ESG Performance,Media Attention And The Cost Of Debt Financing Of Listed Companies

With the development of science and technology and the changes of the times,sustainable development has become the focus of global attention,and the concept of ESG has emerged.Based on the specific connotation of ESG,enterprises disclose relevant information according to corresponding standards,and various rating agencies score and rank enterprises by collecting ESG-related information through multiple channels.Then the ESG rating has gradually become the proof of enterprises’performance in green environmental protection and CSR.At the same time,ESG performance is an important basis for investors to evaluate and judge the sustainable development ability of enterprises,and plays an increasingly important role in the financing process of enterprises.Debt financing is the key factor for the survival and development of enterprises,but in recent years,financing difficulties,high financing costs and other problems have been perplexing domestic enterprises.Therefore,how the ESG performance of enterprises affects the decisions of investors and whether the financing cost can be reduced by improving ESG performance is one of the important significances of this paper.In addition,the role played by the media has also received great attention and concern from all sectors of society.On the one hand,the media can be an intermediary of spreading enterprise information to attract the attention of creditors and investors.On the other hand,the media plays the role of supervision and governance,urging enterprises to improve themselves.However,the existing literature rarely explores the relationship between media attention,ESG performance and the cost of debt financing.This paper studies the impact of ESG performance on the cost of debt financing,and further examines the role of media attention.This paper adopts the method of combining theoretical analysis and empirical research.In the theoretical analysis,this paper combines the information asymmetry theory,signal transmission theory,principal-agent theory,stakeholder theory,sustainable development theory and reputation theory to analyze the potential relationship between various variables,and then obtains three hypotheses.In the empirical study,the listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen are selected as the research samples,and the samples are screened,processed and described.Through empirical analysis,the following conclusions are obtained:First,the ESG performance of enterprises has a negative correlation with the cost of debt financing,that is,enterprises with higher ESG rating can obtain lower cost of debt financing.Second,media attention has a negative correlation with the cost of debt financing.For enterprises with high media attention,the cost of debt financing is low.Third,media attention plays a moderating role in the impact of ESG performance on the cost of debt financing.For enterprises with high media attention level,ESG performance has a more obvious negative impact on the cost of debt financing.At the same time,according to the conclusion,the paper puts forward policy suggestions to enterprise management and the development of media industry.