Research On The Impact Mechanism Of ESG Information Disclosure To Promote Corporate Deleveraging

Environmental and climate issues have become increasingly prominent,which has intensified the urgency of global governance.To address the climate issue,the Chinese government has adopted policies such as the "dual-carbon Goal",the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035,accelerating the transformation of the concept of green,low-carbon and sustainable development,and moving the Chinese economy from high-speed growth to highquality development.In response to the transformation of green behaviors by enterprises,the market players,the China Securities Regulatory Commission formulated the Code of Governance for Listed Companies in 2018,which mandated enterprises to disclose environmental,social and governance information.By 2021,1,130 Chinese listed A-share companies had released ESG information.However,in the process of the transformation of high-quality economic model,due to the double blows of the financial crisis and the epidemic,China’s capital structure appears to be out of whack,and the debt leverage of China’s economy as a whole is high and difficult to reduce.According to the China Financial Stability Report 2021,China’s macro leverage ratio will reach279.4% in 2020.High leverage can drag down corporate credit ratings,reduce the return on capital for corporate investors and even trigger financial crises.The disclosure of ESG information(environmental,social and governance information)by enterprises is in line with the mainstream value needs of the state and society,can reshape the business philosophy of enterprises and bring a series of value-added effects to the development of enterprises.Will it help alleviate the problem of enterprise leverage and change the mode of economic development? Exploring the relationship between ESG information disclosure and corporate leverage ratio will help improve enterprises’ understanding of ESG practice,provide feasible ideas for enterprises to adjust leverage ratio and control operational risks,and help China’s economy achieve high-quality development.Based on stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory,signal transmission theory,reputation theory and pecking order financing theory,this paper deeply studies the influence mechanism and action mechanism of enterprises’ active disclosure of ESG information on enterprises’ deleveraging,and proposes that enterprises’ disclosure of ESG information will significantly reduce the leverage ratio of enterprises.The research hypothesis that information transparency,profitability and internal control quality play a conductive role in the deleveraging effect of enterprise ESG performance;Then,qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis methods are adopted to carry out the research using literature research,empirical analysis,principal component analysis,two-stage least square method(2SLS)and other techniques.In terms of qualitative analysis,on the basis of summarizing the existing achievements and taking stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory,signal transmission theory,reputation theory and pecking order financing theory as the cornerstone,the internal logic of ESG information disclosure adjustment of enterprise capital structure is studied.In terms of quantitative analysis,the fixedeffect model is used to study the effect of ESG disclosure performance on corporate leverage ratio by taking A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2020 as samples.In order to verify the reliability of regression results,robustness and endogeneity tests were conducted on the data.The mediating effect model is used to study whether information transparency,profitability and internal control quality play a mediating role in the relationship between ESG and corporate leverage ratio.Based on this,corporate governance level and media attention indicators were constructed from both internal and external perspectives to explore the adjustment mechanism of corporate ESG performance on corporate leverage ratio change.Finally,the heterogeneity of enterprises is analyzed from the perspectives of property rights,financial development level,enterprise life cycle and geographical region,and the influence of ESG performance on the heterogeneity of enterprise leverage ratio is explored.The results show that the disclosure of ESG information can significantly reduce the level of corporate leverage.The robustness test is passed,and the conclusion is valid.Mechanism analysis shows that corporate disclosure of ESG information can reduce corporate leverage ratio by improving information transparency,improving profitability and enhancing internal quality control.Both corporate governance level and media attention will strengthen the deleveraging effect of corporate ESG information disclosure.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative impact of ESG performance on corporate leverage ratio is more significant in non-state-owned,highly financialized,mature and eastern and central enterprises.This paper expands the research on the economic consequences of ESG,and provides some empirical data for enterprises to adjust capital structure reasonably.