Based on the unique micro-data of newly built polluting firms for the period of 2009–2018, this paper adopts the conditional logit model to empirically evaluate the impact of environmental regulations on the location choice of polluting firms. Moreover, we extend the theoretical model by considering that the environment regulations not only influence the pollution cost but also the level of technological innovation and labor cost. The empirical results show that polluting firms tend to flow into areas with stringent environmental regulations, which supports the Porter hypothesis, but the effect of environmental regulations have a divergent impact on heavily polluting firms. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that environmental regulations have shown a positive impact on the location choice of private and foreign-funded firms but no significant impact on that of state-owned firms; the impact of environmental regulation is consistent with pollution haven hypothesis for firms in the central region but is in line with Porter hypothesis for firms in other regions. Meanwhile, the probability of air polluting firms entering areas with stricter environmental regulations is higher than that of water-polluting ones. Finally, this paper further empirically tests the conduction mechanism, that is, environmental regulations can affect the location choice of polluting firms by affecting the regional technological innovation capabilities and labor cost.

Whether green credit policy is conducive to improving the green innovation efficiency of heavy polluting industries is of great significance for China’s sustainable economic development and the construction of ecological civilization. This paper uses China’s Green Credit Guidelines to conduct a quasi-natural experiment based on relevant panel data of industries from 2007 to 2018. Specifically, it employs the Super-SBM model including non-expected output to measure the green innovation efficiency of 35 industries in China, and constructs the propensity score matching difference-in-difference model to explore how green credit policy impact on the green innovation efficiency of heavy polluting industries. The results show that the coefficient of difference-in-difference ([Formula: see text]) was 0.262, which was significant at the 1% level; the coefficient of [Formula: see text] was not significant; the coefficient of [Formula: see text] was 0.490, which was significant at the 1% level; and the coefficient of [Formula: see text] was 0.173, which was significant at the 1% level, indicating that green credit policy significantly contributes to the green innovation efficiency of heavy polluting industries, though with a lag effect. Further study finds that green credit policy pushes heavy polluting industries to improve green innovation efficiency by increasing financing cost and R&D investment; meanwhile, the heterogeneity test shows that the higher the state-owned share of the industry, the greater the positive effect of green credit policy on its green innovation efficiency. Finally, in order to accelerate the implementation of green credit policy and promote the green innovation efficiency of heavy polluting industries, banks can guide heavy polluting industrial enterprises through credit to carry out green technological transformation, heavy polluting industries should raise awareness of green innovation, and government should encourage heavy polluting industrial enterprises to carry out green innovation, and guide and supervise the state-owned enterprises in particular, so that they can improve cleanliness and achieve green economic development.

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.

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.

The Chinese authorities revised its Pollution Discharge Fee Policy and officially implemented the Environmental Protection Tax Law on January 1, 2018. Considering the importance of such a reform, we utilise the ordinary least squares and probit regression models to explore the effects of these policies on firm performance during the transitional period of 2016 to 2019. We find that fee rates are negatively related to firm financial performance, i.e. profitability and development capability, and positively associated with firm environmental performance, i.e. corporation social responsibility. We applied the IV 2SLS regression model to control for firms’ research and development investment, and the empirical results remain the same. Regarding subsample tests, these policies have stronger impacts on firm performance among heavy polluters and non-state-owned enterprises than those of environmental friendly firms and state-owned enterprises. The empirical results hold after we control for various potential endogeneity issues. The findings of this article may assist the authorities to adjust the tax law, so as to protect the environment and relieve the negative impact on firm performance simultaneously.

In recent years, the frequent occurrence of smog in Chinese cities has prompted great changes in the policy environment faced by enterprises. In this study, we address the question whether the decision-making behavior of enterprises will be affected by smog. This paper studied the 2010–2018 data of 218 listed Chinese polluting companies to investigate the impact of smog on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The subjects of this study were all listed on China’s A-share market on either the Shenzhen or Shanghai Stock Exchange. The empirical results indicate the following: (1) the more serious the smog, the more likely enterprises are to perform CSR; (2) smog exerts a higher impact on the social responsibility of enterprises that receive more media attention. Further research determined that media attention, whether positive, negative, or neutral, plays the same role in moderating the relationship between smog and CSR; and (3) compared to private enterprises, the function of smog in promoting the CSR fulfillment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is more obvious. Based on the reality of Chinese polluting industries, this research combined smog and media attention in the exploration of CSR, which not only enriches CSR research but also provides positive guidance for the sustainable development of polluting enterprises.

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.

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 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.

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.