Under the background that China puts forth the goals of “Emission Peak” and “Carbon Neutrality”, heavily polluting corporations as the main source of carbon emissions, whether the restriction of carbon emission disclosure could promote the transformation and upgrading of heavily polluting corporations to raise their value, is a problem worthy of in-depth study. This paper selected listed companies in heavily pollution industries from 2009 to 2019 as the research samples, and analyzed the impact of carbon emission disclosure on short-term and long-term performance based on the perspective of ownership structure heterogeneity. This paper also discussed the moderating effect of carbon emission disclosure on state-owned enterprises and private enterprises taking into account government environmental regulations, media evaluation, and corporate image management based on the Gatekeeper Theory. Firstly, this paper found that in the short term, the improvement of carbon emission disclosure level will inhibit the value growth of enterprises in the initial stage, but will promote the value growth to a certain extent. In the long run, carbon emission disclosure plays a positive role in promoting enterprise value. Secondly, the government environmental regulation, media evaluation, and corporate image management produced different moderating effects under the difference in ownership structure. For state-owned enterprises, the higher the level of government environmental regulations and media evaluation, the more significant is the short-term and long-term value effect. While the higher the level of corporate image management, the more significant is the short-term value effect, however, the long-term value effect is not significant. For private enterprises, government environmental regulations, media evaluation, and corporate image management have no significant moderating effects. Based on the above findings, this paper presents countermeasures and suggestions for the high-quality development of enterprises from the perspectives of government management and enterprise operations.

The relationship between environmental regulation and firms’ total factor productivity (TFP) has always been a hot topic in environmental economics, but the conclusions are still mixed. Employing a sample of 14,375 firm-year observations in China from 2010 to 2018, our research explores whether and when environmental regulation could trigger firms, to enhance TFP. The available evidence leads us to cautiously conclude that: (1) Environmental regulation notably improves firms’ TFP, the conclusion still holds after alleviating the endogenous problems and a battery of robustness tests. (2) Firms’ bargaining power significantly weakens the effect of environmental regulation on firms’ TFP. (3) Compared with non-state-owned firms and non-heavy-polluting industries, environmental regulation has a greater impact on state-owned firms and heavy-polluting industries; higher executive compensation does not motivate firms to improve TFP. Compared with firms headquartered in non-provincial capital cities, environmental regulation has a greater impact on firms’ TFP in provincial capital cities. Overall, the findings of our research are extremely relevant for the governments, investors, and firms’ managers; this paper provides China’s micro-firm-level evidence for the Porter hypothesis.

This study investigates the effect of China’s national Five-Year Plan for environmental protection (FYPEP) on corporate green innovations based on the two-way fixed effect model and panel data about the green patents of China’s publicly listed corporations during 1990–2020. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of these green innovations is further discussed with reference to the types of innovation, enterprise ownership, and the location of the corporations. It is found that FYPEP significantly induced corporation green innovations at regional and industrial levels. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the inductive effect of FYPEP is stronger on green utility model patents than on green invention patents. State-owned enterprises react to green innovation policies more significantly than do private businesses. The inductive effect of FYPEP is stronger in Eastern China than in mid- and Western China. From the perspective of government intervention, this research renders a new framework for the formulation of policies of national environmental protection and corporate green innovation.

This study aims to enrich our understanding of the valuation consequence of climate risk in financial markets. The primary focus of our study is on the stock price reaction to firms’ climate-risk-related information. We employ transcripts of Chinese listed firms’ performance briefings to capture the climate risk at the firm level. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms between 2009 and 2021, we find that greater corporate climate risks lead to negative market reactions over a short time window, consistent with the market quickly comprehending corporate climate risks. This result holds for a series of robustness checks. We further find that the negative impact of corporate climate risk on the stock price reaction operates through the increased market trading activities, greater investor attention, and reduced positive media coverage. Finally, we demonstrate that industry carbon emission, local abnormal temperature, state ownership, institutional shareholding, and dividend payout are important moderators that shape the association of the corporate climate risk and the adverse market reaction. Our evidence suggests that disclosures of climate-related information can help the stock market to price climate risk more efficiently.

Low-carbon transformation has become a key priority in China, as demonstrated in the implementation of the Carbon Peak, Carbon Neutralization policy, leading to increasing concern of environmental performance at the corporate level. This paper measures the carbon emission of 1,089 Chinese companies through the EIO-LCA-based approach. Then we examine the impacts of international crude oil price fluctuations and the corporate development level on carbon emissions of individual companies. Our results indicate that an increase in international crude oil price uncertainty could inhibit the company’s carbon emission. In parallel, we find that there might exist an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) inverted U-shaped correlation between the company’s development level and its environmental performance. However, some exceptions to corporate carbon performance may emerge, resulting from specific corporate characteristics such as the state-owned nature and whether the firm is listed on the stock exchange. Our results could help companies optimize their internal carbon emission structure during the low-carbon transition process and contribute to effective policy regulations towards the target of carbon reduction.

