Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Corporate Environmental Investment

Since the 18 th CPC national congress,the construction of the ecological environment has received unprecedented attention,and the central environmental supervision from the top to the bottom can be called "the strictest in history".However,for a long time,China's extensive development mode has caused serious environmental pollution.Due to the long-standing environmental problems in China,although the country has taken strong measures to control pollution,there is still a long way to go in the treatment of environmental problems.As an important part of environmental protection,environmental protection investment plays an important role in the construction of ecological civilization,which effectively promotes the high-quality development of China's economy and the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure.According to the basic principles of the environmental protection law of " Who pollutes who governs,who develops who protects ",enterprises,as the main body of polluting the environment and developing resources,should bear the responsibility of environmental governance.The negative externalities of environmental pollution and the attributes of public goods of environmental resources make the main purpose of environmental protection investment is to promote the sustainable development of social economy,rather than pursue economic benefits,and will occupy the limited resources of enterprises.Therefore,in the absence of external incentives,it is difficult for enterprises to actively invest in environmental protection.Today,with the increasingly strict environmental regulation,China has introduced a series of environmental regulation tools,and the environmental illegal cost and environmental liability risk of enterprises are constantly increasing.So how do different types of environmental regulation tools affect corporate environmental Investment? What role does accounting conservatism play in it? The answers to the above questions will help us to better understand the mechanism of environmental regulation on corporate environmental Investment,clarify the effectiveness of different types of environmental regulation tools and the current status of China's environmental regulation,and provide empirical evidence and new thinking for improving the effectiveness of China's environmental protection work and promoting the development of environmental protection industry.In this paper,environmental regulation tools are divided into three types: administrative order type,market incentive type and public participation type.Based on the empirical data of A-share listed companies in heavy pollution industry from 2013 to 2017,this paper empirically test the impact of different types of environmental regulation tools on corporate environmental investment,and also examine the moderating effect of accounting conservatism in the impact of environmental regulation on corporate environmental investment.The results show that:(1)There is a U-shaped relationship between administrative order environmental regulation and corporate environmental investment,and the intensity of administrative order environmental regulation is at a low level in most regions of China.For state-owned enterprises,the threshold effect of administrative order environmental regulation on corporate environmental investment still exists.(2)There is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between market incentive environmental regulation and corporate environmental investment.At present,China's market incentive environmental regulation intensity is in the rising stage of the inverted U-shaped curve.After grouping by the industrial structure,the inverted "U" effect of market incentive environmental regulation on the corporate environmental investment only exists in the regional enterprises dominated by the tertiary industry.(3)Public participation environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on corporate environmental investment.Compared with state-owned enterprises,the impact of environmental investment scale of non-state-owned enterprises on public participation environmental regulation is more sensitive.For the regional enterprises dominated by the tertiary industry,the higher the intensity of public participation environmental regulation,the more corporate environmental investment will invest.(4)The role of accounting conservatism in moderating the relationship between environmental regulation and corporate environmental investment varies with regulatory tools.For the administrative order and public participation environmental regulation,the moderating effect of accounting conservatism is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises.For the regional enterprises dominated by the tertiary industry,the higher the accounting conservatism,the steeper the U-shaped curve of the impact of administrative order environmental regulation on corporate environmental investment,the stronger the role of public participation environmental regulation in promoting corporate environmental investment.(5)In the whole sample,the sample of non-state-owned enterprises and the sample of regional enterprises dominated by the tertiary industry,the administrative order environmental regulation has a significant weak intermediary effect between the public participation environmental regulation and corporate environmental investment.