Voluntary Environmental Regulation,green Innovation And Financial Performance

As one of China’s three major development strategies,the development of the Yangtze River economic belt is developing rapidly,which plays a huge supporting role in China’s economy.However,the rapid economic development is accompanied by the consumption of resources and the frequent occurrence of environmental pollution.Therefore,the state has formulated and promulgated a series of policies and measures for the purpose of protecting the environment and reducing pollution to restrict and guide enterprises’ behavior,that is,to encourage and restrict enterprises’ green behavior through environmental regulation.Compared with the ordered and market-oriented environmental regulation,the voluntary environmental regulation has stronger flexibility and great autonomy of choice.The active selection of features can stimulate the green innovation of enterprises.According to Porter’s hypothesis,environmental regulation can promote technological innovation,produce innovation compensation effect,and improve enterprise performance.Then,for enterprises in the Yangtze River economic belt,does voluntary environmental regulation meet the Porter hypothesis?Based on sustainable development and Porter hypothesis,this paper analyzes the internal relationship between voluntary environmental regulation,green innovation and financial performance,and collects data of all A-share listed companies in 11 provinces and cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2014-Based on the ISO14001 standard certification data,green patent data and other financial data in 2018,this paper uses OLS model and did model to empirically test the impact of voluntary environmental regulation on financial performance of enterprises in the Yangtze River economic belt,as well as the performance of property heterogeneity,pollution heterogeneity and regional heterogeneity;and uses the medium effect test method to introduce green innovation intermediary variables to empirically test the role of green innovation in voluntary environmental regulation The mechanism between environmental regulation and financial performance.The results show that:(1)there is a positive correlation between voluntary environmental regulation and financial performance,and the positive correlation is still tenable after PSM test,change explained variable and intermediary variable test;(2)there is a positive correlation between voluntary environmental regulation and green innovation,and there is a certain lag effect;(3)there is a positive correlation between green innovation and enterprise financial performance(4)green innovation plays a mediating role between voluntary environmental regulation and financial performance,which is full mediating effect in OLS model and partial mediating effect in did model;(5)under the heterogeneity of enterprises,voluntary environmental regulation of state-owned enterprises,polluting enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises in the Yangtze River Economic Belt will significantly improve financial performance achievements.Finally,according to the conclusions of the study,the corresponding suggestions are put forward from the macro level of the government and the micro level of enterprises.From the micro perspective of enterprises,this paper provides a theoretical basis for the study of the green development of enterprises in the Yangtze River economic belt,and also provides a certain empirical basis for the confirmation of "Porter Hypothesis".