Environmental Information Disclosure Quality And Corporate Financing Relie

Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,improving the ecological environment has become deeply ingrained in the concept of developing productive forces.China attaches great importance to the green and sustainable aspects of economic development,balancing high-quality economic growth with environmental protection.Corporate-led environmental protection actions play a crucial role in bottom-up environmental improvement,governance,and ultimately achieving an environmentally-friendly economic transformation.As a new type of environmental regulation measure,corporate environmental information disclosure can address public and social concerns,enhance self-supervision and management.Compared to the mandatory environmental information disclosure regulatory environment in other countries,under China’s regulatory system that combines mandatory and voluntary disclosure,the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure varies widely and standards are uneven.Its disclosure quality,as an important part of corporate management,has become a "window" for studying the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure and its economic effects.Based on panel data of non-financial A-share listed companies from 2008-2020,this article constructs a Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure Quality Index by qualitatively and quantitatively evaluating corporate environmental information disclosure content from 30 dimensions.Using a Fixed-effects model for both individual and time variables,it explores the impact of corporate environmental information disclosure quality on corporate debt financing costs.Based on signal transmission theory,it examines the intermediary mechanism of reducing information asymmetry between capital providers and enterprises and enhancing media attention.It also examines the moderating effects of urban environment,urban environmental information disclosure quality,and local corruption levels.Through heterogeneity analysis in regional macro characteristics,industry mid-level characteristics,and enterprise micro-characteristics,it investigates the "lifeline" effect and "icing on the cake" effect of corporate environmental information disclosure.Robustness tests are conducted by replacing core explanatory variables,dependent variables,and instrumental variables to mitigate the impact of endogeneity.In addition,green patent data is used to analyze the motivation behind corporate environmental information disclosure.The research results show that(1)Corporate environmental information disclosure quality significantly reduces debt financing costs;(2)Mechanism analysis shows that environmental information disclosure can significantly reduce the degree of information asymmetry between capital providers and enterprises,enhance corporate environmental reputation and reputation through traditional media,and better conform to the "green orientation" of financial loans;(3)Regulatory effect analysis indicates that the better the urban environment,the higher the level of urban environmental information disclosure,and the higher the local integrity level,the stronger the effect of corporate environmental information disclosure quality on reducing corporate debt financing;(4)The financing and relief effects of corporate environmental information disclosure can provide a "timely help" for companies with poor internal control and in the growth stage.The effects are more significant for companies located in areas with strong environmental regulations,high-level political connections of executives,nonheavy-polluting industries,highly marketized areas,and better accessibility to financial resources,reflecting an "additional benefit" effect;(5)Corporate environmental information disclosure has transparency motives,and companies with high disclosure quality continue to improve their green innovation level;(6)The reduced debt financing cost inhibits corporate financial expansion and curbs the trend of "detachment from reality to virtuality".The research findings provide diversified and robust empirical evidence for the economic effects of corporate emphasis on the quality of environmental information disclosure.It can serve as a necessary microfoundation for further improving the reform of corporate environmental information disclosure in the new context of constructing a beautiful China.The research emphasizes the importance of regulating corporate behavior through standardized environmental information disclosure to address the bottleneck in the relationship between banks and enterprises,and achieve a harmonious coexistence between humans and nature,which is a Chinese-style modernization.