Although green mergers and acquisitions (M&A) emerged recently as corporate green management actions, whether they can prompt corporations to achieve green transformation is unclear, as little is known about how green M&A affects strategic decisions on corporate environmental behavior. Based on legitimacy theory, we analyze Chinese heavy-polluting firms listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2009 to 2017 to explore the impact of green M&A on corporate environmental governance. Results show that green M&A has a positive impact on corporate environmental management. Specifically, we find that the positive relationship between green M&A and corporate environmental governance is strong in firms in localities under considerable media scrutiny, as such firms face increased legitimacy benefits and illegitimacy penalties. Conversely, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) weaken this relationship, as such enterprises have natural political connections to undermine legitimacy benefits and avoid illegitimacy penalties. Thus, we argue that media scrutiny and SOEs influence the likelihood of an organization to implement green M&A as a sincere substantive strategic action. Finally, we summarize the green M&A implementation of an organization in environmental governance as a sincere green action rather than hypocritical greenwashing. Furthermore, we make contributions to legitimacy theory and the corporate environmental governance literature.

The employment effect of enterprises embedded in global value chains (GVCs) has important theoretical value, but existing research has ignored the impact of environmental costs on employment under the division of labor system within the value chain. By constructing a GVC-embedded index considering environmental costs, this study investigates the impact of Chinese industrial enterprises’ embedding into GVCs on employment at both the theoretical and empirical levels. It is found that when the environmental cost is considered, the improvement of GVC embeddedness has a significant inhibiting effect on employment, especially for female laborers, lower-skilled laborers, state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and enterprises in the eastern region of China. The research also shows that when considering environmental costs, the labor cost increase effect enhances the negative effect of increased GVC embeddedness on employment, while the innovation promotion effect and the foreign direct investment effect serve to mitigate the negative effect. The results provide a reference for developing countries seeking to effectively protect people’s livelihood and employment while achieving a leap in the division of labor along the green value chain.

Recently, the rapid development of digital finance in China has exerted a subtle influence on many aspects of social and economic development. However, the research on the impact of digital finance on corporate green innovation is rather lacking. In order to fill this gap, this paper uses the “Peking University Digital Finance Index” to evaluate the micro impact of financial innovation development on environmental governance from the firm level. The results show that digital finance can significantly improve the quantity and quality of corporate green innovation, and this effect still exists after considering endogeneity and a series of robustness tests. The promotion effect of digital finance on the quantity and quality of corporate green innovation is more obvious in state-owned, eastern, and mature enterprises. In addition, we find the mechanism behind the positive relationship between digital finance and corporate green innovation: digital finance makes firms more transparent and funds flow more convenient. Overall, this paper provides a micro explanation of environmental governance for the accelerated popularization of digital finance in emerging markets, which is urgently needed for most emerging economies seeking high-quality development.

To ensure the realization of carbon neutrality and emission peak, the Chinese government promulgated the pilot policy for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2011 and gradually expanded the range of the pilot program. However, it has not been systematically studied whether this policy can achieve double dividend and its transmission mechanism. Based on the Porter hypothesis, this paper explores the impacts of an ETS on macro emission reduction and microeconomic performance, verifies the influence of an ETS on double dividend, and analyzes its transmission mechanism using a difference in difference (DID) model and mediation model. The results indicate that an ETS can reduce CO₂ emissions and remarkably improve the economic performance of the enterprises in the areas it is enacted. A double dividend has been realized, which verifies Porter’s hypothesis. The mechanism test shows that from the macro perspective, the emission reduction effect of an ETS is mainly achieved by adjusting the energy structure and through local government regulations. In contrast, the mediation effect on the industrial structure is not apparent. From a micro perspective, an ETS mainly affects the economic situation of enterprises through cash flow and technological innovation. Moreover, the transmission effect of enterprises’ low-carbon behavior is not apparent. Heterogeneity analysis shows that compared with Midwestern China, an ETS could reduce emissions by adjusting the energy structure in Eastern China. Also, compared with state-owned or large enterprises, an ETS helps improve the economic performance of small or non-state-owned enterprises through technological innovation. This paper provides empirical evidence from macro- and microperspective for evaluating an ETS, conducive to improving the top-level framework of China’s future carbon market operation.

The digital economy, which gradually emerged with a new generation of information technologies, has become an unavoidable reality for manufacturing firms in conducting green innovation activities. In this context, using matched panel data at the province and manufacturing firm levels in China during the period 2011–2019 as the sample, this article examines the nonlinear impact of the digital economy on firm green innovation, and further identifies the moderation mechanism of government quality and the heterogeneity of its effects. The two-way fixed-effects model reveals that there is not a simple linear association between the digital economy and firm green innovation as traditionally perceived, but rather an inverted U-shaped relationship that first promotes and then inhibits, which remains robust after applying endogenous and robustness tests. And most provinces have not yet crossed the inflection point; thus, the digital economy overall positively impacts green innovation. Further analysis shows that government quality positively moderates the relationship between the digital economy and firm green innovation, statistically reflecting that the turning point shifts upwards to the right under a higher-quality government. It is worth noting that, when heterogeneity in firm ownership, scale, and region is considered, the inverted U-shaped curve still exists, but the level of the digital economy at the inflection point differs, and the digital economy plays a greater role in promoting green innovation for state-owned, large-scale, or midwestern firms. This research has significant policy implications as it establishes an inverse U-shaped relationship between the digital economy and firm green innovation and indicates that while a firm’s green patent output increases with the development of digitalization, it begins to decrease after a limit.