Research On The Influence Mechanism And Consequences Of Environmental Punishments On Trade Credit Financing

With the rapid development of economy,the problem of environmental pollution in China is becoming more serious.The CPC Central Committee has been paying more attention to environmental pollution issues,and successively promulgated laws and regulations,such as the Environmental Protection Law and the Measures for Environmental Administrative Punishments.What kind of negative impact will the environmental administrative punishment imposed by the environmental protection department on polluting enterprises have on the enterprise?Can the company’s stakeholders capture the information on environmental punishments and respond accordingly?Based on stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory,signaling theory,and reputation theory,this paper takes A-share listed companies with heavy pollution from 2011 to 2019 as samples to conduct theoretical analysis and empirical testing.The study found that:(1)Environmental punishments have a significant negative impact on the scale of corporate trade credit financing.The more frequency and intensity of environmental punishments,the lower the level of corporate trade credit financing,which reflects the market disciplinary effect of suppliers on companies subject to environmental punishments.After using the instrumental variable method,propensity score matching method,adding control variables,replacing core variable measurement,and individual fixed effect,the above conclusions still hold.(2)From the point of view of the impact mechanism,environmental punishments inhibit the trade credit financing of enterprises by increasing the business risk and reducing the reputation and market position of enterprises.(3)Further research found that in enterprises that have not passed the environmental management system certification,the negative impact of environmental punishments on corporate trade credit financing is more obvious;for enterprises located in areas with high quality of environmental information disclosure,the negative impact of environmental punishments on corporate trade credit financing is more obvious;in non-state-owned enterprises,environmental punishments have a more significant inhibitory effect on corporate trade credit financing.(4)From the extended analysis of economic consequences,the inhibitory effect of environmental punishments on corporate trade credit financing significantly reduces corporate value.The research conclusion expands the research on the relationship between environmental punishments and corporate trade credit financing.At the same time,this paper has strong inspiration for the construction of an ecological and environmental governance system led by the government,with enterprises as the main body of governance and the participation of the capital market.