The Impact Of ESG Performance On High-quality Development Of Enterprises

As an important measure of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development,ESG has become a widely discussed concept in both the market and academia.With the transformation of China’s economy from high-speed development to high-quality development,scholars have extensively discussed the high-quality development from the perspective of enterprises.In this context,exploring the impact and mechanism of ESG performance on corporate high-quality development is of great significance for promoting high-quality development.However,this paper finds that the existing domestic studies have conducted detailed studies on ESG performance and high-quality development respectively,but relatively few literatures have conducted in-depth empirical research on the relationship between ESG performance and corporate high-quality development.This paper selects the CSMAR database,Bloomberg financial terminal,and relevant data from the China Urban Statistical Yearbook,and conducts in-depth analysis on the impact mechanism of ESG performance on corporate high-quality development based on listed companies on the main board in China.The empirical results of this paper show that the improvement of ESG performance can significantly promote the high-quality development of listed companies.After handling endogeneity issue and conducting a series of robustness tests,the promotion effect of improving ESG performance on the high-quality development of listed companies still exists.This paper then analyzes the impact mechanism of corporate ESG performance on high-quality development and finds that the improvement of corporate ESG performance can significantly alleviate financing constraints and thus promote corporate high-quality development.Furthermore,this paper finds that the improvement of the three sub-indicators of corporate ESG performance,namely environmental performance,social responsibility performance,and corporate governance performance,can all promote corporate high-quality development.Finally,this paper conducts a series of heterogeneity tests from three dimensions: enterprise,industry,and region,and the results show that the impact of improving ESG performance on corporate high-quality development is more significant in enterprises with lower total factor productivity,non-state-owned enterprises,heavy asset-intensive enterprises,heavily polluting enterprises,and enterprises located in non-resource-dependent cities and non-old industrial bases.This paper theoretically analyzes and empirically verifies that the improvement of corporate ESG performance can significantly promote corporate high-quality development.Based on the empirical results,this paper proposes policy suggestions such as improving the ESG rating system,supporting ESG development,and using the ESG rating system to facilitate high-quality development.