ESG Performance,Debt Financing And Inefficient Investment Of Enterprises

The world today is in a major upheaval that has not been seen in a century.In the new era,the macro environment is complex,and the identity of enterprises has also undergone a new transformation: enterprises have shifted from pure commercial organizations to social organizations that actively fulfill social responsibilities.They are not only commercial institutions,but also must bear the responsibility for sustainable development.As the concept of social responsibility and the concept of sustainable development are widely spread in the world,the ESG concept proposed on this basis has also flourished in recent years.In addition to China’s "green credit","green finance" and "double carbon" policies,the influence of enterprises’ ESG performance on their production and operation,investment and financing decisions,and other aspects has become increasingly stronger.In the financial management process of enterprises,investment decision-making is a crucial part,which deeply affects the development of the enterprise.However,due to information asymmetry in the market,conflicts of interest between enterprise fund providers and decision-making management,as well as various external factors such as politics,law,technology,culture,and natural environment,the situation of inefficient investment by enterprises objectively exists.How to reduce the level of inefficient investment by enterprises has always been a topic of common concern for enterprises and academia.Based on this,this article takes the ESG performance of enterprises as the starting point,uses literature research and empirical research methods,and is based on stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory,principal-agent theory,and signal transmission theory.Using all A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2021 as samples,a bidirectional fixed effects model is constructed to empirically test the impact of ESG performance on inefficient investment of enterprises,Further study the mechanism of debt Financing between the two,and on the basis of group regression,explore the difference of the effect of ESG performance on inefficient investment in different property rights and industries.In addition,this paper also used instrumental variable regression,measure of replacing explanatory variables,and robustness test and endogenous test of the treatment of lagging explanatory variables by one period.This article draws three main conclusions: firstly,the better the ESG performance,the greater the inhibitory effect on the inefficient investment level of enterprises.Second,the scale of debt Financing and the cost of debt Financing play a part of intermediary role in the inhibition of ESG performance on enterprises’ inefficient investment.Thirdly,in private enterprises and heavily polluting industry enterprises,ESG performance has a more significant inhibitory effect on the level of inefficient investment.The possible contribution of this paper is to supplement the economic consequences of ESG performance,and to study the role path of ESG performance and inefficient investment of enterprises from the perspective of debt Financing.The main drawback of this article is that the measurement indicators for explanatory variables are not authoritative and mature enough,which is mainly due to the lack of localization and comprehensiveness of ESG rating data.In future research,further investigation can be conducted on other intermediary pathways through which ESG performance inhibits inefficient investment by enterprises,as well as the impact of different market development levels and policy effects.