Study On The Effect Of Foreign Direct Investment On Corporate Environmental Investment

China has long been committed to open development,and the scale of attracting and utilizing foreign investment continues to rise.While driving rapid economic growth,it has also brought about environmental pollution issues,making the relationship between trade and the environment a focal point of social concern in recent years.China has gradually shifted towards a more sustainable development way that emphasizes the coordination between economic growth and environmental protection.Enterprises of various types have also become more aware of the need to control environmental pollution and invest in environmental protection projects,actively assuming their corresponding social responsibilities.The relationship between FDI and corporate environmental investment is worthy of exploration.On the other hand,in theory,foreign investment can effectively alleviate financing constraints for enterprises,which would enable companies to have sufficient funds to invest in environmental protection.Therefore,it may increase the input of environmental protection investment.This article mainly studies the impact of FDI on corporate environmental protection investment and the role of financing constraints in the process.This paper uses micro-level data of listed companies,with the sample covering the period from 2001 to 2019,as research samples,constructing measurement indicators such as FDI,financing constraints,and the scale of corporate environmental investment.It uses fixed-effects models to empirically test the impact of FDI on corporate environmental protection investment and explores the mechanism of financing constraints between the two.Based on a review and evaluation of relevant literature domestically and abroad,combined with the current development status of FDI and corporate environmental investment,the article analyzes the theoretical mechanism and proposes corresponding hypotheses,and finally uses empirical research to examine the causal relationship.The empirical results show that the inflow of FDI significantly promotes corporate environmental investment.An increase of 1% in FDI leads to a 1.33% increase in corporate environmental investment.This result remains reliable after a series of robustness tests,and the mediation test also supports the intermediary role of financing constraints.That is,FDI can alleviate financing constraints faced by enterprises and support them to invest more funds in environmental protection projects.In addition,heterogeneity tests found that the impact of FDI on environmental investment in the high financing constraints group significantly decreased.Regarding corporate equity concentration,FDI significantly promoted corporate environmental protection investment in enterprises with high equity concentration.Finally,in state-owned enterprises,FDI significantly increased the scale of environmental investment injected by foreign capital.In conclusion,this study on FDI,financing constraints,and corporate environmental protection investment has certain reference significance for the Chinese government to increase the inflow and reasonable utilization of foreign capital,actively alleviate financing constraints faced by enterprises,guide enterprises to actively assume environmental protection social responsibilities,increase the investment in environmental protection projects,and achieve high-quality and sustainable development of China’s economy.