The Impact Of ESG Rating On Financing Efficiency Of Enterprises ——Based On The Moderating Role Of The Board Of Directors

With the construction of ecological civilization included in the "five in one" general layout of socialism with Chinese characteristics,reducing the level of environmental pollution,practicing social responsibility and improving governance capacity have become the direction vigorously advocated by all walks of life.Environment,social responsibility and corporate governance（hereinafter referred to as ESG）as an important indicator to measure the level of green and sustainable development of enterprises,aims to emphasize that enterprises should pay attention to protecting the interests of related parties while pursuing profit maximization,such as paying attention to environmental protection,actively undertaking social responsibility,protecting the interests of shareholders and creditors,etc.Many people think that increasing the investment in ESG will result in the mismatch of resources and have a serious impact on the economic performance of enterprises.However,whether the improvement of ESG performance of enterprises will really drag down their economic performance and is not conducive to the sustainable development of enterprises? The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the improvement of ESG performance can improve the financing efficiency of enterprises and realize the win-win situation of sustainable development and social value of enterprises.In addition,from the perspective of the board of directors,this paper hopes to explore whether there is a moderating effect on the relationship between ESG rating and financing efficiency by the proportion of chairman concurrently serving as general manager and independent director.In order to achieve the above research objectives,this paper uses the Tobit model to empirically analyze the impact of ESG rating on the financing efficiency of 216 Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 component companies from 2015 to 2019.Then,the moderator regression analysis（MRA）and subgroup analysis are used to analyze the moderating effect of the board of directors on the relationship between corporate ESG rating and financing efficiency from two aspects: the proportion of the chairman serving as the general manager and the proportion of the sole director.In addition,this paper compares and analyzes the financing efficiency differences between state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises from the perspective of property rights.Considering the lag effect of ESG rating on enterprises,the ESG rating of sample enterprises lags behind the financing efficiency for half a year.When measuring the financing efficiency of enterprises,this paper takes total assets,asset liability ratio and total operating cost as input indexes,and takes return on net assets,turnover rate of total assets and growth rate of total operating revenue as output indexes,and uses DEA-BCC model to measure the financing efficiency of enterprises.The results show that:（1）improving the performance of ESG helps to improve the financing efficiency and promote the sustainable development of enterprises.（2）If the chairman of the board concurrently serves as the general manager,it will weaken the promotion effect of ESG performance on financing efficiency,and there is a negative moderating effect.In order to improve the reliability of the above conclusions,this paper uses CLAD method to test the robustness,and finds that the test results are basically consistent with the research conclusions.Finally,based on the conclusion of the study,this paper puts forward the following suggestions:（1）enterprises should increase the investment in ESG field to promote the sustainable development of enterprises,and then promote the sustainable development of economy,environment and society.（2）Enterprises should improve the corporate governance structure and promote the separation of chairman and general manager.（3）Regulatory authorities should encourage and guide banks and other financial institutions as well as social investors to support ESG enterprises with excellent performance,so as to further promote the sustainable development of environment,economy and society.The innovation of this paper is as follows:（1）this paper requires that the ESG rating of sample enterprises is obtained by the same institution according to the unified evaluation system,and has been publicized for five consecutive years,thus ensuring the continuity and objectivity of rating data to a large extent.（2）This paper not only empirically analyzes the influence of ESG rating on the financing efficiency of listed enterprises,but also explores the regulatory effect of the proportion of the chairman of the board of directors who concurrently serves as general manager and sole director on the relationship between ESG rating and financing efficiency,thus expanding the existing research perspective.（3）In this paper,the combined minimum absolute difference method（CLAD）is used in the robustness test to avoid the case that Tobit method may not be consistent when the interpreted variable is non normal or there is variance,thus improving the reliability of the empirical results.The research value of this paper: deepen the understanding of the relationship between the sustainable development ability of enterprises and the financing efficiency under the background of ecological civilization construction.