Environmental regulation and financial performance of Chinese listed companies.

• Main Authors: Bing Zhou, Jing Wu, Sidai Guo, Mingxia Hu, Jing Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244083

<h4>Objective</h4>The answer to this article lies in: Does the financial activities of physical enterprises have an adverse impact on their main business? Is it conducive to the sustainable development of the national economy? However, when most scholars study the impact of environmental regulations on companies performance, they have not classified companies performance. This article will study the relationship between environmental regulations and performance levels based on the classification of companies performance, and then divide the nature of industry pollution, companies location and nature of property for in-depth research.<h4>Methods</h4>First, this article uses a random effect variable-intercept model to measure companies financial performance and non-financial performance. Then, the variables are divided into two variable groups: light pollution and heavy pollution according to the nature of industry pollution. Next, the companies are divided into three variable groups: the eastern region, the central region, and the western region. Finally, the company is divided into two variable groups: state-owned and non-state-owned according to the nature of property.<h4>Conclusions</h4>The study found that: (1) Environmental regulations have inhibited companies financial activities. And the inhibitory effect of environmental regulations on the financial performance of enterprises is more obvious in the heavily polluting industries and enterprises in central and eastern regions. (2) Environmental regulations and companies non-financial performance are also negatively related, environmental regulations have also inhibited the non-financial performance of companies, this effect is more pronounced in heavily polluting industries and enterprises in western regions. (3) Income crowding effect brought by China's environmental regulations is greater than the income compensation effect brought by stimulating technological innovation.