Research On Quality Of Environmental Information Disclosure,Government Environmental Regulation And Cost Of Bond Financing

Environmental problems have attracted more and more attention from stakeholders at home and abroad,such as enterprises and investors.However,the frequent occurrence of environmental pollution accidents makes the disclosure of environmental information of enterprises attract much attention.At the same time,with the continuous development of China’s bond market in recent years,corporate bonds play an increasingly important role in the bond market.As an important financing tool in the capital market,corporate bonds are widely favored by issuers due to their unique financing advantages.Domestic and foreign scholars have shown that the quality of environmental information disclosure is related to the financing cost of corporate bonds.With the concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains" put forward in the new era,the government attaches more and more importance to the supervision of the environment,the environmental protection behavior of enterprises has attracted the attention of investors,and environmental information disclosure has a certain impact on investors’ investment decisions.On the basis of related research,this paper discussed the effect of the quality of environmental information disclosure on the financing costs of bonds,and the moderate effect of local government environmental regulation on the relationship between them.Then we further explored the impact of the quality of environmental information disclosure on the financing costs of bonds from the Green Development Index,Marketization Degree and the form of information disclosure.Firstly,this paper analyzes the concept of environmental information disclosure,government environmental regulation and the financing cost of bonds,economic consequences,internal and external causes,and effect mechanism at the theoretical level.According to the Legitimacy Theory,Information Asymmetry Theory,Voluntary Disclosure Theory and Signaling Theory,we analyze the effect mechanism of the quality of environmental information disclosure on the financing costs of bonds,and the moderate effect mechanism of local government environmental regulation on the relationship between them.Secondly,this paper takes the listed companies of China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2014 to 2018 as research samples.We use the data from runling global liability rating as a measure of environmental disclosure quality,and use the credit spread model to estimate bond financing cost.On the basis of controlling variables such as enterprise scale,rate of return on total assets and asset-liability ratio,we empirically analyze the relationship between corporate environmental information disclosure quality and bond financing cost,and the moderate effect of local government environmental regulation on the relationship between them.Thirdly,based on the above analysis,this paper further analyzes the impact of environmental information disclosure quality on bond financing cost from the perspectives of Green Development Index,Marketization Degree and information disclosure form.Finally,we find that environmental information disclosure quality is significantly negatively related to the bond financing cost;Strengthening the regulation of environmental information disclosure by local government can weaken the inhibiting effect of environmental information disclosure quality on bond financing cost.Further analysis shows that in regions with low Green Development Index,the negative relationship between environmental information disclosure quality and bond financing cost is more obvious.Compared with regions with high degree of marketization,the quality of environmental information disclosure has a more significant negative impact on bond financing cost in regions with low degree of marketization.Moreover,companies that voluntarily disclose environmental information are more willing to reduce financing costs by improving the quality of information disclosure than those that are forced to do so.Existing research on the economic consequences of environmental information disclosure mainly focus on the cost of equity capital and the cost of debt capital.This article focuses on the financing cost of bonds and enriches the research on the economic consequences of environmental information disclosure and bond financing cost.At the same time,the conclusion of this article has certain reference significance for enterprises,investors and governments.It will not only help enterprises to improve the quality of environmental information disclosure and obtain financing advantages,but also provide certain reference for investors to make investment decisions and the governments toformulate relevant policies.