Research On The Impact Of Private Equity Investment On ESG Performance Of Small And Medium-sized Enterprises

At present,the corporate governance modes of most small and medium-sized enterprises in our country are not scientific enough,the governance performance is not obvious enough,and ESG performance is poor.Private equity investment is an investment concept with value creation as the core.Private equity participation can improve the management ability of enterprise management team and the strategic vision of invested enterprises,help small and medium-sized enterprises to ease financing and sustainable development problems,and enable private equity investment institutions and investees to share the fruits of successful enterprise operation.While winning returns for investors,the company’s ESG performance can be improved objectively to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the invested enterprises and the industry.Based on this,this thesis uses the data of small and medium-sized listed companies from 2010 to 2020 to study the impact of private equity investment on ESG performance of small and medium-sized enterprises and its mechanism.The findings are as follows:First,private equity investment significantly improves the ESG performance of smes,including enterprise environmental performance,corporate social responsibility performance and corporate governance performance.After a series of robustness tests and endogeneity analysis,this conclusion still holds.Second,the mechanism analysis results further show that private equity investment can improve the ESG performance of small and medium-sized enterprises through three mechanisms:easing financing constraints,reducing agency costs and improving enterprise value.Thirdly,heterogeneity analysis shows that private equity investment has different effects on the ESG performance of smes in enterprises with different property rights,and this promoting effect is greater in state-owned enterprises.Private equity investment has a greater impact on the ESG performance of smaller,lower-growth smes than smaller,higher-growth smes.