Research On The Correlation Between Green Bonds And Enterprise Financialization

With China’s economy entering a new normal,the main social contradiction has been transformed into the contradiction between the people’s growing need for a better life and the unbalanced development.As an indispensable part of people’s production and life,finance should not only play a role in serving the real economy,but also pay attention to service quality and efficiency and promote the optimal allocation of resources.However,at present,the growth rate of the real economy lags far behind the financial development,and enterprises gradually appear the trend of financialization.Report to the 20 th CPC National Congress of the Party pointed out that to build a modern industrial system,economic development should focus on the real economy.How to restrain the development trend of entity enterprises from real to virtual and control the financialization of entity enterprises has become a hot topic at present.Green bonds have the characteristics of repayment of principal and interest,promotion of energy saving and emission reduction,green transformation of enterprises,and support for research and development of green industry projects.It is characterized by direct financing from the bond market and investing the money in green industries such as protecting the environment,reducing pollution and developing clean energy.From the policy requirements,green bonds have the advantages of stricter information disclosure,special use and low financing cost.Bonds need to repay the principal and interest on time,and the motivation of enterprise financing is that the capital income of investment is greater than the financing cost,so issuing bonds will inevitably affect the asset allocation of enterprises.Entity enterprises are the lifeblood of an economic power.Under the background of the increasing scale of green bond issuance,this paper takes entity enterprises as the research object,and the research focus is whether issuing green bonds can inhibit enterprises from "deviating from reality to emptiness".First of all,this paper screened and studied the literatures related to corporate financialization and green bonds,made clear the core meaning of the concept,and refined the conceptual logic suitable for this paper.Literature sorting starts with the connotation and measurement of enterprise financialization,and then combs the connotation of green bonds and the economic consequences of issuing green bonds.Secondly,this paper studies the relationship between issuing green bonds and the level of enterprise financialization.Through theoretical research,this paper puts forward two hypotheses:(1)Starting from the greenwashing motivation of enterprises,issuing green bonds promotes the financialization of enterprises.Enterprises use green bonds to finance,which has low financing threshold and low financing cost,and obtain funds to alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises.However,the funds obtained by financiers through green finance are used for non-green projects that cannot meet the expectations of environmental benefits(Jones et al,2020).The main factors considered in enterprise investment decision-making are the risks and returns of financial and non-financial assets,and its core idea is decentralized investment(Demir,2009;Zhang Chengsi,2018),and the allocation of financial assets can gain a lot of benefits for enterprises in the short term,so the issuance of green bonds by enterprises with "greenwashing motivation" can promote the financialization of enterprises.(2)From the aspects of the fixed use of green bonds,bringing external supervision and improving the reputation of enterprises,it will form a governance role for enterprises,thus inhibiting the financialization of enterprises.First,according to the description of green bond offering,there is a fixed purpose,which restricts enterprises from using financing funds for other purposes,thus achieving the purpose of restraining the financialization of enterprises.Second,from the perspective of information disclosure,green bonds have an information increment effect.Before the issuance of green bonds,the third-party green certification is obtained to ensure the transparency and reliability of information.After the issuance of green bonds,more information disclosure is required,and richer public information can lead to wider external supervision.External supervision can regulate enterprise managers to reduce short-sighted behavior and inhibit the financialization of enterprises.Third,from the perspective of signal transmission,the issuance of green bonds transmits a credible "green" signal and brings positive market response to enterprises(Tang et al.,2020;Flammer,2021)。 In addition,issuing green bonds shows the sense of social responsibility,which is conducive to improving social visibility and reputation,and corporate reputation is related to the personal interests of managers.Therefore,issuing green bonds can improve the reputation of enterprises,and the benefits brought by reputation of management can reduce the hidden arbitrage behavior;Corporate reputation is the sum of the evaluations of stakeholders,and it also becomes a qualitative indicator for owners to supervise managers in disguise.Managers need to be alert to the changes of corporate reputation level,thus improving the loyalty of management compensation contracts,alleviating the agency problem of enterprises and reducing the level of corporate financialization.Thirdly,this paper takes the listed companies that issued bonds in China from 2016 to June 2022 as samples,and based on the listed companies in the sample,explores whether the issuance of green bonds can have an impact on corporate financialization.The empirical results show that issuing green bonds can significantly reduce the financialization of enterprises.Finally,this paper introduces media attention into the mechanism research to explore the intermediary role of media attention in issuing green bonds and financialization of enterprises.The higher the media attention,the stronger the role of social supervision on enterprises.By exerting the "supervision effect",media attention forms a governance role on enterprises,thus inhibiting the degree of enterprise financialization.In order to explore the different effects of different enterprises’ nature and whether they are highly polluting enterprises on enterprise financialization,this paper makes a heterogeneity analysis.The results show that the governance effect of green bonds is more obvious in state-owned enterprises and heavily polluting enterprises.The conclusion of this paper strengthens the understanding of the financialization of entity enterprises,and reveals the internal mechanism of green bonds inhibiting the financialization of enterprises.In theory,the economic consequences of green bonds will be extended to the field of enterprise financialization;Broaden the influencing factors of enterprise financialization.In practice,in order to support the policy of expanding the issuance of green bonds,guide and standardize enterprises to issue green bonds,assume social responsibilities,meet and balance the needs of various interest groups,and continuously provide theoretical support for the sustainable development of enterprises and society.