain independent variable data.Besides,divide the disclosure into two types of information,including" hard disclosure"(clear and verifiable environmental information)and "soft disclosure"(ambiguous and generalized environmental information).Through empirical research and analysis:(1)High quality disclosure of environmental information is beneficial to reduce the cost of equity capital,and the "hard disclosure" does really matters;(2)Compared to state-owned enterprises,the relationship between the environmental information disclosure and cost of equity capital is more obvious in the non state-owned companies.(3)Companies with more media coverage,the relationship between information disclosure and the cost of equity capital is more obvious.The differences between this paper and existing researches are summarized below:firstly,this paper effectively improved existing evaluation index system,which is more in line with China's national conditions.Secondly,different types of environmental information are distinguished.The effects of verifiable environmental information and generic environmental information are examined with cost of equity capital.Thirdly,the paper take the influence of media attention and the property right into consideration.The existing researches about media attention have been linked to social responsibility information,but there were few researches on environmental information.In this paper,the sample is focused on heavy pollution listed companies.As we all know,when it comes to environmental information disclosure,it was the heavily polluting listed companies that was first.Only when we study these companies'problems of environmental information disclosure thoroughly,can we provide scientific guidance for them and promote enterprises to disclosure the environmental information better in other industries.In theory,this research will help to enrich existing research in this field by studying the heavily polluting listed companies of environmental disclosure and the economic consequences.In realistic terms,this research is helpful to make suggestions for stakeholders by analyzing companies' environmental management behavior.