Research On The Impact Of Government Regulation On The Relationship Between Environmental Information Disclosure And Corporate Value

In the past two years,many companies such as Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel,Anhui Jianghuai Automobile,and "two barrels of oil" have been punished for disclosing environmental information in violation of regulations.Listed companies selectively disclose or even do not disclose environmental information,misleading investors’ decisions and the wrong allocation of investment resources,and disrupting the operation of the capital market.The current situation of Chinese corporates disclosing environmental information is worrying.The main reason is that corporates lack the willingness to disclose environmental information,and external regulation measures are not yet mature.How to put a "tightening curse" on untrustworthy corporates in environmental protection has become a proposition of the times.The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that it is necessary to establish an environmental information disclosure system,accelerating the construction of ecological civilization and the development of the green economy.The key of green developing ecological economy is the transparency of environmental information.In this situation,environmental information disclosure,as one of the signals that convey the fulfillment of their environmental responsibilities and influence investors’ choices,has attracted more and more attention.As the main body of production and operation,corporates that are based on the principle of cost-effectiveness will give priority to whether the input and output are proportional,and whether environmental information disclosure can bring about an increase in market value.And whether the government’s strengthening of regulation can urge corporates to fulfill their environment protection obligations and promote the transparency of environmental information and optimize the allocation of resources in the capital market,so that the environmentally corporates can obtain an increase in market value,has become the key to government decision-making.Thus,it is meaningful to study the impact of government regulation on the relationship between environmental information disclosure and corporate value.Based on the current situation that China’s corporate environmental information transparency needs to be strengthened,on the basis of sorting out domestic and foreign research results,a total of 7985 samples of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed corporates from 2015 to 2019 were selected to empirically test the impact of environmental information disclosure level on corporate value and whether government regulation is playing a moderating role,from three dimensions: industry,property rights,and region.The results show that the government’s strengthening of regulation can help improve the level of environmental information disclosure;The higher the level of environmental information disclosure,the higher the market value of the corporate;The strength of government regulation can strengthen the positive effect of the level of environmental information disclosure on corporate value.The strengthening effect is more significant for heavy pollution industries than non-heavy pollution industries.Compared with the central and northeast regions,the eastern and western regions are more significant,and significant for non-state-owned corporates than state-owned corporates.This article holds that corporates that value environmental information disclosure attract investors’ attention and investment by virtue of the good image.Meanwhile,the stricter the government’s regulation,the more conducive to the improvement of awareness and execution of environmental information disclosure,as well as the improvement of market value.Therefore,the government and enterprises should work together to comprehensively improve the level of environmental information disclosure,promote the transparency of capital information,form a fair competition mechanism,and help the transformation of green finance and the sustainable development of the capital market.