Study On The Correlation Between Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure Quality And The Cost Of Bank Loans

In recent years,with the frequent occurrence of environmental pollution incidents and the rise of the concept of sustainable development,the environmental performance of enterprises has attracted widespread attention from stakeholders such as government departments,the public and creditors.The "green credit" policy even issued in 2007 linked the environmental performance of enterprises with their own economic interests,requiring banks and other financial institutions to take into account the environmental protection status of enterprises when approving loans.The environmental information of enterprise's self-disclosure has increasingly become an important factor influencing bank credit decisions.In this context,it is of great significance to study the correlation between corporate environmental information disclosure quality and the cost of bank loans.Based on the existing research achievement,information asymmetry theory,voluntary disclosure theory,signal transmission theory and stakeholder theory,this paper analyzes the mechanism of the disclosure of environmental information on the cost of bank loans consdering the background of relevant institutional and the status of capital market development in China.Then,taking the listed companies in the A-share heavy pollution industry in Shanghai stock exchange as the research object,we collected and compiled the environmental information disclosured by sample companies from 2013 to 2017 and the bank credit data during 2014 to2018,and empirically tested the impact of the quality of environmental information disclosured by enterprises on the cost of bank loans by constructing the regressionmodel.Considering that the marketization level of the region where the enterprise is located and the nature of property rights determine the allocation of credit resources and the degree of importance banks attach to their environmental performance to a large extent,this paper further explored the impact of marketization level and the owner'equity on the relationship between the environmental information disclosured by enterprises and the cost of bank loans.The empirical results demonstrate that:(1)There is a significant negative correlation between the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure and the cost of bank loans,in other words,the enterprise can effectively reduce the cost of bank loans by increasing the quality of its environmental information disclosure.(2)In highly market-oriented areas,the negative correlation between the cost of bank loans and the quality of environmental information disclosured by the enterprise in the heavy pollution industry is more significant.(3)Compared with state-owned enterprises,the disclosure of environmental information by non-state-owned enterprises has a more stable and significant effect on reducing the cost of bank loans.Finally,based on relevant analysis and empirical test results,this paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations for improving the environmental information disclosure system of listed companies in China,promoting the development of the “green credit” policy,and improving the environmental awareness and the quality of environmental information disclosure of enterprises,which has a certain enlightening significance.