Research On Impacts Of ESG Information Disclosure On Corporate Financing Constraints

Financing constraints have always been an eternal topic plaguing enterprises,and exploring ways to alleviate this problem is also a long-term and constant pursuit of academia.At the same time,whether due to policy development or the needs of the financial market itself,concept of ESG is gradually popularizing and developing in China.On the one hand,listed companies focus on improving their own ESG disclosure level and enhancing ESG performance to win investors’ favor;on the other hand,investors need to take the ESG information disclosed by companies as an important part of their decision-making basis to make more scientific decisions.Therefore,there is an inseparable link between ESG information and corporate financing constraints.However,due to the lack of research on the overall concept of ESG by Chinese scholars,the relationship between the ESG and financing constraints is not very clear.So,based on studying and sorting relevant literature,considering relevant theories(Sustainable Development theory,Asymmetric Information theory,etc.),this paper aims to explore the impacts on financing constraints caused by disclosure quality of ESG information.In order to analyze the influence process deeply,this paper considers the moderating effects of two factors further,"the heterogeneity of property rights" and "the local economic development level of enterprises".In addition,according to the principle of Signaling theory and Asymmetric Information theory,the mediator of "investor’s heterogeneous belief" is introduced to fully explore this influence mechanism.In order to achieve the research goal,this paper takes the listed companies of the CSI 800 Index as the research sample,and selects the one phase lagged data from Syn Tao Green Finance’s ESG rating results(2017-2019)to measure the quality of ESG information disclosure;and at the same time,uses the SA index to measure the degree of financing constraints,then carry out the subsequent empirical analysis.Empirical results show that high-quality ESG information disclosure does significantly alleviate corporate financing constraints,but the degree of mitigation is significantly affected by the moderating factors mentioned above.Compared with non-state-owned enterprises,the high-quality ESG information disclosure of state-owned enterprises will exert a stronger mitigating effect on their financing constraints;compared with enterprises located in poor economic development areas,enterprises from advanced economic development areas show the more outstanding performance in the process of weakening their financing constraints.What’s more,the partial mediating effect of "investor’s heterogeneous beliefs" is confirmed in this paper.Based on all the research results from both qualitative and quantitative analysis,From the perspective of relevant government departments,enterprises and investors,this paper puts forward corresponding suggestions.Government is obligated to strengthen the reform of state-owned enterprises,create a fairer financing environment,optimize resource allocation,and narrow the gap in regional economic development levels further;besides,some other methods can be taken by government to directly improve the level of future ESG information disclosure,such as promoting the improvement of ESG information disclosure mechanisms and standardizing ESG information evaluation,etc.Companies ought to pay more attention to the quality of ESG information disclosure and keep track of investors’ reactions.As for investors,improving decision-making capabilities and taking good care of companies’ ESG information will play an integral role in forcing companies to raise the level of ESG disclosure.In the future,with the joint efforts of the above parties and further research by scholars,ESG information will be disclosed with higher quality,and its role in alleviating financing constraints will be more effectively played.