Research On The Impact Of Environmental Pollution Liability Insurance On Enterprise Financing Constraints ——Based On Data Of Listed Companies In Heavy Pollution Industries

In today’s era when the global ecological environment is increasingly damaged,green development and green economy are already the basic trends of global economic development.After experiencing a period of extensive economic development,China has gradually realized the importance of ecological environmental protection,and the status of ecological environmental protection and ecological civilization construction is increasing day by day.In the report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly emphasized the need to develop green finance and mentioned advocating the use of green insurance and other green financial tools to serve green development.As an important financial tool to promote green development,environmental pollution liability insurance shares the responsibility of corporate environmental pollution compensation,and combines environmental risk assessment and management methods to reduce the hidden risks of the insured company’s environmental risks,reduce the possibility of sudden environmental pollution accidents,and achieve the purpose of reducing business risks.China’s environmental pollution liability insurance system started relatively late,and pilot work began in 2007 to support and encourage enterprises to purchase insurance.However,after more than ten years of promotion,China’s environmental liability insurance is still facing the embarrassing situation of "double cold" and "low popularity" of supply and demand.Enterprises in the heavy pollution industry are the main body of environmental liability insurance market demand,and their environmental protection information is an important indicator when obtaining green credit,so the purchase of environmental liability insurance by enterprises in the heavy pollution industry will inevitably have a certain impact on their financing constraints.The behavior of companies insuring environmental liability insurance has a two-way effect on their financing constraints: The mechanism of positive mitigation is that the environmental liability insurance can transfer the liability for compensation caused by environmental pollution in the business process of the company,and enhance the company’s environmental governance capabilities by strengthening the external supervision of the company,it also reduces the degree of information asymmetry between the company and investment institutions.At the same time,insuring environmental liability insurance also conveys to the outside the message that companies value environmental protection,establishes a good corporate image of caring for the environment,strengthens the confidence of investment institutions in the company,and makes it easier for companies to obtain external financing,thereby realizing the positive effect of alleviating financing constraints;The mechanism of negative aggravation is that enterprises transfer environmental pollution compensation responsibilities by insuring environmental liability insurance.For the short-term economic benefits of the company,the management will be more inclined to polluting investment projects,and aggravate the principal-agent problem,which will eventually increase the degree of financing constraints of the company.Under the current background of vigorously advocating green development and green finance,exploring the impact of environmental liability insurance on micro-enterprises’ financing constraints has considerable theoretical value and practical significance.Therefore,this article attempts to discuss the impact of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints and how it can promote the development of China’s environmental liability insurance better and faster through the analysis of the status quo of the development of environmental liability insurance in China,the reference to the international development experience of environmental liability insurance,the analysis of the mechanism of environmental liability insurance affecting corporate financing constraints,and the empirical research based on the data of listed companies in China’s heavy polluting industries.The research methods of this article include theoretical analysis methods,comparative analysis methods and empirical research methods.The research ideas of this article are: firstly,explain the connotation and concept of environmental pollution liability insurance and corporate financing constraints,and define the concept of heavy pollution industry.Secondly,it summarizes the development history,current situation and existing problems of China’s environmental liability insurance,and analyzes three different implementation methods of environmental liability insurance in the United States,Germany and France,and proposes the enlightenment and reference for China from the development experience of international environmental liability insurance,lays the foundation for the following recommendations;Then,based on the relevant theoretical basis in the previous article,analyze the mechanism of environmental liability insurance affecting corporate financing constraints,clarify the internal mechanism of the two-way governance effect of environmental liability insurance.Further,this article also explores the mediation effect of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints,and proposes corresponding research hypotheses;then conducts an empirical analysis based on the data of listed companies in heavy pollution industries,mainly conducting basic regression analysis,robustness test,mediation effect test and further analysis by group.Finally,this article summarizes the research conclusions,and puts forward relevant suggestions for legislatures,government departments,insurance companies,insurance companies,and enterprises in heavy pollution industries,and makes research prospects.The key issues that this article intends to solve are: whether companies can alleviate their financing constraints by insuring environmental pollution liability insurance,and how can they better promote the development and improvement of China’s environmental liability insurance system.This article is divided into five chapters,and the specific research content is as follows:Chapter one,introduction.This chapter explains the background and significance of the topic,and then combs the related research results of environmental pollution liability insurance and corporate financing constraints,and finds that there is a lack of relevant research on exploring the economic consequences and micro-impacts of environmental liability insurance.Therefore,the study of the impact of environmental pollution liability insurance on corporate financing constraints based on the data of listed companies in