税制绿色化与企业ESG表现——基于《环境保护税法》的准自然实验

《财经研究》 2022年48卷第9期 页码：47 - 62  online：2022年9月3日

税制绿色化与企业ESG表现——基于《环境保护税法》的准自然实验

Greening of Tax System and Corporate ESG Performance: A Quasi-natural Experiment Based on the Environmental Protection Tax Law

作者（中）：王禹1 , 王浩宇1 , 薛爽1,2

作者（英）：Wang Yu1, Wang Haoyu1, Xue Shuang1,2

作者单位：1. 上海财经大学 会计学院，上海 200433;2. 上海财经大学 会计与财务研究院，上海 200433

摘要：中央政府提出的可持续发展理念能否切实有效促进企业绿色低碳发展，在很大程度上取决于相关政策制定与执行的效率。文章以《中华人民共和国环境保护税法》（下文简称《环境保护税法》）的出台为准自然实验，考察了税制绿色化对重污染企业ESG表现的影响。研究发现，《环境保护税法》出台后，重污染企业的ESG表现显著提升，表明税制绿色化有助于提高重污染企业的可持续发展能力；当企业市场价值较低、财务风险较高、资本市场关注较多以及地方财政收入较少时，税制绿色化对重污染企业ESG的提升作用更强。机制分析表明，税制绿色化对重污染企业ESG表现的影响主要是通过激励企业增加环保投入和提升绿色创新水平实现的。这表明税制绿色化有助于企业从前端和源头进行环境污染治理。此外，税制绿色化具有溢出效应，能够提升企业社会责任履行程度，完善公司绿色治理体系。文章研究表明税制绿色化改革取得了积极的成效，对于促进企业绿色低碳发展和国家经济高质量发展具有重要的实践意义。

关键词：《环境保护税法》; ESG; 可持续发展 ;环保投入 ;绿色专利

Summary: In recent years, the issue of environment, social responsibility and governance (ESG, hereafter) and the green transition of enterprises have been the hottest topics around the world. The Report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that Chinese economy had shifted from the stage of high-speed growth to the stage of high-quality development. Nowadays, it is critical for Chinese economy to transform to the new development mode, optimize the economic structure, and find the new economic growth driver. Thus, adhering to the concept of ecological civilization and improving the ESG performance of various economic entities are of vital importance to the sustainable development of Chinese economy. Economy, society and environment are not only the three pillars of sustainable development, but also the methods and paths to achieve sustainable development. Taking the implementation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the impact of the greening of tax system on the ESG performance of heavy pollution enterprises (HPEs, hereafter). It is found that: (1) After the promulgation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law, the ESG performance of HPEs has been significantly improved. That is, the greening of tax system has improved the ESG performance of HPEs. (2) For enterprises with lower Tobin’s Q, higher financial leverage, more attention from analysts, and higher shareholding ratio of institutional investors, or located in regions with lower fiscal revenue or higher proportion of secondary industry, the impact of the greening of tax system on ESG performance is pronounced. (3) The impact of the greening of tax system on ESG performance is achieved by encouraging HPEs to increase investment in environmental protection and improve the level of green innovation. (4) The greening of tax system has a spillover effect, which significantly improves the performance of corporate social responsibility and promotes the construction of corporate green governance system. The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, from the perspective of sustainable development, it discusses the policy effect of the Environmental Protection Tax Law for the first time. The results show that the greening of tax system can encourage enterprises to carry out environmental governance from the front end and source, and there is a spillover effect. Second, it enriches the relevant literature on the influencing factors of ESG. Third, it analyzes and verifies the impact mechanism and action mechanism of the Environmental Protection Tax Law on the ESG performance of HPEs, which provides us with micro-level empirical evidence to understand how environmental regulation plays a role in sustainable development.

Key words: the Environmental Protection Tax Law; ESG; sustainable development; environmental investment; green patents    

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20220621.101

收稿日期：2022-02-26

基金项目：国家自然科学基金项目（72172076，71872107）；财政部会计名家培养工程；教育部人文社科重点研究基地重大项目；高等学校学科创新引智计划（B18033）；上海财经大学研究生创新基金资助项目（CXJJ-2021-301）

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