heavily polluting industries has important exploratory significance.Chapter two,related concepts and theoretical basis.This chapter summarizes the connotation of environmental pollution liability insurance and corporate financing constraints,explains the concept,function and characteristics of environmental liability insurance that are different from general liability insurance,as well as the concept and cause of corporate financing constraints.Then it defines the connotation of heavy pollution industries,and combs the theories related to environmental pollution liability insurance and corporate financing constraints.The content of this chapter lays the relevant theoretical foundation for the subsequent mechanism analysis and empirical analysis.Chapter three,the development of environmental liability insurance and its mechanism analysis on corporate financing constraints.The first section is the development status of China’s environmental liability insurance and international experience for reference.Firstly,it sorts out the development history,status quo and existing problems of my country’s environmental liability insurance.Generally speaking,the development of China’s environmental liability insurance was stagnant,and it has only improved in recent years,but the willingness of enterprises to apply for insurance is still not strong,and the number of insured companies and the amount of premiums are not high.Then it analyzes the environmental liability insurance system of the United States,Germany,and France based on the implementation method,and finally draws the enlightenment and reference for China from the international environmental liability insurance development experience.The second section is the mechanism and research hypothesis of environmental liability insurance affecting corporate financing constraints.The second section combines the related theories of environmental liability insurance and corporate financing constraints in the previous article,explains the positive impact of environmental liability insurance on alleviating corporate financing constraints based on the information asymmetry theory and signal transmission theory,and explains the negative impact based on the principal-agent theory.It also analyzes the mechanism of the mediation effect of the improvement of corporate environmental behavior and the quality of environmental information disclosure on the environmental liability insurance’s influence on corporate financing constraints,and at the same time puts forward the corresponding research hypothesis,and opens the following empirical analysis.Chapter four,empirical analysis of the impact of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints: based on the data of listed companies in heavily polluting industries.This chapter uses listed companies in the heavy pollution industry that have insured environmental liability insurance from 2014 to2015 as a research sample,and uses empirical methods to examine the impact of heavy pollution companies’ environmental pollution liability insurance on their financing constraints.The research results have passed the robustness test and support the hypothesis that insuring environmental pollution liability insurance can alleviate corporate financing constraints.Then,through the stepwise return to the three-step method and the Sobel method,it is verified that the improvement of corporate environmental behavior and the quality of environmental information disclosure play a part of the intermediary role between the environmental liability insurance and corporate financing constraints.And through further research by group,it is found that the mitigation effect of enterprises’ environmental pollution liability insurance on their financing constraints is more significant in the state-owned enterprise group,the group that has not obtained the ISO14001 environmental management system certification,and the group with a high degree of marketization.Chapter five,research conclusions,related suggestions and prospects.This chapter summarizes the research conclusions of this article.Through the research of this article,it is found that companies purchasing environmental pollution liability insurance can reduce their financing constraints,and the improvement of corporate environmental behavior and the quality of environmental information disclosure play an intermediary role in this mitigation mechanism.Based on the research conclusions of this article,this chapter puts forward relevant suggestions for the legislature,government departments,insurance companies,insurance industry and enterprises in the heavy pollution industry,and conducts research prospects.The innovations of this article are as follows: First,the innovation of research perspective.This article attempts to explore the impact of my country’s environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints and the optimization path of the environmental liability insurance system from the perspective of micro-enterprise research.At present,scholars mostly use standardized research methods to explore the optimization path of China’s environmental pollution liability insurance system from a macro perspective.Empirical explorations on the economic consequences,micro-impacts,and corporate governance effects of environmental liability insurance are relatively scarce.Research on the impact of corporate green behavior on corporate financing constraints is also scarce,and research on the impact of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints is even more scarce.Therefore,this article is innovative to study the impact of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints based on the data of listed companies in heavily polluting industries from the perspective of micro-enterprises.Second,this article attempts to use empirical methods to quantitatively investigate the impact of environmental liability insurance on corporate financing constraints,which not only provides empirical evidence for the corporate governance effects of environmental liability insurance,but also digs new footholds for the influencing factors of corporate financing constraints.The third is that this article attempts to explore and discuss the internal mechanism of the influence of the degree of financing constraints on the environmental pollution liability insurance insured by enterprises.By constructing an intermediary effect model,this paper verifies the existence of an intermediary mechanism in which companies buying environmental liability insurance will reduce the degree of financing constraints by promoting their environmental behavior and improving the quality of environmental information disclosure.This article enriches and deepens the relevant research on the relationship between corporate green behavior and corporate financing constraints.